The header image quotes John 4 and it says some powerful things.
- that there is such a thing as TRUE WORSHIP, implying that there is a false worship.
- It's stating a firm YEA and Amen statement of prophecy that THIS WILL COME ABOUT. It's firm. It's definite. There's no question about it. There's no arguing. We know what we currently see with our eyes.....but since when have our eyes told us the truth about what IS TO COME? Or as Jesus puts it often "What is now already....and Is TO COME."
- It's ALL ALL ALL about the Father, in the sense that Jesus wants a whole bunch of companion Brothers and Sisters with whom to worship and give consummate glory to His Father. see Hebrews Chapter 2 verse 11:
“I will proclaim Your name to My brethren,
In the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.”
In the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.”
- This will come about, but NOT BY MIGHT, NOR BY POWER,BUT BY MY SPIRIT says the Lord. Worship is in spirit. Because God is Spirit, Jesus says.
- GOD IS LOVE. GOD IS HOLY. All these things are communicated in Spirit. If we were not of the same substance and likeness of God we would feel awkward. We actually would not be able to bear it. Psalm 1:4 Not so the wicked: But -- as chaff that wind driveth away!......5 Therefore the wicked rise not in judgment, Nor sinners in the company /assembly/congregating of the righteous,
- And in truth .
Which is the main subject of this post.
Digging Out the Ears.Three words and phrases.
Rock.
Digging Out The Ears.
Truth.
We are to build our house upon the Rock. Anything else is to build upon sand, and the storms come, and what looked so good, comes tumbling and crashing down because it has no foundation.
Knowing the deep things of God awaits the work of the Spirit of God in the believer. Jesus did not play the game of modern religion—that of trying to fabricate a life and then present it to the Father as an offering.Who is the Life in Paul’s writing? We know Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” This coupled with Galatians 4:19, “until Christ be formed in you,” presents the idea of who the Life is and where he is. It is in Paul and it looks like Paul.In Colossians 1:27 Paul speaks of “Christ in you.” Dan Stone
Digging out the ears is both a longterm process,as well as meaning just a set point in time,on a certain day or in a certain gathering of God's people.
I associate the phrase with a couple of places in scripture and the time period God spoke through Stuart Wentworth and Ian McCulloch in Emsworth to introduce the concept.
Strong's Hebrew: 3738. כָּרָה (karah) -- dig
concordances.org/hebrew/3738.htmCached
[כוּר] verb meaning dubious, perhaps bore, or dig, or hew (DlProl. ... כ Psalm 40:7 ears hast thou dug (with allusion to the cavity of the ear) for me, thou hast given me the means of hearing and obeying thy will. ... KJV: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land ... NAS: which hENDe had cut out for himself in the city ...End quoteYou see, like many of the Bible characters, this was IN THE CONTEXT of God's people ,of worship,of a relationship with God.....so that's going to get your attention. How can I be this sinful?Where did that all come from in the midst of this wonderful Holy Spirit life? So effectively, your inner ear starts getting pinned back, and you nolonger take anything for granted. Because if not even God stuff is to be trusted, what's going on?
Well God stuff IS TO BE TRUSTED. But not the way we interface with it.
God stuff I continued to learn is not just Leftbrain learning. And it's not just charismatic feeling,or to put it more accurately not just surface feelings which rise and fall with the wind.
Whole philosophical movements swing pendulum style from generation to generation on whether to trust feelings or the insight. In themselves, the enemy can draw upon either and lead us astray. So we must learn a deeper way....and indeed this is HOW we begin to learn Spirit.
For God CAN be in feelings and He can be in thoughts, but the Bible says the mature know how to train their senses in righteousness.
The question we are asking ourselves really is WHAT IS GOD DOING?
To see with a single eye is to see what God is really about in a matter.There really is only One Life going on in the Universe. Everything else doesn't really flow. Is not really happening. There is no grace for it. God's not really in it. It is empty. It feels really heavy to our insides.....things like that.
But even those things can be manipulated. Daniel Yordy calls it " we only learn by story....our story"
And like walking , we learn by falling on our face.
Proverbs 1 describes a kind of extreme version. To summarise, we swing along in life, in our naivety thinking what purports to be wisdom is really heavy and restrictive, and we are really sure that while it might be OK for some people, there is no way that message is for us personally....until....suddenly we find ourselves without any more rope. We've actually gone over the precipice, and we can't just turn back. We may be allowed further time on earth, but one thing is for sure....our Eden is no more....and if we are going to learn anything and not remain ignorant all our life, we have to,in the face of very real obstacles,and wisdom appearing to call us names.....Dig INTO the unseen world
by faith, and CALL our self by a NEW NAME.....one resurrected in Jesus 2000 years ago.
