Hear, O Israel.
To be holy, chosen, the one the Lord has set His love upon, is to be an heir. Who would want a selfish, self-indulgent heir?
What we do with the inheritance we have here on earth is how we are trained for full eternal inheritance. Children are an inheritance from the Lord.
The single thing we have is attention, the mind. Everything else is stuff. Setting the mind to stuff is the path to destruction. "but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful".
Man, it's easy to get tangled up with stuff. It's understandable--we can see it. What is unseen though is the real treasure.
Listening to Deuteronomy 6 & 7 this morning, it lands again that these handmade gods aren't at all what we are dealing with, yet in order to get to the bottom of fear, we have to acknowledge that while we aren't carving and plating wood, we get tangled up with stuff faster than we can possibly realize.
"Do not bring an abomination into your house, you shall utterly detest it, and utterly abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction."
To increase in maturity is the ability to discern what lives on as a household god in our own culture. It's way too easy to commend ourselves for any of our religious practices (that's why it's not about particular practice), and go on worshiping any old thing that delights. The word covet in 7:25 means desire, take pleasure in. Desire. That part of me that is only designed to be filled by the true intimacy with my God, shall not be fornicating about with the stuff all the world is pursuing in their lack of fullness.
It really can be anything. I've often referred to the wilderness, the experiences of Israel, as they went around and around with discontent, rebellion, complaint--as a trailer. God mercifully gave us a preview of our own unfaithful hearts and instead of receiving the warning, we take it all literal in order to avoid the confrontation of it.
"What idols?"
Repentance is such a gift. It is to release any need to hold onto a pretense of my own righteousness, and to take HOLD of the gift that is actual, true, authentic life--Christ's holiness.
The Spirit has revealed that the only reason that man has come up with religion is to avoid reality. The western church itself is founded on a mimicry of pagan religious worship instead of on the truth that is Jesus Christ. The reason we do it is so that we can go on in our idolatry and maintain an image of piety, which is a lie. Our spirit knows it though, so we not only miss out on real life, we are just as shallow and foolish as anyone else. But if we've been told "this is how you Christian", and don't decide I can know Christ as well as Paul did, we don't get the benefit of actual faith--aionos zoe. Eternal life. Could this church habit be the "strong delusion" in 2 Thessalonians 2:11?
Why does it continually say be alert! Be awake! Be steadfast! Pay attention! Listen! HEAR!
I think maybe it's because ATTENTION is all we have and we are so busy spending it--and teaching our children how to spend it unfaithfully--just like the heathen, that our hearts are too hard to receive the Word.
Hard heart=closed ears.
Worship=attention.
Time=discipleship.
Maturity=discernment.
Idol=anything devoted to destruction.
Is this why even "church people" children are being sacrificed to the gods of the culture we live in? We don't know how to recognize an idol?
Every time I find myself in a selfish moment, putting my own desires over humble gratitude, my heart becomes hard, my words become angry, I become self-indulgent, entitled, bitter--and my mothering reflects all of it. Is it any wonder that out of a society that is determined (unashamedly) to get away from their own children for happiness, that we have children that will growing up without maturity, discipline, attention? Our job is discipleship. No one else will do this but ourselves.
Did you know that sending children away for "education" originates in Sumerian city-states that did not know God? That is because while there was absolutely nothing wrong with the design, humanity is selfish. Enter disintegration. First you separate a family. Then you elevate knowledge so that it rises above relationship. Then, you get all the mothers agreeing they are much happier and have better, easier lives without the "burden" of daily mothering, training, reasoning, question-answering. This is when you have to label things as subjects and make them into a burden, increasing "importance". A cursory glance through a book on ancient Mesopotamia reveals the roots of the volumes of ignorance being peddled as scholarship...this can only happen in a place ignorant of the God of the Universe. We are settling for disintegrated models with devious roots.
Do we know anything about the roots of anything we accept? If the root is bad, the fruit is bad.
