KMOO Rollout Has Been Success!

FOLLOWING THE SUCCESS OF THE INITIAL KMOO ROLLOUTS INTERNATIONALLY, BUT PARTICULARLY HERE IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES, FURTHER KMOO PROGRAMMES ARE BEING DRAFTED FOR THE FIELDS OF INSURANCE ,BANKING,MORTGAGE LENDING , ARMY RECRUITMENT,EDUCATION ,RELIGION AND POLITICAL REFORM.

This week leaders from both the United Nations and the European Community were celebrating the success of the initial rollouts of the KMOO programme in marriage, childcare, finance and religion. Although KMOO is virtually unknown in its abbreviated form in the wider world, leaders have been designing and shaping programmes for decades according to a worldwide KMOO philosophy.

KMOO is simply an abbreviation of Keep My Options Open.It is a philosophy that has been found to be entirely in keeping with the modern understanding of our evolution as human beings. It takes its basis from the survival of the fittest and is completely at odds with the older traditionalist and non-secular view of religion.

One of the most well-known applications of KMOO has been in the field of human relationships. Usually referred to as "living together", KMOO marriage has been found to be the most pragmatic answer to instructing large numbers of people in preparation for marriage and building family units.

In former times, the largely religious view was felt to be far too demanding , both in its frameworks which required more complex understandings of largely discarded philosophies such as fidelity, and love which considers the partner's wishes above his or her own. With population numbers and population densities increasing, the long and complicated explanations of such matters are now considered by most, as unwieldy and at worst as impractical in a world where the average attention span of most humans is 12 minutes 30 seconds.Possibly less straight after watching XFactor.

The greatest successes have been the changeover in education where KMOO has been applied. By encouraging sexual experimentation with numbers of partners by focussing more on the mechanics of contraception, the previous poor use of time management whereby elders and supervisers would try and prevent the young from too serious involvement with each other too soon in life, has now been discarded in favour of leaving them to get on with it, thus leaving the older generation more hours to go about their own concerns.

KMOO has its detractors however. Craig Little of Pro Family Management, a traditionalist social education hub in the UK, has brought up the issue of the UK having the largest teen pregnancy figures in Europe. KMOO enforcers , in reply have called for thicker, more durable condoms.

Craig Little recently also brought up the question of longterm psychological problems caused by partners breaking their relationships whenever small to medium problems emerged while co-habiting in KMOO marriages. The international KMOO thinktank have collected data on these matters, and while their psychologists have observed an increase in the levels of depression, often hidden under layers of displacement behaviour, with professional help most return to relative normality in 20- 30 years. This , they believe is a small price to pay rather than the high financial cost of providing some kind of secular alternative education to get over the complicated concepts formerly taught at no cost by churchmen in earlier centuries in their sermons.

KMOO behaviour, it is insisted has led to very "colourful and varied" existences as mixed parents and mixed siblings learn to appreciate and blend with their new extended families. This has also led, they point out, to the proliferation of Theme Parks and Macdonalds outlets, where the doting single parent can take his or her children on the one day per week they may see their offspring. Children largely learn to adapt to their new conditions and are well able to bury their hurts for the 20 or 30 years necessary to function as relatively normal, but medicated individuals in the modern workplace.

Kaye Volkhardt of the Traditional Marriage Bureau challenges the KMOO vision of relationships when she says"Partners who live together know only a kind of "present commitment". They have never known the joy of abandonment of any other agenda to a lifelong mutual commitment to another being. They miss out on knowing that their partner has made a firm bottomline decision to be with them and them alone."

KMOO specialists dismiss this as an ostrich view of life, which denies that the world has moved on into a fuller understanding of "survival of the fittest", and "getting on at the expense of the other".

KMOO Childcare

Perhaps the greatest success in KMOO development has been the implementation of laws in the field of Childcare. In later years this has indeed concerned greater provision of child care, but since the 1960's KMOO childcare has usually used the more abstract word "abortion". This involves the careful implementation of a parent's choice to benignly end a child's life. KMOO experts have found it far less emotive and effective to use medical vocabulary like foetus and termination.

This gives great freedom to the parent and greatly adds to a KMOO enjoyment of life.

Craig Little has long opposed abortion and asks healthcare providers if anyone has considered the rights of the unborn child? He doubts whether the use of medical words has any effect for the unborn child, whose rights are diminished in the same way whether emotive terms such as killed or impersonal words such as foetus or termination are used. Either way, its life is stopped.

Again KMOO proponents see only a success story, since neither the parent nor the state have any ongoing costs to find, the parent can continue to be in full time work, supplying more tax payments to further develop KMOO political advances. It is a win-win situation that would be extremely expensive and troubling to reverse, and would in turn in no way conform to the tenets of "survival of the fittest" and Darwin.

In the last few years the KMOO philosophy of religion has been so succesfully implemented in schools, that its fundamental tenets are now being applied to high finance and politics. And nothing has been found to work better in both when moving from bull to bear markets, from highrolling investment to market crashes.

It enables both high bankers, industrial heads and politicians to keep their powerbase when ordinarily in the weaker models of centuries past, they would have lost their power, and most probably their lives.This is one of the great strengths in KMOO development; learning how to create a smokescreen of such brilliant intensity that everyone is afraid to identify such fundamental questions as responsibility which so threatened stability in historical settings. By removing this base and worthless principle and instituting the far more Darwinian "power for power's sake" , groups of individuals are better able to leverage exit strategies that are ultimately more appealing than simply "losing one's head" for the sake of any cause. So high bankers, industrial heads and political groups keep in power longer,while their power vehicle may change completely. This , it has been found by KMOO educators, has been a much more encouraging carrot for school leavers and university graduates who seek to learn from KMOO successes and follow on in their train.

What was it about rolling the KMOO philosophy of religious education into schools that acted as such a stimulus to these other areas? Leon Schmitten of EU council Affairs explains, " The old model of unity based on any solid foundation such as "truth" , say, was found to be unworkable in such a large field of opposing opinions. By creating a climate where everybody's tenets of faith are continually presented in unmanageable quantities , everybody's minds are so overworked that it better suits our framework of "Keeping All the Options Open" continually, so no one is embarrassed by ever having to nail his decision to one particular mast. This keeps every party happy that their side is being discussed openly and freely, without having to undergo the frictions that deciding for one route or one course was ultimately the correct way." Leon said this policy had been found to work in such a stupendous way in teaching RE in schools.