And it's hard, because all else is screaming at us that it s not so. Now it would have been easier perhaps for us to have learned this when our life was still looking pretty normal. But somehow we don't. And it was the same for the Bible characters...like Peter, who told everyone unequivocally that there was no way on God's earth a person like him would ever deny Jesus. Jesus roundly addressed him and said not only will you....you will do it three times.
And when it came to it was worse still...because Peter used the foulest of language to accompany it.
So, as I said digging out our ears has a longer arc to it , over months and years and decades. But thankfully there's a short instant meaning to it too. Until we are practically just living there.
Any time we are seeking God.
Having meetings.
We are really having our ears dug by the Holy Spirit. He has to do it. And He will instruct us what He wants us to do to help bring it about.
One session for me was when He put it on my heart to get up early and wait upon Him. No praying. No praising. No tongues.Just waiting. Wow...that was hard...and the times I dosed. But I knew there was no condemnation.
There is a verse which I want to bring up here : Psalm 51:17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
The verse appears in the context of people doing outer forms of penance or religious activity but not engaging on their insides.
The thing is we are incapable of being contrite in the natural. This sort of phrase is something the Holy Spirit works in us and it is the working of His grace. Just getting up at 5am to do some religious activity is a load of rubbish...even if it is written in the Bible. "Seek Him early".
This is Law. Jesus Himself awakes in us the things He's asking us to do...or not do.
Churches are filled with people who know the verse about God dwelling among a people of contrite heart. The old denominations are filled with this stuff. Well if He dwells in this stuff why is there no revival?
Because 98% of it is just pure religion. Not only have we got to the stage of mimicking penance with all the outward show that is criticised in Psalm 51, we've now reproduced the "inner contrition" with manufactured religious soap opera. Trouble is the Holy Spirit knows this stuff. And His Spirit people perceive it too.
No, in third level terms Psalm 51:17 is just a state of believing.
Who ARE YOU REALLY?
Are you a self-powered human self, swanning around making your choices as some sort of independent self picking from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.....??? And....as your life clearly demonstrates...that just doesn't work does it? You see, the independent posturing doesn't exist.
That very spirit, is hooked into the devil himself. It is he in fact living his life through you. Which is why it is so puzzling for charismatics, where one minute they are soaring into the heavens in praise and a very real sense of the Presence of God....but their day to day living just doesn't cut it. And the more they try, as Romans 7 says,the more their noses are pressed against the glass to realise that the "independent state" just doesn't exist. It's a lie.
So a contrite heart, is one that permanently has reached this realisation....and even though he or she slip in future...they don't have to beat themselves up to much about it...but more like getting back on a bike...realise Life is in the Son...literally. That our life IS ACTUALLY HIS LIFE. There's not two of us. I have died as all of Adam died in the Cross, and my life is now hidden within Christ IN GOD.
This is really what the phrase "Henceforth we see no man after the flesh means."
We see ourselves, other Christians, and nonbelievers all as one thing....as having been created to have God live through. And yes we can't help but observe then "false seeing" on our insides and other's insides as all of us seek to overstep the mark of what God is actually doing. But this is the true Spirit meaning of Psalm 51:17.
This is having our ears dug out.
This is getting down to THE ROCK and building upon it, firmly and surely.
What must we be doing to do the works of God? Believe ON ME says Jesus, and Him who sent Me.What do you mean believe on You?
Believe that I am from God. That I am a new entity called the Son of Man, living entirely IN the Father who sent Me. That such a Life exists and that I am reproducing this very same Life in you as you take My Word and believe it.
Contrite heart is where you allow Me to disabuse you totally of the notion that there exists a self-powered life. That you must choose between one of two Deities living through you as you...and instead of the devil, you have chosen Me and the very Life by which
I lived as a man, from the Father in heaven.
Digging out the ears also means forming the mechanism whereby we can hear and act on the Faith that actually is the faith of Christ Himself.
Faith does not come from the Word of God direct.
Paul said there is an intermediary stage.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing....spiritul hearing....is formed or comes by the Word of God.
So to sum up. Worship, unlike praise, which is commanded of us in whatever spiritual state we find ourselves, comes from a different place.Worship bubbles up from this newly excavated discovery of the ROCK within us, which is Christ's actual Life.
Praise, as we have been taught is how we enter into His courts. "I will enter into His gates (the external part of the Tabernacle) with thanksgiving and His courts with praise."
The Lord's Prayer starts
Our Father
who art in heaven
Hallowed be your Name.....
But worship comes out of "true inward seeing"
It is actually Jesus praising His own Father from within the entire congregation.Remember the Hebrews passage? He is not ashamed to call us His brethren.
After the mid section of the Lord's Prayer...as our internal seeing has again been adjusted
we rise, with force, and conviction and power and declaration,
and we all say with Jesus Himself
For Thine Father is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
Forever and eveeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr
Amen!!!!
You getting the hang of it?
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