Rabbis without borders?

This post is from Velveteen Rabbi, and I comment at length at the bottom.(I am never sure how many comments get through to Rachel the writer, so today to make extra sure I signed in via Type Pad and Facebook. So I am not sure how justified my frustration is. ie could be me pressing the wrong buttons)

Rabbis Without Borders: Who is your Torah for?

The last couple of days I've been at the second meeting of my cohort of Rabbis Without Borders fellows. It's been grand to see everyone again. One theme of our session was the rabbinate and expanding technology -- social media, its uses and misuses, who is our audience and how can we serve them, etc. I enjoyed the session with Allison Fine, author of The Networked Nonprofit; she had smart things to say. But as someone who's been active online for 20 years, and active in the Jewish blogosphere for almost a decade, I think I came to that conversation with a relatively high level of competency. So I was more excited about the other learning we did together.
For me one central question of the session came from Rabbi Brad Hirschfield: who is your Torah for? Over the course of his session, he said several things which resonated with me. He urged us to try to live in a way which acknowledges the need for walls, but keeps the walls lowered as much as we can bear. ("Walls keep us safe," he agreed, "but they can also become prisons.") He exhorted us to live in a mindset of abundance. To recognize that the spiritual and the material are always interconnected. To strive to live in a spirit of both/and rather than either/or -- and to bring the same compassionate both/and response to ourselves that we bring to the world.
We studied a short text from Talmud (tractate Avodah Zarah 2b-3a) about the question of for whom the Torah was meant. And R' Brad noted the fairly remarkable truth that although that text was written during a time when Jews were tremendously persecuted (and by and large had a lot of understandable anger and anxiety around that), the Talmud still presumes that the Torah is not ours alone, that access to God is not ours alone, and that anyone who studies Torah (in the language of the text, even an idolater) is as elevated as the high priest. Here are a few of the gems from that Torah study which I tweeted as it was happening:

The most iconic Jewish text we have (Talmud) was written not in Hebrew but the English of its moment: Aramaic.
Talmud (Avodah Zarah 2b-3a) teaches: there's no boundary b/w Torah and the peoples of the world. ALL of them.
In my wished-for world, the full dignity of the ultimate outsider is affirmed along with the full dignity of the full insider.

I think it's easy for people today who don't have familiarity with Aramaic to feel as though the Talmud is a kind of walled garden -- a Jewish treasure to which they don't have access. But R' Brad reminds us that Talmud was written in the vernacular of its day; it was meant to be accessible. It wasn't an ivory tower text designed only for the insiders. Beyond that, there's a thread in our texts, if we are willing to look for it and follow it, which reminds us that the wisdom we've been blessed to receive is not ours alone. This is the kind of post-triumphalism which drew me to Jewish Renewal, and which I also find in Rabbis Without Borders/Clal. R' Brad continued:

Of course you teach the Torah you most need. But it doesn't end there.
The unfolding #Torah of our lives is also a sacred text.
I "use Jewish" to serve people. That's who my #Torah is for.

The idea that we teach the Torah we most need to learn is one which was already very close to our hearts. And so is the idea that the unfolding Torah of our lives is a sacred text -- different from the written Torah we find in our libraries, but also holy. And the idea of "using Jewish" to serve people -- bringing Jewish wisdom, Jewish tools, to bear on the work of serving God and serving humanity -- is also close to my heart. We were all asked to ponder, and to answer, the question of "who is my Torah for?" As soon as I heard the question, my answer arose in me.
My Torah is for anyone who is thirsty. Anyone who's thirsty for connection, for community, for God. Anyone who wants to make their lives holy or to become more conscious of the holiness in the everyday. Anyone who wants access to the rich toolbox of Jewish wisdom and traditions and ideas which I am blessed to have as my yerusha, my inheritance.
And then I thought: that would have been my answer ten years ago when I started this blog, too. I started writing VR for anyone who was thirsty, as I was, for connection with God and with tradition. Maybe especially for those who felt marginalized, who didn't perceive that they had a place at the table but yearned to be welcomed in.
That in turn raises the question for me: has that changed? Should it have changed? In the last ten years I've gone from being an aspirant to being, thank God, an ordained rabbi. I've gone from being someone who felt that I was outside-looking-in to being someone who feels blessed to have access to these incredible riches of tradition.
But I think my answer is actually still the same as it was. Maybe this is integral to who I am. My Torah is for anyone who yearns. I have better access now to the tools my tradition gives me for helping to connect people with meaning, to connect people with God. But I still want my Torah to be for anyone who's thirsty. "Let all who are hungry, come and eat; let all who are needy, come and celebrate the Passover with us." That message from the Passover haggadah has long been one of my favorite things; and I think it shaped me more than I know. My Torah is for you who are reading this, whenever this is, whoever you are.

February 27, 2013 in Rabbis Without Borders | Permalink

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Comments

Gershon said...