Charles Gridlock of CTS (Christianity Today in Schools) disagrees. "Presenting Christianity as in any way equal to other religions is false for these reasons, whether a person wishes to ultimately follow its tenets.

Firstly no other religion has laid itself bare when it comes to prophesying the end from the beginning. From declaring x hundred details about what the Messiah would be like, down to how things will wind up on Earth. No other religion has been that stupid, or accurate, depending on your belief.

Secondly no other religion has been stupid enough to declare "another agent" other than man himself for his salvation. All other religions construct their own hoops through which a man may leap. And many versions of Christianity have stooped back down to this model rather than accept their own core original beliefs".

KMOO maintain that while these things may be so, their method has galvanised a lot more disparate groupings together into one manoeverable mass, than has ever been acheived by getting people to believe a certain way.

Charles counters with another problem as he sees it. "The Bible maintains that its method, which it self-titles as folly, is to be disseminated through what it calls "the folly of preaching". By removing access to this, disallowing it in another words, Christianity has declined in schools to the level of one of many historical teachings that fly in the face of the popularly-assumed superior Darwinian model of understanding."

"And the problem is..?" ask KMOO representatives Richard Dawkins,Brian Eno and Philip Pullman.

"The problem is no schoolboy or girl in this day and age is once encountering Christianity properly during the whole of their school life."replies Gridlock"They only hear vague and disputable ideas about Christianity third hand."

"Exactly" , say KMOO. "This removes choice, and this is what we ultimately stand for. Our ideas which stand for the "survival of the fittest" have indeed been shown to be the only ones fit for survival."

On the back of 40-50 years of stupendous success, KMOO are now proposing rolling out new forms of KMOO contracts in areas such as banking, mortgage-lending and army recruitment.

The Head of KMOO policy in the UK , Mr.Lionel Greyshade, explains.

"The old forms of commitment such as marriage have been shown to be too unworkable, so we will be initially rolling out "Present Day" commitment forms in fields like house buying. The lender will pick a house and simply say "I'd like to live in it until such time as it doesn't suit me any longer and then move on instantly to another dwelling. "The loan institution will take back the lion's share of the property that the borrower has spent several years paying for, in the manner of a divorce or partnership breakdown, and the house buyer will then move off virtually penniless to another property."

"Isn't that virtually the same as property rental?" we asked.

"Similar, but its got a better KMOO title...Present Day commitment mortgages. Sounds current and more up to date."

Army Generals, faced with recruitment problems are now considering KMOO as their only hope. Present Day Army contracts are being developed this year which fully tally with KMOO objectives.

"I promise to join the army and serve it as long as it suits me.Should I feel at a later date that it is asking too much from me, namely my life, I will move on to another job or unemployment."

KMOO were finally asked whether they thought that in the long term their tenets of faith were largely unworkable? What matters in life, is what matters now, was the reply.

author's rights reserved:Chris Welch May 2009

(In true Iggy style, can I just state that this has been a spoof. I do not hold to this belief system nor recommend it. )

Life in Three Dimensions

I'm excited about this because I really believe it is another parable clue to explaining what I am on about. I really think this could be from the Lord Himself...because He always was brilliant at parables.

Parables I realised recently are God's way of flicking us over from left-brain "meter" or "law-based" thinking if you will, to a more comprehensive "picture" or "creative" way of thinking usually associated with the right brain.

I've covered this material briefly here. But again I want to say this. In the 90s when this right brain /leftbrain stuff came out it was such a release for us artist/musical/prophetic types that we made the mistake of relating the right-brain to our spirits. On this blog I have been careful not to do this.
Spirit is spirit. It is NOT material. Brain is brain. It IS material. It is the electrical mechanics behind our thinking. And mind....well...it's our soul, but like spirit you can never pinpoint it...though materialist thinkers (using materialist in its original philosophical meaning) think the electrical signals is all there is to us.

Electrical readings show us we use parts of our brain for different skills...sometimes on their own ,sometimes together. They also show that in a healthy person we have some sort of telephone exchange system between the two sides of our brain.

Dyslexia,dyspraxia (poor physical co-ordination) autism, synesthesia......all show up as different ways of processing.

I was listening to Frank Viola today who again referenced our Western tendency to Aristotelian thinking. Tony Fitzgerald used to call it "Greek thinking" as opposed to Biblical "Hebrew"thinking.

Proverbs is Hebrew thinking...where knowledge is one thing....but wisdom is quite another.
There's a proverb which illustrates the difference. It says somewhere "A proverb in the mouth of a fool is like a man who hasn't the use of his legs."

When we speak wisdom from our spirits IT HAS LEGS. ("That'll walk!!!") It comes out of our lives. Out of the core of our existence.

When an Anglican Bishop who is not even born again speaks the word "God", to a born again person it sounds like an empty sound; it often sounds like his mouth is full of a large potato when he mouths the word. It has no legs, so to cover the reality of the situation, his mouth seems to go into overdrive to make up for the deficiency.

So you can't say Left-brain bad, right-brain good....because you need both to function.

What you cannot do is live from your left-brain alone. And Proverbs 3:5 highlights way too much dependance on our reasoning powers and practically no "trusting" going on in our heart. This has some amazing repercussions. I have covered some already but in future posts I want to cover "how prophets think", I want to cover the mad way Brits and Americans do politics.... and the fundamental differences between how different character types
process information. Here's a nugget to get you going. I lived for a year in France and getting enrolled as a self-employed tuner in their system was something else!!!
I learned this truth: Bureacracy is inversely proportional to the amount of Truth manifest in a nation. You think France is bad...just go to Italy. What does that say about Catholicism???


So back to this post.
What is the Third Level?
It isn't what you think it is.
Traditional left-brain Greek mentality thinking imagines a series of 3 steps going higher and higher. So ofcourse this is offensive because if you claim to be "on the third-level" you are putting yourself above someone else.

Surprisingly and gob-smackingly it is none of this. In a moment I'll give the parable picture. But now I will give some examples.
Ursula describes in her School of Prophecy post being caught up to heaven. So there you are with the Director of all directors, the One who has knowledge of the end from the beginning. You must surely be in for some deep spiritual revelation to confound all others. This surely is a Third-level meeting. Well it confounds others all right. Jesus whirrs you round in His arms. Hugs you. Looks full in your face. Beams with love!!! That's the third-level. I'm so sorry to disappoint the theologians!

Now if this was a freak one-off occurrence you could put this down to Ursula not being quite up to the deep things of God ,so this was Jesus humouring her. But no....