When Paul was alive in ancient Rome, he warned them not to accept high sounding arguments based on human reasoning. This was Hippocrates. This was Socrates. This was Aristotle. This was Plutarch.
In Medieval times, religion tried to smash it out. But because devious humanity making anything into religion is sin, it became evident that religious abstinence from what was called 'knowledge' wasn't going to rid them of their sinful desires, and the Renaissance then revived what is called science and arts--with emphasis on astrology of course, alluded to in Deuteronomy 4:19. Do we really not know how to perceive what is awry with the way we go? All of this doesn't matter, if one knows God, and if it does matter, it matters most if you think that your safety and prosperity is dependent on it--which should not be, if I am a possession and daughter of the Most High King.
"reader, pay attention"
Time spent discipling is a ONE model. Of the Creator, who did not forget a single thing. Every moment spent in attention, WITH young humans, is rich with experiences that increase my own maturity, as well as cause deep desire and awe of God because every opportunity He provides is perfect.
In this place--unburdened by modern-day entrapments, it is good for us to be here! I have all that I need. There is absolutely nothing that the pagan can teach my child that I wasn't designed to disciple them better. All things start with the ability to hear. To perceive and receive Who Is, and not attend to what is devoted to destruction. To abide with Wisdom as the Teacher, is to spend attention on His complete, lacking-nothing guidance for my own discipleship and also those He has entrusted to me.
Discipleship cannot be done in absence. It cannot be done by taking the easy way out, or by removing myself from responsibility according to the wisdom of the world.
Being a mother is exceptional training for a mind, a spirit, a body that hears the Word of the Lord.
There are no substitutes.
Click & HEAR:
Deuteronomy 6
Deuteronomy 7
Deuteronomy 8
I keep hearing this lie: "It really can't matter that much, look how many are doing just fine"
I can tell it's a lie because the Spirit doesn't speak to me that way. Gentle reproving, that is the way of a Father. Not enabling.
"And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day." 6:24
To be holy, chosen, the one the Lord has set His love upon, is to be an heir. Who would want a selfish, self-indulgent heir?
What we do with the inheritance we have here on earth is how we are trained for full eternal inheritance. Children are an inheritance from the Lord.
The single thing we have is attention, the mind. Everything else is stuff. Setting the mind to stuff is the path to destruction. "but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful".
Man, it's easy to get tangled up with stuff. It's understandable--we can see it. What is unseen though is the real treasure.
Listening to Deuteronomy 6 & 7 this morning, it lands again that these handmade gods aren't at all what we are dealing with, yet in order to get to the bottom of fear, we have to acknowledge that while we aren't carving and plating wood, we get tangled up with stuff faster than we can possibly realize.
"Do not bring an abomination into your house, you shall utterly detest it, and utterly abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction."
To increase in maturity is the ability to discern what lives on as a household god in our own culture. It's way too easy to commend ourselves for any of our religious practices (that's why it's not about particular practice), and go on worshiping any old thing that delights. The word covet in 7:25 means desire, take pleasure in. Desire. That part of me that is only designed to be filled by the true intimacy with my God, shall not be fornicating about with the stuff all the world is pursuing in their lack of fullness.
It really can be anything. I've often referred to the wilderness, the experiences of Israel, as they went around and around with discontent, rebellion, complaint--as a trailer. God mercifully gave us a preview of our own unfaithful hearts and instead of receiving the warning, we take it all literal in order to avoid the confrontation of it.
"What idols?"
Repentance is such a gift. It is to release any need to hold onto a pretense of my own righteousness, and to take HOLD of the gift that is actual, true, authentic life--Christ's holiness.