Rabbi,
This is another great article.
I hope you do not mind a long story. When evangalists knock at my door, I invite them in. Some prefer to sit on the porch. I tell them I'm happy to read from the "Old Testement" with them without serious commentary by anyone. I ask if it is ok to read the Parsha for the week. One time, two men in their 50's came by in suits and we sat at my kitchen table for hours reading and drinking coffee. They were fascinated by hearing the Hebrew and the translation.
At the end, one of them said, "Why don't Jews evangalize door to door." Without thinking, I said "I sit at home and wait for God to send people to me."
Heaven forbid God should send someone to Torah and I should be the one to stand in their way. All I ask from people with other faiths is we do not debate. We can read and enjoy each other's company. I never say anything against their faith when we read.
Shalom,
Gershon

Reply February 27, 2013 at 06:45 PM

David Waterman said...

This Rachel is so true and I think that you live this out. There are multitudes of blogs out there but yours does, I think, truly stand out. You have a way of bringing insight from many aspects including Renewal Judaism and kabbalistic influences so that we may study Torah through the light of your teaching.
And the Torah is all of ours. Of that I am sure.
Thanks again

Reply February 27, 2013 at 09:27 PM

T Vinson said...

From a Christian perspective, ultimately Jewish of course:-)
All who are thirsty,
all who are weak,
come to the fountain,
dip your heart in the stream of life.
Let the pain and the sorrow
be washed away
in the waves of his mercy...
(by Brenton Brown)
Tom

Reply February 27, 2013 at 11:15 PM

Chris Welch said...

My experience on here has not been good. Rachel indeed has walls. In the world we are trying to create it is necessary to talk and maintain open lines of communication. Jews at the moment have been so used to being persecuted they are suspicious of too much cross border talk. In the book of Daniel it talks of a world that is completely overrun by a dark figure who uses manipulation to obtain total world rule. So we are NOT looking for a world where people manipulate the idea of Unity to form world government, we are looking for a world where that unity begins genuinely within and expands to encompass everything. The first form of government manipulates the Shiloh verse of the prophecy given to David...."until Shiloh come", the true unity  issues from the God of Psalm 19,who without speech daily declares His truths,dreams,desires, for those who are listening.Then adjustments will be made, that will again come from within, not by coercion. So Buddhists will turn and say....hey...you know what...those stirrings within while I was meditating were really from the Real God... And the Muslims worshipping Allah will realise that a lot of their prophecies about the End Times and a False Messiah, were indeed true and already in the prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament (And New ofcourse) and that the nature of Allah is actually quite different, and loving , and in truth an  Abba Father. And so on through every belief system.... gradually crumbling round the base of the false "New World Order belief system" to realise how life really works...
by faith
by faith Abraham received that Psalm 19 subterranean call and acted on it
but the promise was NOT given to manipulation via a servant to Hagar
and although Hagar then received her own prophecies ready for consummation in the end times...in other words God's Father heart is always there to carry up the effects of "manipulation", His original promises remain true.
But that is so, for every life on Earth, if they listen. The faith dreams will actually manifest if we carry on firm in our believing. It's not only Rachel and her Torah. Others indeed are allowed to share in this process of listening, hearing by faith and acting. This is just how life works. It's built into the fabric of this universe, whether people read it in a Torah, or Old and New Testaments, or any other book.
Rothschild may manipulate the Shiloh verse with his own trillions of dollars, but he is not hearing by God faith, because God has already declared who Shiloh is, and it isn't Rothschild's Shiloh.The Rothschild dynasty set up Israel, but they confuse the Isaiah scripture about Lucifer the lightbringer with the Mornng Star of the Messiah, and right there the inspiration behind everything they have done reveals itself. Is that a problem? No. Because God wrote it all thousands of years ago in Ezekiel 28. He writes about a King of Tyre. He writes that the first kingdom would be Sidon (Tel Aviv) and that this kingdom would be rebellious. But later
after calamity Israel will be properly formed and ruled from Jerusalem.
Now American Christians have it all lined up to do with a rapture...but did the God of the Torah say that?
What is clear and spelled out is that Israel and Jerusalem is the epicentre of interest for all the circling nations, and for God those lands are central to His Covenant keeping.But it His covenant keeping...NOT Rothschild's.
All this happened once before. The guy's name was Jacob. Which means supplanter,deceiver,usurper. Did that phase God? Nope. There was a wrestling match with an angel, or God in some human form at Peniel, and this usurper had his name changed to .....yup....Israel.
So is God phased by current Israel, the product of engineering ,usurping,manipulation on a world scale. Nope.
He wrote about it. And it is all dovetailed into the plan of waking mankind up, of tearing away his top surface blindnesses to see the One who is to be praised forever and ever. The One true vine, into whom has been engrafted now not one nation, but every nation. Not by manipulation,but because people want relationship FROM WITHIN.

1000th Post - A Milestone Reflection

This the 1000th post and together with listing the all-time favorite posts as of this week, I will also describe some of my impressions of Oxford.....Thankyou very much to the readers of this blog which was conceived on the 8th August 2008 and launched with its first post in the following week.

In four and a half short years we've gone from a time where nearly nobody knew there was another distinct level to Christianity, the Father level, and back in 2007, people only shrugged their shoulders if you dared refer them to the stages St John maps out in 1 John 2.

Both in blogs and now on the social networks ,Christians have been voicing their extreme disgust at the shortfalls in evangelicalism and the charismatic realm. Some identify with this blog, others at least now fully recognise the power of grace to carry them through. The Church worldwide, contrary to the almost complete disinformation progamme of  the media and secular world, is alive and growing probably at a pace and depth unknown in all its corporate history.