When Roberts Liardon went as a young boy, he was pretty impressed, because Jesus played splash with him in the River of Life. You know deep stuff like that.

When Jesse Duplantis went he described a carbon copy of many of the things Ursula saw, but Jesus was really keen to show him the house he'd had built for him. Jesus had rigged him up with a quadrangle with a fountain, and loads of 17th century type furniture, because he knew Jesse loves that stuff. Jesse said, "I can see you Jesus. I can see the Father. Um...I thought there were three of You? Where's......."
Jesus just looked at him. Jesus grinned. Jesse felt a bit embarrassed. "Oh ofcourse, He is on Earth, preparing the Bride!!!! What a nana I am? How could anyone be so stupid?"

Back on Earth now in revival. And that's what the third level is....it's continuous revival. What do you find?
You find Evan Roberts face down on the podium around 1905 and 6. Only getting up to say something as directed. Quite often he said nothing. And he was the acknowledged leader of the meeting! This is third level!!!
Or you read of Mel Tari , 60 years later. Just going around with a load of friends, being led to do miracles. Without title.Without name. Just lifting up the Name of Jesus. Just loving Jesus with all your heart, soul and strength.Just enjoying the ride.
This is third level.

Third level is what John Stevens writes on his blog about thin places. The wall between the 3rd heaven and here on earth appears to be paper thin.

After Evan Roberts, the Pentecostal movement was born...then some pressed onward into Apostles and prophets, and the Apostolic movement was born. But really , it was like a retreat, back from 3rd level stuff into a more humanly comfortable 2nd level. They couldn't go back to the 1st level, because having tasted the heavenly gifts....well who would ever want to go back that far? But nevertheless....all the "man-directed" junk reappeared. The labels. ...the superintendents..... the heirarchies. And running meetings in the raw effusion of the order of Melchizedek... well the Presence of God wasn't enough anymore!

Here's another third-level truth.
On the way into the tabernacle there are no steps.
In Anglicanism there are steps. You start as a curate. You become a vicar. Then you become a Bishop. Your ermine gets thicker!!! Your penguin costumes get more and more elaborate. You'd better believe there are steps!!! Bishops and vicars have to then perform this mental juggling act between what is read out in the scriptures in a 2 yearly cycle or whatever....so everything that Jesus says about becoming a servant etc.....has to be mentally squared up with the way Anglicanism is run! No wonder some of them have breakdowns! One of my friends has recently de-vicared!!!
Because the tabernacle has no steps...they are forbidden..."lest they show the shame of man's weakness"....the 3rd level or Holy of Holies is on the same level as anything else in the Tabernacle!!!

Here's another 3rdlevellism!!!
Every single human on Earth was taken into the bosom of the Father at the Cross - in Jesus.
The problem is ignorance. People don't know that!!

Every single Christian was born again in the 3rd Level...the Holy of Holies....when Jesus ascended into the heavenlies right into the Holiest Place. This is made clear in Ephesians 1 and 2.

But the god of this world has blinded our eyes. Now some have escaped into level 1. They know Jesus has forgiven them their sins. Some have escaped into level 2 and now manifest the spiritual gifts, lead people to Jesus, and build networks of 2nd levellers. But Juan Carlos Ortiz prophesied that there would come a time when everybody would be born again in the third level, the Holy of Holies....here on earth. The New Covenant...when everyone would know the Lord from the least to the greatest.

And the foretaste of that was Florida last year!!! It wasn't just the Todd Bentley show. Nicholas and Pam were there. Peter Stott was there. Leaders from Southampton and Chichester were there. Basil De Souza came back so zapped...while he was preaching he looked at somebody in India and they were levitated to the ceiling in the glory, such was the Fire of God coming out from his eyes.
The doors of the 3rd level were ajar!!! It was the "Jesus in His worldwide Body" show as televised by God Channel!

But let me explain again what this blog is about.
Suppose the Father gives you a bike. And while enveloping you in His arms, you're sitting on the bike enjoying balancing. And each meeting He gets the bike out, and because He is there holding you very firmly, you are able to balance while the bike is stationary.

Well after several meetings would you not be saying to the Father..."I'm getting a bit frustrated, because you gave me this bike, and you are getting me on it every meeting...but when do I get to actually ride it myself and learn to balance on my own?"
"No. No son. This bike is only for Josh Mills meetings with the gold dust. It won't work out on the roads!!"

Well ofcourse that's silly. And that's the point of this blog. This blog is saying that 3rd level Christianity is precisely that. It's taking Christ in your form, as you...and living him out on the road. Learning to balance the bike yourself. And the glory of this Jesus life is that it works!!!
By faith. By His grace. Not of our own works. But it genuinely is Him living our life. And we activate it as we activate anything by stepping out on His Word. By believing in our heart and by confessing with our mouth. Like Dan who continually writes and says "Iam the righteousness of God in Christ!" Whew that's a powerful one!

But that's not the parable.

It's in answer to this question that has been buzzing in my mind for months."If this 3rd level thing has nothing to do with elitism...how on earth do I articulate that in left-brain words. How do I say I am exploring the 3rd level without it sounding really like I'm saying I am something special."
Well I believe this is one of those nuggets that Jesus has breathed Himself. It's like this.

Three dimensions.
Physicists say a single point is a singularity. Imagine an infinitely small dot having no height, no width and no breadth. Add one dimension. Width. So you can now go from point A to another point B on the horizon but only in one line. Better than being stationary isn't it? Are you superior because you are making for point B, though you haven't arrived? No. No more superior than a person simply getting on a train. It's just something you do.

But supposing the place you want to reach is way over to the left and nowhere near where the A to B train is going. Well you could always use a car. A car moves in 2 dimensions. You can turn left and right.
Are you more superior because you use a car? Well Jeremy Clarkson says you are. But in reality it is just another tool that gives us slightly greater flexibility. But we're not saying we've arrived.
We're on our way. But in 2 dimensions.
Supposing we want to mend the space station which keeps breaking down. We're going to have to move in 3 dimensions. A rocket or rocket plane.
Have we arrived? Are we superior? No it's just a tool which has more manoeverability to allow us to move in three dimensions. Up as well as across and straight ahead.
This dimension parable picture is brilliant for another reason. It shows how a person can be born again in the third level but still has to go through all the growth stages. Something I couldn't quite get my head round, though I knew from Florida last year was true. All we are saying is that a third level seed of three dimensional Divine Life has been placed into a believer's spirit. That seed is perfect. Can't be improved on. Contains everything within it that the believer will ever need...."the Fulness of the Godhead bodily dwells within My Lord...etc...and we are complete in Him." But the 3 dimensional seed still has to grow
OUT
IN THREE DIMENSIONS.
But at least it is 3 dimensional seed.... not one or 2 dimensional seed that we've been preaching for nearly 2000 years...and getting only one or two dimensional results!!!!........meanwhile, where was I?