The Spirit has revealed that the only reason that man has come up with religion is to avoid reality. The western church itself is founded on a mimicry of pagan religious worship instead of on the truth that is Jesus Christ. The reason we do it is so that we can go on in our idolatry and maintain an image of piety, which is a lie. Our spirit knows it though, so we not only miss out on real life, we are just as shallow and foolish as anyone else. But if we've been told "this is how you Christian", and don't decide I can know Christ as well as Paul did, we don't get the benefit of actual faith--aionos zoe. Eternal life. Could this church habit be the "strong delusion" in 2 Thessalonians 2:11?
Why does it continually say be alert! Be awake! Be steadfast! Pay attention! Listen! HEAR!
I think maybe it's because ATTENTION is all we have and we are so busy spending it--and teaching our children how to spend it unfaithfully--just like the heathen, that our hearts are too hard to receive the Word.
Hard heart=closed ears.
Worship=attention.
Time=discipleship.
Maturity=discernment.
Idol=anything devoted to destruction.
Is this why even "church people" children are being sacrificed to the gods of the culture we live in? We don't know how to recognize an idol?
Every time I find myself in a selfish moment, putting my own desires over humble gratitude, my heart becomes hard, my words become angry, I become self-indulgent, entitled, bitter--and my mothering reflects all of it. Is it any wonder that out of a society that is determined (unashamedly) to get away from their own children for happiness, that we have children that will growing up without maturity, discipline, attention? Our job is discipleship. No one else will do this but ourselves.
Did you know that sending children away for "education" originates in Sumerian city-states that did not know God? That is because while there was absolutely nothing wrong with the design, humanity is selfish. Enter disintegration. First you separate a family. Then you elevate knowledge so that it rises above relationship. Then, you get all the mothers agreeing they are much happier and have better, easier lives without the "burden" of daily mothering, training, reasoning, question-answering. This is when you have to label things as subjects and make them into a burden, increasing "importance". A cursory glance through a book on ancient Mesopotamia reveals the roots of the volumes of ignorance being peddled as scholarship...this can only happen in a place ignorant of the God of the Universe. We are settling for disintegrated models with devious roots.
Do we know anything about the roots of anything we accept? If the root is bad, the fruit is bad.
When Paul was alive in ancient Rome, he warned them not to accept high sounding arguments based on human reasoning. This was Hippocrates. This was Socrates. This was Aristotle. This was Plutarch.
In Medieval times, religion tried to smash it out. But because devious humanity making anything into religion is sin, it became evident that religious abstinence from what was called 'knowledge' wasn't going to rid them of their sinful desires, and the Renaissance then revived what is called science and arts--with emphasis on astrology of course, alluded to in Deuteronomy 4:19. Do we really not know how to perceive what is awry with the way we go? All of this doesn't matter, if one knows God, and if it does matter, it matters most if you think that your safety and prosperity is dependent on it--which should not be, if I am a possession and daughter of the Most High King.
"reader, pay attention"
Time spent discipling is a ONE model. Of the Creator, who did not forget a single thing. Every moment spent in attention, WITH young humans, is rich with experiences that increase my own maturity, as well as cause deep desire and awe of God because every opportunity He provides is perfect.
In this place--unburdened by modern-day entrapments, it is good for us to be here! I have all that I need. There is absolutely nothing that the pagan can teach my child that I wasn't designed to disciple them better. All things start with the ability to hear. To perceive and receive Who Is, and not attend to what is devoted to destruction. To abide with Wisdom as the Teacher, is to spend attention on His complete, lacking-nothing guidance for my own discipleship and also those He has entrusted to me.
Discipleship cannot be done in absence. It cannot be done by taking the easy way out, or by removing myself from responsibility according to the wisdom of the world.
Being a mother is exceptional training for a mind, a spirit, a body that hears the Word of the Lord.
There are no substitutes.
Click & HEAR:
Deuteronomy 6
Deuteronomy 7
Deuteronomy 8
I keep hearing this lie: "It really can't matter that much, look how many are doing just fine"
I can tell it's a lie because the Spirit doesn't speak to me that way. Gentle reproving, that is the way of a Father. Not enabling.
"And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day." 6:24
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