These are the all time favorite posts and the number of times they have been opened. The absolute clear winner is not one of my posts at all, but one of my dear friends Ole Henrik Skjelstad (Norway)as posted by Andrea Garzon  (Equador). A great Post.

Top Post-The Real Thing - 12569 HITS incredible !

This week we have been caravanning in Oxford and these are the pictures I took with my trusty Sony Cybershot P200. Although I lived in Amersham only 35 miles away,I have only actually been to Oxford on very few occasions, since the gravitational pull of a city like London, about the same distance in the opposite direction, is infinitely greater to youngsters.
So this halfterm week we thought we'd "do" Oxford.




No.2 -A Post about the Ancient Door Of Control - 5536 HITS - My highest read post.




Top 10 things to do in Oxford. Click pics to enlarge.
It was exceedingly bitter this week, so we dived in restaurants and eating houses as well as visiting the Ashmolean Museum. I visited again on the Friday night because there were a number of free musical events and lectures taking place. These occur on the last Friday each month.
I was treated to a John Cage recital/reading, an incredible series of wellknown pieces played on violin and theremin, some adlibbed music in the stairwell on different floors, DJ's using old and new material, various hands on noise producing gadgets, and a demonstration of a 1933 top of the range gramophone playing contemporary works on 78s such as the then 16 year old Menuhin conducted by an 83 year old Elgar.

No.3 -Too Much Process As Illustrated in the lives of Jane Fonda and Derek Prince

- 2913 HITS - Do we really need to jump through so many hoops?

No. 4 - The First of Gary Sigler's series Coming Out of Darkness
- 2774 HITS - Part of a series

On the offchance I contacted Norita Roberts on Facebook, and before flying to Spain for a leader's conference Marcus and Norita kindly came to visit us in our caravan. Christine has never met them and so it was her and my chance to catch up a bit on the quarter of a century that has passed since our paths divided in 1988, when I left Emsworth Church.The next day I went to visit Roberts Pianos Workshop 


No.5 - Rich Novek's brilliant letter to a modern day Christian Pharisee
- 2612 HITS -  Check out his new book on Amazon

Ofcourse over the two days I was able to learn some of the details I knew absolutely nothing about and for me it was more than interesting, but for the reader here that knows nothing about Marcus or I I'll try to paint a quick picture.
Marcus is six years older than me, which is somehow in God's plan. Marcus's agegroup very much got swept up into the tail end of leadership in the charismatic/Jesus move that we all came in on in the early 70s. It is quite handy that , being just a tad younger, I somehow missed this, but have been able to do detective work from underneath, the results of which form the subject of this blog.
Marcus and I both never set out in life to have careers in pianos. We both fully expected to be involved in the Lord's work and as such we both found ourselves in Emsworth Bible House with Norita and some 20-25 others.


No.6 - The Nature of the One Cult that we are Leaving
- 1626 Hits

In the interim,Marcus started a student church first in Portsmouth, then he and Norita began one in Oxford when he moved his business up there. So by now Marcus and Norita are quite seasoned pastors, and their three lads are now established in their own lives being between ages 20-30.
The original Rios De Vida Argentinian church stream based in Quilmes, Buenos Aires, under Jorge Pradas and until this year Norita's brother and wife Daniel and Nellie Garcia, has since spread through all the Argentinian States and has churches in Europe and in the UK, notably this one in Oxford and one under Colin and Christine King in Bangor.
Now Oxford and Cambridge are much appreciated cities by church planters. Because , like Harvard, they are all cities which influence the future. Marcus and Norita know and meet with other pastors in the city and are aware of the Salt and Light churches which originated through Barney Coombs, and have proliferated throughout Oxfordshire. This is particularly relevant for Christine who was one of the first nine of what has become the thousands strong Derby church, also in the Salt and Light network.


No.7 - Why Havant Church is in such a significant position....PIVOTAL even
- 1187 HITS

Tomb wall - Ashmolean Museum

Second to pursuing unity among Christians in the town, it was immediately obvious to me that their business Roberts Pianos  is quite a tree of life for the birds nesting thereupon! It supports ten or more fulltime and part time staff, which in the rather niche world of piano restoration is no small deal.
As a business owner, obviously you are paying salary rates, but you have to support those staffmembers through thick and thin. And therein lies the skill. Can you get those employees to earn you more than what they are paid?  If you do, you are running a profitable business. If then you plough back those profits into fresh expansion, or Christian projects, you may or may not ever become wealthy yourself, but you will be able to cast your eyes back down some long furrows.
 These then are all the different aspects to running churches and businesses over decades.



No.8 - Mark Stibbe always gave a prophetic Word at the start of the year. This was 2011
- 1090 HITS

I asked David, the son of the pastor who excluded me from Emsworth Church, what was it he felt was the role of Los Rios De Vida now that a lot of other churches have  caught up with the vision of praise and worship and finding the Presence of God together? In the seventies and early eighties there was nothing else quite like Emsworth Church in the UK. Some ten to fifteen years later fellow Argentinians Ed Silvoso and Claudio Freidzon were used to implant much of this vision across the Church in the UK. David replied that the Los Rios churches were still pursuing this vision but solely because it was their vision and not to seek to exclude the callings of other churches.

HMV Oxford? One of the last CD stores?