Ah yes....So any talk of 3rd level as having arrived...well Paul just said...I press on to know the power of His resurrection that if at all possible I may attain to the resurrection of the dead...Phew...to even be thinking like that.
Mind you this was the man, who having been stoned,left for dead, was prayed for by the brethren, gets up, and without even a cup of tea says..."Right, next town then!!!" It always reminds me of the Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who loses all his limbs and fights on.

All third level is , is simply the revelation you need to get you out of that meeting room, away from those praise CDs, away from the prayer closet, away from 24/7 one hour prayer sessions

to a place where you start growing up into the Head
Fulltime
leaving meetings behind
but when you later go into them you turn them on their head
because you are a 3rdleveller
you live there.
You don't go to meetings so they can bless you.
You go to meetings so you can take them by the scruff of the neck and head them off in a 3rdlevel direction, before anyone knows what you are doing!
3rd level subversion...like Jesus walking to the front of a meeting reading Isaiah 61 then saying Today this is fulfilled amongst you.
Meanwhile a rabbi looks up, raises his thick eyebrows and says "Aherm! I don't remember that last sentence. Come again?What was that?"

Part of third level life is winding people up. I love the fact that by calling this blog "On to the 3rd Level"...tons of people stuck in their left-brains are thinking of Greek step mentality and that I am setting myself up as a super saint who has achieved step 3...and therefore hate this blog...

when really Ephesians says all of us have been caught up into the heavenlies and we operate now from there. 1st and 2nd levellers read these chapters out because they have to......but 3rd levellers are the only ones who dare to say
because this is TRUE we run our meetings this way. Today this is fulfilled before your very eyes!!!
Another 3rd levellism is that our God is not
The God of Abraham and Isaac.
For years we have effectively preached that.
Our God is
The God of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob.
This is the generation of Jacob...those who seek the face of the God of Jacob..Ps24
AND LIVE!

Propitiation: Strawberry Ice-cream

Propitiation: Strawberry Ice-cream

There are some posts like the one on the blog above you just have to taste for yourself.
This is an Isaiah 55 type of post...taste and see the Lord is good.
If I had to say about the theme of the conference here in Havant I



would say that's what it was......

God just wanted us, including many powerful UK and other ministries
to sit down and shutup...and let Him love us, leading us "experientially"
through those verses,
unpacking us,
then just speaking the words
"crowned with glory over us".
I think letting God do conferences is more fun.

For me it was an eye-opener about letting sequences of verses come alive in conferences.

Big Church Day Out - the Pics

Here are the pics. I've just arrived home. Features include YFriday,Graham Kendrick,Israel Houghton and his band,Michael W Smith,Delirious (Tim Jupp the keyboard player thought up the whole event) Steve Chalke,Prayer 24/7 with Pete Greig....14000 of us and numerous side events like the Kings Orchestra,Louise Fellingham,Cathy Burton, some youth rappers from Miraclestreet.com, and touch rugby, a fun run with Sally Gunnell, food and fairground, and the free run of the grounds of Wiston House.

Some of us adults went with the youth from the church. It was extraordinarily well-managed

from the traffic direction down to loos and food facilities.

There were funfair elements for the kids, bouncy castles,jousting...a rapper stage...purpose erected marquees for the different age groups

Wiston House, although privately owned by a family for hundreds of years, (the owners became switched on by an Alpha course)....it is in fact leased out to the Home Office for conferences. The grounds are so vast that all the activities were actually quite sparsely scattered and there was never a feeling of being too crowded out!
Near the house was a large tea tent manned by Open Doors, and serving Kingdom Coffee. Some of the members of Kings Orchestra were playing in a very English civilised fashion, while others were painting live.





A christian sports outreach were teaching the fine arts of touch rugby.
Sally Gunnell was leading a friendly 1.5 kilometer run. (sadly no pics)
Riding Lights have a younger trimmed down version which goes into schools with dramatized Bible stories and relevant contemporary themes.The picture down below is a rear view of the actors and audience in the gardens.



Cathy Burton is a local talent who sings quality toons!
The former mover and shaker behind Greenbelt Festival became the Mayor of Worthing this weekend.Instead of supporting him in prayer in the ordinary way, they gave him a crowd surf!




Prayer 24/7 highlighted some amazing projects of believers just stepping out in faith and prayer and seeing things form around them in very needy situations.
A quick tour of the large stall tent revealed a great new version of the New Testament by Colin Urquart called The Truth. It is not a paraphrase like the Message, but it is an attempt to drive home the meaning of the original greek so as to leave no ambiguity. Well worth getting! Derived from 4 Greek translations, it was the last thing Colin expected to be called to do.
As the night drew in first Michael W Smith sang a mix of many of his most beautiful and well-known praise and worship songs...like "Hallelujah,the Lord God Almighty reigns. he felt God was telling him to share about his encounter with the Father while shaving around 20 years ago...and how the whole structure of his life changed. many of his songs now are just singing to Papa! He was encouraging us about the rise in expectation for revival in this land.

Jose is one of the main drummers here. We both hail from the network of Argentinian churches called rios de Vida...which included Emsworth.
Helen Rubio and her dynasy of a family are from the same background. Jose is married to her sister Elizabeth.

We were both enjoying all the excellent music...and spirit behind the music. We both loved Israel Houghton who we'd not seen before.



For techies, some would say nerds, but I am far too polite- pics taken on Samsung D 900 mobile.

IF YOU HAVE A BLOG WITH PICS OF THIS EVENT PLEASE CONTACT ME.
BLOG RING SO FAR:http://straight2heaven.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/big-church-day-out/

A Syn and Melchizedek summary.Part VIII

I have now made this From the Mystery of Sin to the Mystery of Syn Part VIII

The two recent series dovetail into one another and I wanted to hammer home a few of my findings over the years.

The word Pathology means the branch of medical science that studies the causes and nature and effects of diseases .

Living a more or less continuous stretch of my life in Christian community, brought me face up to the window with my own spiritual pathology and that of a community's. I wanted to find an answer. I had to find an answer. I believed from the Word that there was an answer. But I was aware that we hadn't found it. Not in our daily living.