No.9 - Who is Francois DuToit, the translator behind the Mirror Version of the Bible?
- 912 HITS

So,what are my conclusions after 1000 posts? Can I point to any church or similar sized business that I have developed? Nope. And for most of those who have trekked along the same furrows as myself, we all have strikingly similar stories, yet strangely far from being despondent, we are all more confident than at any time in the past 30 years. In fact, next month, beginning in the USA, God seems to be giving us liberty to roll away the chockblocks and begin to share what we've been shut away for decades learning. In March Daniel Yordy and Rich Novek take the opportunity afforded by their recently published books to begin sharing from the same platform together into homes, small and large churches.

I find the model in Oxford interesting, because it very much traces Jorge's apostleship. Namely that people find God and are transformed by Him in meetings, then share life as a church "in the practical outworked love of the brethren".
For me,while in Emsworth that never worked. It never provided the "inner answer of Biblical revelation" I was searching for.Now, I can never speak for anyone else's path, and indeed I never followed the Los Rios path for more than 10 years, so perhaps if you do, certain other factors kick in to make it work. But for me,Rich , Daniel,Fred Pruitt,Annalize Mouton, Nancy Gilmore,Ole Henryk Skjelstad,Andrea Garzon,Chris Kimmel, Nick Cabbiness, Cathy Rheeder,Joan Reilly and so many many more who have supplied posts, we trod an individual path to come to the conclusion St Paul did at the end of Romans 7. That "independent living" is not really independent living, it is powered by the sin spirit, it is "sin in the flesh", masquerading as flesh. And that this is what makes Romans 8 work by setting our mind on the Spirit and telling ourselves repeatedly until it becomes consciousness....it is nolonger I that live. We have had an exchange. This lying "soul/I" that never was, has been replaced at our true spiritcentre by Christ/I. And that is the key that opens this "heaven on earth" lock.

No.10 - James A Fowler's article and diagrams on what Jesus has done
- 887 HITS

And finally, when I asked which post Joan Reilly had most enjoyed, she replied this spoof post.

Make Loadsa Cash Now From the Different Gospel

Never Give Up - Jean Henson

`For the Word of the Lord holds true, and we can trust everything He does.' - Psalm 33:4 New Living Translation

Watching the men and women who com­peted in the Paralympics, I was stunned at the seemingly insurmountable difficulties they had to overcome in order to take part. All of them showed such courage and determination. They had not let adversity in their life either by accident or by birth determine what they could achieve. They had not given up, but had gone on to achieve a goal in their chosen field.

Handing someone a card with 'never give up' written on it, however encouraging, can never be enough - the person him­self/herself has to be active and partici­pate in the process of overcoming.

Recently I had a routine CT scan. It clearly showed a large tumour in the left frontal region of my skull. Nine years ago I had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and spent nearly

2 years in hospital. Memories of this came

flooding back as I stared with the Consultant at the image in front of us.Itshowed indisputably a larger mass that encroached on a large area of my brain. We were both shocked.

During the last episode of cancer I received God's Word that I would be healed, even though I was given a terminal diagnosis at an early stage in this disease. I prayed fervently and sought the Lord. A Scripture, Psalm 118:17, '1 will not die but live and I will declare the works of the Lord', became personal to me.

I attended a meeting in Newport where David Hathaway was speaking. It was just prior to having a stem cell transplant and I was very sick. David prayed with me and asked God to give me a gift of faith. As I left that meeting I believed that I had been healed, but I was very discouraged by the lack of any evidence in myself or in the young lad who had come in a wheel­chair and was sobbing because he still could not get out. It was very distressing and I was confused. - I had seen others witness to their instant healing by demon­strating that they could do something they had previously not been able to do...

My stem cell transplant failed and several months later I was discharged into hospice care with an estimated 10 weeks to live. I never took up the place as a few weeks later I was miraculously healed! It's record­ed as such in my hospital notes!

But now on the screen I can see a large tumour in my skull. The Word of God neverchanges! Whatever this new challenge, somehow I had to take hold once more of the truth that God heals, God saves, God delivers. Hebrews 10:35-36 says, 'Do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord, no matter what happens. Remember the great reward it brings you.' But it was hard for me!

What makes it so hard? We are often sur­rounded in moments of crisis by people who want to help, to comfort, to ease the pain; and then there is the medical evi­dence - what you see; what the doctors tell you; what your family and friends tell you; how you feel, what you think, what you say - all these are some of the things that distract us. When I saw this large Enplaque Meningioma, I found myself say­ing, "I can't do this again; I can't go through it all again." I was teetering on the brink of giving up'. My mind was full of thoughts, negative thoughts. A battle I had fought so adamantly before.

Healing or even the miracle that we believe God for, does not always appear instantly. I have witnessed many times in meetings that it can and does happen. But the situations I have found myself in are sit­uations that have demanded endurance, not giving up, a walk in faith. In the face of what I can see and feel. The very opposite of what I am believing for.

What we need to believe and to hang on to is that God has heard our prayer, He has heard our cry. He is faithful to His Word. He cannot lie. Truth stands whether we feel it or not. And most often, we don't feel it: we are called to walk in it, to demonstrate our faith.