One of the best early keys came from a leadership couple called Stan and Averil Warren. They seemed streets ahead in this living business which is why they were chosen to lead the Bible House.

Stan taught from Amos "Seek Me and Live". In other words any failure, or any attempt at moving on into our vision of what we wanted from life was going to come out of our Seeking God.
And I would have to say that most of us found a lot from God in this way. Firsthand. On our insides. And not by rote-learning off other people teaching techniques.In fact when I got the breakthrough I was looking for,this was eventually how it came. I only subsequently learned through Norman Grubb and his Zerubbabel group about "what had happened" and was able to verbalise it in the 1989 tape "Third level Christianity".

Averil used to say something interesting. Whenever we made errors in the house, or bondages in our life were being exposed....she wasn't primarily interested with just getting those issues right.
She would say simply "We need to pray God into that area of your life. You just need more of God."

Subsequently I have found out more about the detail of why these two details are absolutely correct. So rather than learning completely new stuff and starting some new weird sect or something, I'd describe it in the words of Ed Miller as just "turning the light switch on" in a room I already knew.

Sheila Atchley had an alternative image for my one about "the suspended orb of God's Word". She used the picture of a curtain rod. You've got the flowing and beautiful line of a curtain, but only because it is tensioned correctly overhead with a curtain rod.

In February I was restringing a Bechstein piano in Kegworth and only had one week to do all the strings, all the hammers ,all the dampers and then regulate the thing so that the new parts worked properly....oh and tune the thing to stability a gazillion times!!! And I facebooked people saying how tough it was "re-stringing when the tuning pins had not arrived". Because Bechsteins
have these little fixing holes in things called "agraffes", I was able to cut some of the strings to length at least, and have them sitting there loosely in position.But they do tend to flop around and obstruct each other.

So what's the punchline? Yup. The strings need to be tensioned by the presence of tuning pins at the other end. Maybe they are not up to full tension yet. For that you have to have restrung the whole piano! The whole piano shares the downstrain evenly so that one portion is not overtensioned. A fully tuned midsize Bechstein has a collective tension of 25 tons! (that by the way is another prophetic Church image)

But even putting strings on, there has to be this tension in order that strings do not foul each other.

How does that relate to us? Well, for grace teaching to really work on our insides and produce the Jesus life, we do need covenant. We do need law! But not this time as a tool for condemnation to show us our need for a Saviour. This time it is the leveraging tool that Christ uses to believe "Who we are" against.
Imagine a hippy called "Death" who a couple of us met in Amersham,round his house,witnessing to him.I was 15 or 16. The guy didn't believe in paying his way. Didn't believe in working. He had taken over a couple's house and was squatting in it. He only believed in medicating his feelings with hash. He didn't believe in marriage, only living with who he chose when he chose. If his partner had kids, then as long as it suited him he would sort of be some kind of parental figure.
Until the child crossed his will, and would be bundled out of his way.

What was going on here? He was one of the most extreme versions I have ever met of a guy who was stripping his life of every covenantal boundary. Milder versions are now everywhere you look.
People think freedom is not being shown up for being what you are. A lazy,good for nothing,non- producing,selfish ,twisted, non-relational island who demands the whole of external humanity meets him on his terms and only his terms...or stuff them all!
Death had tried to rid himself of all external measuring devices which would read back to him what an idiot he was.

We need covenantal measuring devices. They are good for our lives. This is one of the functions of the local Body of Christ. To be light to us. About ourselves.
But unless local believers know who they are in Christ, you get the opposite extreme occurring whereby far from being a House after the Order of Melchizedek who are helping you with the very real covenantal issues of life/family job etc. they are making up laws of "tithing mint and cummin". They are tethering your life to all sorts of false covenants that work to destroy your life and keep you from the very real covenantal responsibilities God has given you.

Which brings us to 2 important questions which at first seem unrelated.

Why is Body life not the same as socialism?
And is Pariotism a good or bad thing?

Here is the answer to both.
If each individual is living his or her life as Christ as me in my form...Body life is Syn Life...is collective divine life....you're living out a mystery together. And Patriotism is the healthy expression of corporate life on a national scale.

But conversely..
if each individual does not know he or she has died with Christ and his or her life is now hidden with Christ in God the Father.....
then put that bunch together and you get socialism. You might as well be atheists. You will be expressing the life of your father the devil just as ably as any Russia or China under communism.
And your collective Patriotism will be a "super" representation of your false ego image of being a god in your own right, either expressed in a Russian or Chinese form of demonstrating your atom bombs through your streets on a yearly basis, or in the more benign but even more deceived version of America, appointing itself as Big Brother nation to defend other causes,(but only when oil runs out, or its own interests are threatened) namely Iraq, but not Zimbabwe or North Korea for instance. This deceit was ofcourse highlighted 20 years ago in the album "Joshua Tree " by U2.

So to the Free Believer's network I would say the answer to bad church is not no church, it is rather church run in the order of Melchizedek.

Life In the Melchizedek Order V - Melchizedek Normality

Did you get the last post?
I've sort of been pondering it ever since. I know I wrote it....but since when does that mean anything? Many are the ministers who don't get what they preach! Ern Baxter used to say he was going to buy the tapes so he could listen to what he had said under the anointing.

Peter clearly never bought his tapes in Acts 2, because his first sermon was clear....this gospel is for everyone! Paul had to fill him in again later.

Listen ! I said the way electrons and all these infinitiscemal particles behave is a picture of the Melchizedek order! But they are not special, freaky once in a lifetime occurrences...they are what you and I call "the material world". When in fact there's hardly anything material there!

This is what I received in my spirit just now as I was rubbing down a piano.

I feel Jesus just said this:
"When I wrote through Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:26 What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.

This was not a suggestion. This was not a special one off incident.
This was how I run My Church. This is how you learn how to live My normal life which is in the Order of Melchizedek.

For years you have mocked the Anglican church for their liturgy. But you have a liturgy!
Every Hillsongs conference, every new Church, every Rob Rufus Conference has a worship team and liturgy. It is good to have skilled musicians. Anointed musicians.

But don't underestimate Me. I want My church back! Musicians are not some special priesthood class. I arranged for My Church to run on 1 Corinthians 12-14 and I gave very little other details, giving you tremendous freedom. What do You do? Forget the few details I give you, which would ensure you running the church in My order, and invent your own details and wonder why I am not there in Your midst as I should be?"

I now understand with great impact why the worship team here have been feeling so uneasy in the last few months as they have caught something of God's heart on the way meetings are to be run.

Life In the Melchizedek Order IV:Havant Church and electrons

This post was triggered by reading a sentence about Shakespeare in Bill Bryson's new book.Because of the scant information regarding his life"He(Shakespeare) is the literary equivalent of an electron-forever there and not there."

I was talking about this electron image to a piano client who was an electrical engineer. One of those involved with BBC transmittors at Crystal Palace in the early years.

I was saying that in time to come people would realise that spirit was the real substance, and that what we take to be real substance is really the flickering screen onto which spirit is scanned.

Jon Sidnell would be better on this. My parents pulled out of physics teaching early to avoid the new physics which was just coming in in the mid 80s. "Enough is enough"said Mum.

Basically, Schroedinger's Cat and stuff like that is about the mercurial nature of electrons. Electrons are sort of there one fraction of a second and gone the next. They behave like waves and particles...but not both....well not at the same time. Your turn Jon.........

The Melchizedek order is precisely like this.

In John 7, the brothers of Jesus said,"You coming up to the Feast(of Tabernacles) then Jesus?"

Behind that statement was a tinge. The family lore about Jesus being left behind and Mary and Joseph losing him, then Him driving them nuts by saying, "Wasn't I just in My Father's house."So they kind of knew He had this mercurial quality when it came to the fixed Jewish Festivals.

Jesus answered them "No". Then the Bible says He went up to the Feast but in secret.

He said to His brothers "Your time is always with you".

In sin life, we are rooted in this delusion of ourselves as "alone-I's" in the Universe. Gods in our own right. Choosing what we want to do. Making our own way. Doing the "best we can".

Our time is always with us. Ern Baxter describes this memorably as "All we like sheep have gone astray, turned everyone to OUR OWN WAY."He said this was the ultimate definition of sin.

Connect ourselves to God and we find we are in a very different time system. You can do more in 2 seconds under the power of the anointing than days, weeks or decades living in the flesh.As I've described before about the epilepsy incident in France, the Power of God gets behind the atoms to the spirit disorder causing it.

Yesterday on Radio 2 Roger Royle was expounding about his patron interest in epilepsy on his slot on Wogan. "Thank God",he said,"we don't believe the cause of epilepsy is evil spirits any more." Implication: those dumb ignorant gospel writers!

Well ofcourse the writers do not understand the mechanics of the brain. The truth is after nearly 100 years active research we only know a little more ourselves. We know that epilepsy is some sort of electrical storm between both hemispheres. But those who know what it is to accept Jesus into their hearts like this:

"Lord, I'm a sinner. If You are there ,save me.Come into my life and take over as Lord."

And those who know what it is to be baptised in the Spirit, by praying this prayer:"Lord I see in the scriptures that it says "For the joy set before you,You endured the cross." And this was because this gave You the legal right to baptise us/immerse us/fill us with the joy and power of Your Holy Spirit as soon as You had ascended to heaven, sharing Your holy anointing oil of Kingship with humans!" So please fill me now. And because it says if a son asks his earthly father for an egg will he give him a serpent? Implication:No. In the same way because I have asked You for the baptism in the Spirit/gift of the Spirit then I believe You are delighted to do so and have answered me. And I start praising You for it."

These are people who then understand the realities of verses like "We wrestle not against flesh and blood". And Rog, because they write that,it doesn't mean they are dumb. It means they see clearly behind every flickering electron, there is a greater spiritual reality that must be bound before anyone gets healed in any brain cells.....or any disorder anywhere for that matter.

Actually, considering the modern discoveries/theories of the quantum world of the inside of atoms and their wackiness....actually it is our modern world that is ignorant...because it still holds too great a store on what we think we can handle/touch and taste.It needs to catch up.

Anyone who has commanded a condition in the Name of Jesus and seen it instantly change, defying all natural explanation , is more likely to say "Thank God Jesus is alive today, doing what He always promised He'd do...and it is not Roger who is in charge of science or teaching in God's church."

So this post is about normal life. Normal life being crazier than we ever supposed. In other words, being chock full of substances that are supposedly there...electrons and subatomic particles...and they are there ...sometimes. But sometimes they are not. If we take a random collective estimate we can roughly tell the mass of electrons in a given volume at any one time. But quite where they will be...and where they will go. We don't know. And if we try measuring one...it just won't be there!!! Again I'm going to need help here...before I dig myself into a hole of ignorance.

So this post is talking about the Melchizedek order as being more reflective of normal life. We live and move by the Spirit of God. We cannot tell you where we will be at a given time...exactly.Our times and seasons are not in our hands. All we can tell you is that as God instructs, His house is being built...it is getting larger and more powerful by the day...and each day we are nearer fulfilling the verse "The knowledge of the glory of God shall cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea."

Every conference here in Havant has been getting looser. This Conference was probably the first that was most like a Key of David Conference. A Key of David meeting has no agenda.There is more description here. But God is the agenda. Peter Jackson was invited under the direction of God. And it was known the sort of ministry mandate he has in the Spirit. He has a schedule. He needs plane flights to and from Toronto. But when he would speak. No one knew. Everyone planned for the Friday sessions. But God said no. So it was Thursday night and Saturday morning. I think.

And because it was the right time ("when the time had fully come") when Peter spoke the Word it had a powerful powerful effect...still being felt now. So many lives were changed forever that morning.

On Friday in the worship I literally heard the sound of heavenly office furniture being dragged from one place to another. I sang "Hear the sound of the Body of Christ moving its headquarters to the rightful place...the Throne room!!!"

Because if you think about it...the Body of Christ has been trying to run the Head. Which is nuts.

And how can you tell who is running who? Because when Jesus runs stuff He has this habit of leaking the glory Presence wherever He walks. It's a sort of give-away, really....literally.

I think Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday afternoon were possibly the most incredible times we have ever had in that room, I mean in terms of worship and praise.

The Conference - 09- Crowned with His glory

Nutshell report to Lydia Joy and Shawna. (This discussion originated with a report on Shawna's husband Brian who has been preaching a series on grace).
I wrote:I guess I will be sharing stuff...how do you put the Presence of God into words?The main thing in a nutshell is this.The Body of Christ is moving out of one whole time period into another one.Obviously I am calling it the 3rd level. But I am adding to my revelation as fast as anyone else.