So - did I give up? No. No. No! The Holy Spirit helped me and I began again agree­ing with the Word of God. In my lounge one morning, I declared loudly every Scripture that came to my mind. If there had been a CCTV camera in my lounge I

would have had complete difficulty   in explaining my behaviour. I declared the Truth. Psalm 103

Praise the Lord, I tell  myself: with my whole heart, I will bless

 His  Holy  Name. Bless the Lord, I tell myself, and 

 never forget the good things He does for me. 

He forgives my sins and heals all my diseases...

I placed my hand over the area where the tumour is located and asked the Lord to place His hand over mine. I commanded the tumour to die. I recalled the incident where Jesus cursed the fig tree and it died. I thanked God for my healing. I danced and cried at the same time.

An appointment was made for me to seea Neurosurgeon. As I
 entered his consulting room I could see that he had the scan on his computer. He told me that it's quite large and that he could not operate with­out the risk of brain damage - but he had no need to because, he said, "It is dead!!! Your body has somehow cured itself. Discharged!"

Recently I visited Auschwitz while on a cru­sade with David Hathaway in Krakow. Our guide told us of the only person, a man, who survived the death camp from begin­ning to end. How? His answer was simply, ''I wanted to live!" That finds a resounding echo in my heart. When I got sick - very sick - and the doctors could do nothing - I wanted to live! I wanted a miracle and God gave me the strength to persevere and not give up - even though there were still difficult times till I received the miracle

that defied the doctor's predictions.

I get many requests for prayer from people who  are themselves very sick or they refer  friends or relatives to me; even people I meet in shops want to talk with me or ask me to pray with them when they find out that I have had cancer three times and now this tumour in my skull that God has healed! I do not have all the answers. I pray with them, but Jesus is the One who heals. I encourage them not to give up, to know that God truly loves them and I ask the Holy Spirit to show me  ways to inspire them to trust in the Lord and in His Word for themselves, to receive from Him that gift of faith - that courage and steadfastness to hold

 fast and not throw away their confi­dent trust in the Lord. No matter what.

NEVER EVER GIVE UP

Here I am - Send me by Rich Novek

HERE AM I, SEND ME!

Woe is me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “HERE AM I, SEND ME!” He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Isaiah 6:5-10

At some point someone is going to have to go through the fire in order to blaze the trail for those who are still stuck in the lie of performance based Christianity.

Isaiah had already been prepared for this amazing call. He was broken before the Lord, open and laid bare, letting God know his weaknesses. And did that deter God at all, even for one second? It was before his call that the angel introduced the pain of the hot coal to Isaiah’s lips. Then take a look at his ministry once he accepted the call. It sure wasn’t what we call ministry today; he wasn’t flying around the world, delivering a watered down version of the Good News, while at the same time lining his pockets and saving his own life…was he?

No! His call was to go out and speak to a people who would not listen, and to cause their hearts to become hardened toward God, so there might also be a chance of brokenness and real repentance.

When God looked around and asked the above question, he wasn’t looking for the strongest, smartest, or the richest, He was looking for someone who would answer the call, and from that point He would take care of the rest. Isaiah answered the call by faith, not knowing what was ahead. God chose the lowly one, the man of unclean lips to change the face of history.

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue for the first time, it was this same “unclean and undone” Isaiah who he quoted.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn. Isaiah 61:1-2

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are IN Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast IN the Lord. I Corinthians 1:26-31

Jesus Christ never took one thought for Himself, yet today most believers live everyday consumed with their own life, while immersed in a self-consumed culture where self-preservation is the norm…

And it is no different for the body of Christ.

Our only purpose for us as the ones who are the called according to His purpose, is to walk above our High Places by the power of the One who is NOW willing and working His perfect plan IN and through us, for His Glory.

As we walk yielded to Him he does His own good work IN us. And how does that happen? How does a so called Christian culture that is focused on saving itself make the transition to losing itself for the sake of the Gospel of Grace?

Only One WAY!

Your ears will hear a word behind you, "This is the way, walk in it," whenever you turn to the right or to the left. Isaiah 30:21

The only “WAY” that God will ever direct us is to THE WAY, TRUTH, and LIFE, whose is name is Jesus Christ. And any other way, religion, philosophy, tradition, rule, or law is the wrong way. The only Way is in embracing the “losing to gain” message of the Cross, and allowing God to complete the good work He has begun IN us. It is allowing death to roll in on anything and everything we are still trusting in as our life, and believing only God can work IN us so that His Life can work IN us...for others.

For it is God which worketh IN you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13

It is His work IN us just as it is His plan for us!

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels--a plentiful harvest of new lives. John 12:24 NLT

The “momentary light afflictions” that we endure in this life are what also prepare us to be the channel of His Love for others. This is why a life centered on "take not a thought for your life" is not only possible but also expected. This is where we move beyond the vain attempts of preserving our own life, and especially for those who have made the decision to forsake EVERYTHING for Christ alone!

These are the ones like Isaiah, who know before the call even comes the testing will. And unless God has a mature body of believers who are tested to the point they KNOW the One truth, there won’t be anyone who is fit to send.

Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of His praise be heard; He has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. Psalm 66:8-12

This place of Abundance is Christ Himself, the One who is the ALL IN ALL who fills everything in every way.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth IN love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up IN Love, as each part does its work. Ephesians 4:14-16

Radical Christian Sacrifice by John Piper (Sermon Jam )

Third Level Prosperity Message

by Chris Welch on Sunday, 10 February 2013 at 00:25 ·Facebook

St Paul's take on prosperity is different from Copeland and Creflo Dollar in this way. St Paul's gospel is a full thirdlevel Father level (1 John 2 ) affair. The Word of faith movement addresses the individual, and God's desire to bless,increase and generally maximise life. While that's fair do's, NEVER mix it up with the thirdlevel, which is believing for the same but over cities and nations. And the road to gaining such intercession involves filling up that which is lacking in Christ's afflictions. Now some "Suffer-mongers" delight in taking the rough road...but this isn't what Paul was doing. Any idiot can go the way of blowing everything and letting everything go to wrack and ruin. St Paul ALWAYS heard from the Father FIRST about the intercession he was trying to gain. One of them quite simply was ROME. Nobody had gone for that one yet. So instead of listening to the secondlevel prophecy (again quite valid) of Agabus about not going to Jerusalem,Paul was quite clear....this was possibly a midway stopping post for his actual goal. Now he let the Father organise all the midsteps. Prison.Shipwreck.Numerous near death experiences...but HE GAINED his intercession....and while not being exactly free...God set him up with his own writing desk so we'd all know about how the third level worked in his subsequent writings. This is a far cry from "Suffermongers" who never get any goal, but at every opportunity remind us how much they are suffering. So neither creflo Dollar nor his opposites, the suffermongers...represent true mature Kingdom...but St Paul does if anyone cares to sniff around deep enough.

When you do what is truly best for you.....

When you do what is 'truly' best for YOU . . . it will naturally serve those around you! 'Happiness' Coach Carolee Dalton

Chris Welch writes on Facebook
This throws up some pretty deep thinking if you align this with this sentence:we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together [k]by what every joint supplies, according to the [l]proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.Ephesians 4
Let's zone in on "proper working of each individual part."
Judgment begins with the household of God. This means a lot more than broader sins.
I AM A PIANO TUNER and I begin with one string of one note, and work out to the rest of the piano.
God begins with His church. The administration He is rolling out Ephesians 1:10 begins in His household.
If He is rolling out an administration based on Galations 2:20, the new consciousness that He lives my life, it follows that we'd better find out a bit about how Jesus as Chris Welch,Jesus as Carolee Dalton best works. Now as a Life Coach Carolee Dalton is probably focussing on individuals finding how to maximise their own potential. What I'm suddenly seeing is bigger. You see if we're all nestled somewhere in some big Rothschild pyramid performing a function of his choosing rather than our own, even if we are Christians we are misusing ourselves. And the ones that hinders the most are those members of the Body of Christ we would have been helping to build up were we functioning "according to the proper working of each part." Let's scroll back inward to church.
If a pastor assumes scriptures say that the pastoral gift is one that is exercised as an administrative CEO of some local corporation known as the church, his eternal "megaphone role" out the front of church is actually preventing the proper working of each individual part. One pastor one church dates back to periods before anybody knew they were saved, baptised in the Spirit, and knowing Galations 2:20 in their own lives as the Father stage of growth. But that's just a preliminary criticism. St Paul was so far reaching as an apostle he didn't even see the Body in terms of meetings. in the Ephesians 4 passage it doesn't talk in terms of meetings. (it doesn't exclude them either)But it's speaking in terms of a whole manner of living on the earth.

Jesus He knows me and He knows I'm right - Phil Collins

Chris Welch on Facebook :"Jesus He knows me and knows I'm right"...both Genesis frontman Phil Collins and Dire Straits Mark Knopfler both did songs about tele evangelists in the early 90s. For secular people it's obvious...God doesn't exist anyway and they are on a hiding to nothing. Brits do believe in God , but not in a God who blesses, so perhaps for the wrong reasons, they hate tele evangelists. I personally regard American Christianity as "one step out". Brits may laugh, but they've not even begun the faith walk. It's very easy to sit in a boat and laugh at someone sinking as they start to walk on water. Jews are always quite a good litmus test. When Jews start to convert in large numbers will be the time when our gospel starts to get accurate. At the moment American Christianity is very like the disciples before the Cross. Sleazebuckets with anointing!! "Don't bring the kids here!" "Jesus can I send fire down on that little village!" " Jesus you love me and know I'm right...put me in first position in heaven!" Roll on thirdlevel Christianity!!



 Dire Straits Ticket to Heaven track 9 of On Every Street 1991
 Ticket to heaven

I can see what you're looking to find
in the smile on my face
in my peace of mind
in my state of grace
I send what I can
to the man from the ministry
he's a part of heaven's plan
and he talks to me

now I send what I can to the man
with the diamond ring
he's a part of heaven's plan
and he sure can sing
now it's all I can afford
but the lord has sent me eternity
it's to save the little children
in a poor country

I got my
and everlasting life
I got a ride all the way to paradise
I got my
and everlasting life
all the way to paradise

now there's nothing left for luxuries
nothing left to pay my heating bill
but the good lord will provide
I know he will
so send what you can
to the man with the diamond ring
they're tuning in across the land
to hear him sing

I got my
and everlasting life
I got a ride all the way to paradise
I got my
and everlasting life
all the way to paradise

Read more at http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858496562/#3RJGmFADxSjsU8c5.99

 Meaning
rajakolluruon :My Interpretation:This song gels beautifully with the rest of the album. Same kind of soft, gentle rock with MK's voice pleasantly blending into it.