This area of knowing the Father is growing and growing.Beginning as a whisper, it is growing louder and louder as a message...now more like a roar!!Basically us humans ,we have been lied to for thousands of years as to how good the Father is....and how complete the provision of the Cross to completely....yes completely...remove the last shreds of shame from every fibre of our being. This has the most enormous ramifications on how we live life.How we worship. How we move in power to set others free. The fact is, if people are not excited right now, then the message has not penetrated yet.


In a previous post which I cannot find, I related sadly how one brother had left to join what he thought was a faster growing network. I wrote that at that time I could not share with him. He would just have to experience for himself how people go in the revolving door of 2nd leveldom, as people come in large number, but many others go straight out the other side. Mostly this is put down to people "not being up to the challenges of the gospel". But my take is that the reality of the revelation of Christ in Us as Us just isn't taught. And trying to do the Christian life yourself is a ticket to a breakdown!!!! (Peter Jackson said American stats show that 90% of those having breakdowns are religious.) Well. Now this brother is back. And he just totally gets it. I can now talk to him. He describes learning he has a relationship with the Father as being born again again. Not only can I speak to him quite freely - in the conference I was even able to share how beforehand whenever I was about to relate stuff , even before saying anything I could feel the words dribbling down my clothing onto the floor.
His whole bearing is different. He is not agressive. His spirit is lovely. He is so changed and in so little a time. What a great thing to report back having only wrote about him in an earlier blog. ie only a year ago.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Lydia Joy wrote:
You are fortunate to have a great church fellowship, not all of us have that you know!!!
I replied:
Seriously, our mandate is to plant and /or midwife them.Peter is already doing it in Paduka and Chicago.A whole bunch were so impressed at what God did in the last visit , (actually some from the Spanish contingent of Chicago New Life church,) they came over on the plane for this conference.

We are a weird church. Almost unknown, yet it is packed to the rafters with the most amazing
mothers/fathers to be...or now are...in God. We have one of the chief people of Lydia international women's prayer movement for example.
She's called Molly Osbourne.But you wouldn't know she was there. The thrust of the final session was about how ministries are totally changing to reflect this new pattern.
The mother/father aspect that I've been explaining in Third level view of ministryseries ....now already is appearing and increasingly will be. People like Rolland and Heidi Baker for instance.A lady called Chris , as well as Peter were explaining the "apparent delay" in our vision coming to pass. God Himself has held this vision in chains in heaven.Why? Because He has been preparing Father/mother ministries the world over. It's all on a totally different level to anything we have seen before.
They were explaining the total frustration our generation all feel. We don't fit in to past ministry patterns. There is nowhere for us. (I absolutely feel this. I wonder if George Warnock, pretty much a godfather to all of us,felt similarly.)For many this has led to bitterness. But if we can raise our vision, we can understand the timing of God. And what hastens the timing of God is to connect primarily with Him in intimacy. (As Heidi Baker shares.) Then we do precisely what He is instructing us to do. We nolonger hide behind ministry titles as in Tom the Sheriff. We are free to be simply Christ as us.

In preparation for this, for years and years Peter has (without any verbal reference to this pattern) been like Graham Pulkingham and taken teams of 1,2,8,10, with him on his ministry trips. He recognizes that the corporate anointing is stronger than his own anointing, but secondly that what God wants to birth is Body ministry in each locality....and not just the big fire-starter superstars of yesteryear. By taking this model from the outset, you make it clear from the word go how things operate. And ofcourse it was Jesus' pattern too!

The conference has only just finished and the reverberations of what actually took place are too early to begin to relay. Christine was profoundly,profoundly touched as were most in yesterday morning's sessions.

A Toronto leader , Peter Jackson's ministry can be described as your own personal "Shack" meeting with the Father. It is gruelling as it was in the book, but it leads to freedom.I was juggling looking after Ben with Christine and missed this particular session, but CDs of the whole thing are available.
The praise and worship was like this:
A sister church came alongside us to lead. Their style is the praise band style, but with an incredible anointing. Our young people loved them. But both teams operated in tandem - prophetically as God directed. Thursday made me want to write a poem called "The Church at the End of Time"...which I've not done yet. I was totally broken by the Spirit -force in the praise.Like a roar- like the one in 1975 Thy Kingdom Come tape of the Kansas City Shepherd's Conference. Except there were not 5000 of us , but only a hundred. So I can only think we had some assistance.
Friday night worship was like "the Body of Christ moving its headquarters to its rightful place - the Throne of God." All these are feeble attempts to explain the electricity of God's Presence.
The final worship session was like God crowning His people with His glory.

Although it was not verbalised, the whole conference ran in the order of the first 5 verses of Isaiah 55"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples.
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has crowned you with glory."

I saw Peter Stott at a final barbecue, and he was at one point just slumped on the chair, just drunk/ in tears at the beauty of what God is building here. He could hardly speak.

My Performance-Based Acceptance Story

It is staggering what we are crawling out from.
Here am I 37 years as a Christian and I'm about to go into a conference with Peter Stott and Peter Jackson...and I know...like peeling off onion layers...I'm probably going to "see" something more. Some other way that a realm of activity is founded not on grace...but on the inward feeling of incompleteness...so trying extra hard to make up for the deficiency.

Every single year more layers have been coming off.
I came to Christ one year after getting A grades in everything in school apart from woodwork....and yet realising all my effort and struggle achieved nothing really of any significance. I divebombed in depression. I left church. Then hearing Billy Graham in a couple of his films showed me yes an understanding of the mechanics of the gospel, which 12 years of churchgoing had denied me...but more than that...it was the Presence...the welcoming Presence of God that caught hold of me. I did not need to do anything. Jesus had done it!!


I was baptised in the Spirit 2 months later. But even after this I was still thinking along these lines:

I will perform classical guitar in the Dr Challoner's Grammar School Concert to the best of my ability to show that Christians are some good.

Guess what! My fingers failed. Awesomely. Nasty pauses in front of hundreds of people.
God!! You weren't there! And I was trying so hard for You. You have let Your Name down!!!
Do you know He loves us so much He's prepared to let His Name down?

That night I went to my friend's house. And I cried and I cried and I cried.
A prophet was there and so in the mess. In the brokenness. He prophesied in. I was rebuilt that night. I knew a Father that was totally unimpressed with my efforts. Because He loves me anyway. There is nothing to prove to Him. And like a Father that night it was like He covered Me in grace, in love,in acceptance. None of which was based on me.

And that night by the way...I died to performance musically. I have never suffered from nerves since. The truth is, that night my nerves were shredded into a pulp...I have none left...I am numb to looking stupid. People in the church here say I am bold. No I'm not bold. My anti-boldness mechanisms have been shredded. Ask John Stevens when I attempted to play at his 50th birthday...and it went equally wrong. But now it doesn't matter. God just laughs. And I just laugh too. Not that I wanted to upset John.

But those are just 2 stories. I could give yearly updates. The truth is the Fall has left us all so decimated, but it's all covered over with figleaf behaviour. And it's all so unnecessary, because the Father is not fooled.He just wants to love us free. It's good to be in a Body that is equipped to be just that- a vehicle for God's penetrating grace. And it's great that I have a person like Christine who loves me enough not to let me get away with anything. It's great to live naked with someone. I don't have to impress her. She loves me.

Actually, a defining moment for her, it turns out was me playing a classical guitar piece called Romance or Romanza... at a friend's 18th birthday party at the University of Exeter.(1977)This is one of the best I could find on You Tube.
This is all Joel's crazy idea,blame him

John Weller has died

Every life tells a story....almost whether people like it or not.

Through a Christian's eyes John represented the lavish grace and love shown towards his family, that the Father has towards us. The same absurd nuttiness of throwing everything in behind his family.

Amidst the F words.

Amidst the atheism.

Amidst his total lack of patience with people who only half live their lives.And he represented the other F word.....but totally without any religiosity....Faith.

Faith just to go for things. To risk and sometimes hit lucky.

And certainly with Paul,his son,the singer, he hit gold. But not every Dad is there to push and shove and make things happen .

You can hear his story here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k4l28

And you can read my brief involvement with them all here.

My love and respect goes out to the family.

From the Mystery of Sin to the Mystery of Syn VII-This is what Grace does.

The prophetic always shoots forward to the future like a direction arrow. But what about today?We're right in the middle of something beautiful as church members unravel the mysteries of what God has done for us.
I was putting Ben to bed this week and a brother phoned up right then. Christine was out preparing songs for the up and coming conference so I had to juggle. No time to do anything but respond in prayer. Wasn't particularly feeling great myself. But somehow Christ came through, he told Christine the next day.A pattern that usually happened did not. It was halted in the prayer.
OK we may not be at quite revival pitch here...but on the quiet- every day- God is building-seamlessly- networks of relationships- responses of faith. You turn round every so often and gaze at what God's building- and think wow this is not the work of a man. This is awesome. I believe loads of us are in situations like this. Perhaps it is all the more beautiful because there is no fanfare...no hype....it just IS. Christine had a lovely time yesterday in our church secondhand furniture shop. Both the furniture and the money from it go towards debt relief counselling, or providing direct help to needy situations. But the thing is Christine so enjoyed being with Kaye, because she is so precious. (Her husband Ian is the one I go to see man films with, if there is something that Christine does not want to see.)

What the devil does not tell us about when enticing us to sin, is what we miss out on by not being available for the "syn" life. The truth is Life,Christs's life in us, does not live "unto itself". It's meshed in with this glorious Bride that is being prepared, this Body that is being built.People that are being called to share in this life. Attracted to its light.
Here is Sheila on what is happening with their church led by her husband Tim.(Taken from her blog)
Friday, May 8, 2009

"I'll Show You My Faith By My Works"
"Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works." (James 2)I have proof that preaching grace doesn't produce passive Christianity. Two words: Harvest Church.Nope, neither Harvest's pastor, nor his wife worry that the message of "Sola Gracia" (the "Grace Alone", history-rending cry of Martin Luther) will cause people to be without evidence of their faith. The people of Harvest Church, though they are told Sunday in and Sunday out that they have no righteousness of their own, persist and insist on abounding in righteous works. Go figure!In my church, I cannot think of a single member who is not actively involved in the lives of others. I mean that. Not. One.Those are darn good statistics for "one of those grace churches."Every single day, the saints are caring for the sick, serving little children, repairing each other's automobiles, counseling the confused, pulling off whole weddings and funerals, cooking meals for others, paying bills for those out of work, giving gifts, babysitting each other's children, clothing the poor and homeless, and preaching the gospel without regard to reward or fear of man. The people of Harvest are ever about the business of life: playing their music, painting their paintings, producing their television broadcasts, practicing their medicine, dancing their dances, singing their songs....and yeah....answering e-mails with an enthusiasm that is sincere, and writing blog entries with grace infused passion. All of it "works of righteousness".People in whom there is no guile. That's my church, for the most part. They don't treat relationships like a game of chess - always analyzing the other person, attempting to stay "one move ahead". Their love is sincere. They won't try to impress you. They don't try to be righteous. They don't try to do righteous things. They've been taught better than that. They simply are righteous.Tim and I do not even conceive of a life that does not abound in what Eugene Peterson paraphrases, in James, "...a seamless unity of believing and doing." Um...to us, in our personal lives, the "doing" literally often goes without saying. Our finest doings happen when we are unconscious of them. And the members of Harvest out-do us all the time.We love to have it so. They are our letters of commendation - commending not us, but the gospel of Christ, and the message of grace.You see, Paul said it like this: "Not by works of righteousness which I have done, but according to His mercy He saved me." Righteous works? Paul says, "Been there. Done that. Still doing." And the big deal is....? The big deal is the mercy of God. What Paul accomplished, through grace, meant not near as much to Paul as the grace that enabled him. The works themselves really are not the big deal. They are the evidence of a reality far, far greater.Here is another thing Tim and I cannot conceive of: Not being Tim. Not being Sheila. Tim can't be Barack Obama or John Travolta. I can't work the works of Laura Bush or Angelina Jolie.So...when we say we are the righteousness of God in Christ, and that it is "not I, but Christ who lives in me"...we mean that the things we do, every day, become acts of righteousness. Tim and I have been made righteous. We can't be anything but righteous, just like John Travolta can't be anything but.....you know. John.My home, its atmosphere and hospitality, is an ongoing act of righteousness. I can't help it. I am righteous. The cookies I bake are an act of righteousness, because a righteous woman created them. Our old cars...the repairs Tim makes to them are acts of righteousness, done by a righteous man, for the good of his family. When he takes his boy canoeing, it is an act of righteousness.No one needs a mandate to just "be" who they are, in Christ.The grace of God sets us free to abound in all the good works we were created new creatures in Christ to do. That might mean organizing an entire wedding reception for someone else, or that might mean traveling to Cambodia.I can find you lots of people in my church who do either one or both, every chance they get, and all of it is as natural to them as breathing.They know who they are, in Christ. They can't help but act like who they are.Really! To them, it is no big deal.