This song IMO conveys obvious disdain to the whole concept of "selling God" as is practised in the religious TV channels with their penchant for doling out sentimentality to the multitude. It starts with a claim from a man "under the influence" who considers himself lucky for having been chosen to partake in the process of charity instituted by a man "from the ministry". He is so happy that he has a "smile on his face" and is in a "state of grace". He thinks that the man from the ministry personally talks to him and admonishes him to part with money that he can ill afford to lose in the name of charity. You would think that MK believes in all this were it not for the palpable sarcasm in describing the man from the ministry who has now morphed into the "man with the diamond ring" thereby revealing the affect of the garnered wealth on the man.

The mild disdain on the man becomes more pronounced when it was told that "he sure can sing". The rest of the song about people believing in the "ticket to heaven" and the "ride all the way to paradise" add further fuel and ironic humor to this song which begins to resemble a critical poem now. How this whole God epidemic, with its emphasis on creating institutions as opposed to promoting spirituality, has become increasingly prevalent is further indicated with words such as "tuning across the land to hear him sing" - as if to suggest that just the song (and not the message) is able to sway the crowd to support the man with the diamond ring making him even more wealthy.
Overall a lovely song with great vocals.
Flag rajakolluruon November 02, 2010 Link

Blogpost Part 2  Facebook note

 Gale Stradwick on : Religion Is Cruel Like Its father


I am not like a lot of grace people in that I fully acknowledge the power and work of the devil. He is real. He hates you and me. And he is out to bring us down. Does that mean I walk around every day, aware of him, and looking for demons? NO!!! Of course not! Jesus is my focus. But I see him, and sometimes I feel his effect on me.

These days, he mainly comes in the form of religion. I believe the main manifestation of religion is cruelty. Our enemy is cruel. He is the author of religion. And he will often show himself in the cruelty of other Christians towards you. We become like the thing that controls us. When religion controls you, your god will be cruel, and so will you. I see the cruelty of religion every day, bringing accusation, condemnation, slander, lies etc against God's people. Religion is the father of injustice. Religion undermines. Religion whispers lies and insinuation. Religion isolates. Religion points the finger. Religion introduces self doubt. Religion says you should, you must. It's a long list.

Religion is cruel, like it's father.
What has this got to do with the grace message you ask? Everything! The Bible tells us to resist the enemy. That's in the New Testament! For grace people, the main way the enemy will manifest is through the power of the cruelty of religion, through other people. Sometimes it will roar in your face. Sometimes you will need to confront it and do some active resisting. But mostly, it will be quiet and subtle. It will accuse and undermine, and at those times, you resist it by stating and believing in the goodness of your God - in his unwavering love for you - in his total provision for every aspect of your life throught the finished work of the cross. When you spell those things out in clear terms to the enemy of religion by a concerted decision to walk in them, he will flee. He has no comeback. You have blown his cover with the truth. And the lies and accusations will dissipate in the face of truth. That is New Covenant spiritual warfare!Like · · Unfollow post · Promote

• Diona DeHaven Mower and Rachael Wallin like this.
• 
  Chris Welch: In the last 2 years I made the discovery that God's glory cannot be revealed until you have paralysed religious spirits. They are not neutral. They BIND THE ALMIGHTY GOD who holds the Universe togther from operating. How can that be. I dunno. Seems incredible doesn't it. But in Nazareth the God of the universe in human form couldn't do a single thing because of their unbelief.
  6 minutes ago · Like · 1
• 
  Rachael Wallin: Oh....so right on from my own experience with religion. It binds !!! Thank you for posting. I wish you had a share.button. So many have been hurt by religious spirits. Alot of wounded people out there....Thanks.

Hitting the Road:A 26 year dream! - Rich Novek

We just spent the last 10 days with our amazing friend, sister, and ministry and covenant partner, Joan Reilly.
Not only were we able to hang out and get to be with each other, but God did some amazing things while she was here as well.
One of the most amazing things that happened was while our dear brother Daniel Yordy and his wife and kids spent a weekend at our home. We all sat at the kitchen table and openly and honestly shared our histories (His Stories); our visions, weaknesses, disappointments, and dreams.
Though coming from completely different backgrounds, we found we have both arrived together at the same place and are headed towards the exact same destination.  We also discovered it’s only through our weaknesses that God has NOW opened our hearts and minds to a deeper and more powerful revelation of Christ as our only Life!
So beginning in March, Daniel and I are hitting the road, taking my vehicle and an old tent camper around the USA to share this message of REAL freedom with anyone who would like to hear it.
For our first of at least four trips, we plan on starting out in Texas, going through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, then going into Florida, and back up into Georgia, so far…
We will also be taking additional trips throughout the year with our goal being to cover the entire country by the end of 2013, if not before.
Please let me know if you would like us to share these deep and potentially life changing Christ “IN” us truths with your group, no matter what the size.  We will share in homes, churches, and any other place the Spirit of God leads with every "whosoever" who wants to hear what God has to say IN and through us.
We go out in fear and trembling proclaiming the testimony of God, which is the mystery of Christ IN us.  And we do so by the Faith of the Son of God and with absolutely no expectation of HOW He works His wonderful works, while at the same time knowing it is God who will be doing whatever work He chooses...and for such a time as this.
I quit my job last year for a number of reasons, some were health related.  Daniel and I NOW spend our days writing, he has written several powerful "deeper life" books and I just completed my first one, a "deeper life" daily devotional.
We also NOW know after everything we have been through, at this stage of our life we have no other purpose but to share with others who continue to struggle with the "Who Am I " questions of their life.
For those of you who have read my writings over the past 3 years, you know my passion is in exposing the lie of the performance based gospel, so that God can reveal Himself as He really is, and so His people can finally experience what it is to be FREE INDEED!
I want to take this time to thank all of our Gracebook family for your love and support to Linda and I over the last 3 tumultuous years.   I NOW know this NEW thing that God is doing is what He also first spoke to me in 1987, now 26 years ago.  And NOW by His doing it is about to spring forth! (Isaiah 43:19)
Will you not be aware of it with us as we step out IN His Faith to see many as possible set free along the way?  Please pray as God continues putting the pieces of this wonderful adventure in place.
For our family members who may want to help us in a more tangible way, please feel free to contact me on Facebook or my email at novek7@gmail.com.
God’s richest blessings!
Rich

The True Meaning of the Poles

Right at what was to be the end of Lakeland ,Florida Revival in 2008, I wrote down a kind of Spirit snapshot expression of what I saw in the form of a parable. God's Builders have been supplied with 3 pallets of materials. For the first time in modern history the third pallet came peeping into view....and then the revival, as we know crashed. I talk about Zerubbabel group in particular because this had been Norman Grubb's last intercession on behalf of the whole church. But in 2008 Zerubbabel didn't even know the revival was going on. So for me, one of the greatest of ironies in recent history is that God was beginning to open up the whole realm that Zerubbabel had been called to share....but they weren't party to it, because hardly any have been baptised in the Spirit, so simply don't relate with the rest of the Spirit filled church. In the parable I relate the Old testament concepts of David's New Cart and the God ordained gilt poles that the Old Testament priests carried the Ark of the Covenant with.

Now the issue of the poles is this....
They are as if glued to the shoulders of the priests. So that means where the priests walk, there the Ark goes. God had some amazing problems in dramatizing the thirdlevel truths of the gospel in Old Testament format.That's why sending Jesus was such a good idea.He could model the whole thing from start to finish.
  HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY get across Jesus living His life in our forms as us according to John chapter 17 when people are still only thinking in religious terms? 

The Old Testament describes automated religion in 2 Samuel 6 as David and his "new cart". 

It's all automated. It's all done for you. At no point do you come into contact with it. It's NOT your flesh and blood walk. Well POLES is pretty good. It's an improvement.Because you are not going anywhere without the Ark. You are attached. You are committed. You are also attached to the other priests. None of you are going anywhere without each other and the glory of God. 

Now Benny Hinn and Morris Cerullo's generation describe the poles as intercession and prayer, and by that they mean long hours rattling off in tongues, and often into the night, and possibly with fasting. This is the secondlevel or "young man "view of intercession.

POLES mean more than this. Jesus didn't come to give us meetings, He came to give us His life. Actually if you want to know the truth of it, the REAL TRUTH...there is no other life in the Universe. Real Life is God going on. 

Poles break down as an image because they are still outside us, still separate from us. Jesus Life on the other hand has no gaps. He came in fused to our new spirit WITHOUT GAPS. Who we really are. Where our Life source, our life itself originates is our spirit. but as Daniel Yordy, Fred Pruitt,Nancy Gilmore, and so many more share....our humanity, is piecemeal with it. The "old think" that is still Genesis 3 that still fills the charismatic churches, is that we are self-powered souls that are trying to correct themselves. But according to the revelation of the Bible that whole way of thinking is a delusion. It represents more or less a whole worldwide church still mired in the lie of Genesis 3. 

So no, the poles DON'T represent a certain amount of hours of prayer to charge up our batteries sufficiently that Benny Hinn can go on a podium and perform miracles like a pentecostal showman.
The Bible Truth is that our intercession is coming out of One Man who lives our Life fulltime. There's no getting away from this POLE. And that is the truth of the third pallet. We are carrying His intercessions inside His faith whenever and for however long He is burdening us with them. They don't start at the beginning of meetings and they don't end at the end of meetings. This is the New Priesthood which Fred Pruitt was writing about. "As He is in the world, so are we."

 Like Jesus in John 6, the gospel we preach is about eating His very Body and drinking His blood. He becomes us by Word and by Spirit. There's no walking away. There's no mid measure as Paul Noble and others want to say..."Oh Jesus is in us?" Well what does that mean? For 40 years charismatics have been saying " Jesus is in us." In Havant Church they believe Jesus is another pea in their pod sharing the space in their bodies with the old man. It gets very crowded in Havant Church. Everybody is walking around with twice as many people inside them!!

This is not what is meant by the gilt-covered poles. The NEW CART church, like David's first attempts at wheeling the glory of God to its resting place, is a Church of separation. God over there. Me over here. The true priesthood however were carrying the Ark on poles, pressed to their bodies. This is the meaning of Jesus as us.