Grace is only truly valued by losers .....

... even one's 'winning" life is a loser, at its end .....


... the Shepherd King goes after the loser 
and celebrates the lost in Heaven.


... allow the party to begin, right now, over Him.


+++


"When the lord of the vineyard finally laces into the bellyachers - 
when he finally gives them, in a rhetorical question,
the precise reason why judgment falls, not on the unacceptable,
but only on those who will not accept acceptance -


he says :
"Is your eye evil because I am good ?"
It is the evil eye, you see - 
the ophthalmos poneros,
the eye that loves the darkness of its book-keeper's black ink,
the eye that cannot stand the red ink of UNsuccess,
as it appears in the purple light of Grace -
that is condemned here." 


"Kingdom, Grace, Judgement" R. Capon 


+++


Our weapons are spiritual, 
not the treacherous and deceitful expressions of this world. 
God's way of fighting is unique, He overcomes by being overcome. 
Christ conquered by being crucified. 
Love wins by surrendering, yielding. 
Your focus to win your battle must be forsaking the world's way of warfare. 
Holy love is your greatest weapon, for it brings you to Christ.
-Brian Simmons (facebook)


+++

more unbinding ...

more "un-religiousing" :


If anyone denies God, God will deny him?!!! 


2 Tim 2:11-13 


The logic of God endorses our faith: 
if we were included in his death 
we are equally included in his resurrection.


We were co-included in his suffering 
and also co-reign together with him. 


Our contradiction does not change God’s mind, 
his mind changes the contradiction. 


What God believes concerning our co-inclusion 
is not under threat, 
if we do not believe what he believes about us, 
he will prove that we were wrong about ourselves. 


(The word arneomai means to contradict)


Our unbelief does not change what God believes; 
he cannot contradict himself! 
+
(See Rom 3:3,4 
What we believe about God does not define him; 
God’s faith defines us.)

+
See the Mirror translation on Facebook !
+
Oh WOW! I just looked up the passage on a bible site 
and it also showed cross-references of 
Matthew 10:33, 19:28, Luke 9:26, 12:9. 
So I mentally changed the wording from 
"deny","disown", or "is ashamed of" to 
"contradicts" and "contradict" and 
OMG... well... 
you read it and see the difference it makes! 
For example:

Matt 10:33 
But whoever contradicts Me before men, 
I will also contradict him before My Father who is in heaven.

I.e if we say what is NOT TRUE of HIM 
to each other He will just say what IS TRUE of US 
to our Father!!! 
Does this not make much more sense!!!


Willem Boshoff wrote this comment: 
Paul contradicted Jesus with all his might.....
but grace contradicted and conquered 
his own hatred and law-based efforts: 


For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, 
how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. 
And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, 
being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 
But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb 
and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me....
Gal 1:13-14 


(above discussion from Mirror Reflection on Facebook)


+
+
+

Jesus is a liberationist,

(most radical amongst radicals)

condemnation is of another spirit,
that is defeated, though still active,
through our lack of Knowledge.

The word "damned" as in :

"he that believes and is baptised shall be saved (sozo)
but he that believes not shall be damned (katokrino)"
(M16)

is not "put into hell",
but has opted for "the courtroom".

The opposite is sozo
has opted for "Messiah's non-courtroom safe ground".

Likewise "condemnation" (krisis, krima)
speaks of "trial by judges".

The only ones operating in condemnation, now,  are :
the un-Graced heart of man,
the lawyers of religion,
and the devil.

+
+
+

Left-handedness - generalities .....

science believes the brain to be to dual natured;
right brain creative; 
left brain linear;

then strangely,
right brain controls left hand;
left brain controls right hand;

generally,
right hand is the fighting hand;
left hand is the nurturing hand.

God will never allow Himself to be put in a box,
so the following is to be taken as supportive
but not definitive of some good symbology.

Left-handedness is the way Jesus operates.

where people wanted a warring King,
Jesus came as a loving and healing Apostle.
And He has given us the power to be the same.

Justified by law is right-handed
Justified by faith is left-handed.

Proud- right-handed;
humble - left-handed

Abram (believed God) travelled and claimed the land to the left.
Jacob crossed his hands when delivering the blessing.
The priest cupped the Oil in his left hand.
Honour is in the left hand.
The Shepherd King supports the head
of His Shulamite Bride with His left hand.

The "call down destruction" lads, James and John,
had sorted out that one of them was going to be
on the right hand of Jesus, or the left.
Jesus couldn't be bothered.

If your right hand offend you cut it off.
Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing
when it is being loving and charitable.

So i see John the baptist as right-handed,
"repent then get baptised to remit your sins"
Jesus as left-handed,
"because i have forgiven and released your sins.
change your mind"

John looking for a "take Earthly control" Messiah
Jesus reveals Himself as Messiah
by healing, delivering and raising people.

Grace is left handed
Religion (re-binding) is right handed.


and so on

What is valued by the world is not by God.

the idea is to have a way of thinking, 
that doesn't have you dotting the i s 
and crossing the t s with Jesus, 
thus going back under law and performance.

+
+
+

God figure as the anti-hero .....

a parable where Jesus isn't afraid
to have the god figure look disreputable.

A certain judge (grk=krites) (the god figure)
who respected neither public opinion, or god.

He breaks all the rules of the judging business,
to become a self-serving agent of grace.
This is god being God.

He is not stuck in a god box
and He is not stuck in a theologians box.

There was a widow (chera)
who asked the judge for a
favourable judgment (ekdikeson)
against her adversary.

the widow is a loser in this life,
but she thinks she can be a winner
by getting some marginal justice.

For a while (epi chronon) (earthly time)
the judge tells her that her case is worthless.

Afterward (meta tauta) (God time)
the judge had a change of heart.

The judge reasons :
simply because she is giving me trouble (tsouris)
I will grant her favourable judgment
so she doesn't wear me out (hypopiaze).

The God figure is willing to be perceived as unjust,
so as to get a world full of "loser" "winners" out of his courtroom.

Yes, those losers-who-think-they-are-winners,
who are still mired in their futile pursuit of
the spiritual buck,
the moral buck,
the intellectual buck,
the physical buck,
or the financial buck.

While we were yet sinners
Christ died for us. (R5)

This God doesn't even wait for us to accept that we are losers;
He simply goes ahead with His own plans for us in His Time (kairos).

Like the prodigal father,
He just wants us to stop being wet blankets,
and let the party begin !!!

(parable in L18)
(more reading in "Kingdom, Grace, Judgment" by R. Capon)
+
+
+

selah ...

“The kingdom of God does not come with observation ....
the kingdom of God is within you.” (L17)


i.e. ****Kingdom is now, and it is spiritually realised****


+++


"narrow is the gate
and compressed is the way
that leads (has implication of dying)  
to life real and genuine (has implication of resurrection)
and few (has implication of intensity)
find it (has implication of chanced upon)" ... (M7)


+++


otherwise, 
why be baptised into the corpse
if the corpse rises not, 
who would be baptised to remain a corpse (1C15)


[previous discussion is on 
death being overcome 
for those who are Christ's]


+++


As I live, says the Lord,
every knee shall bow to me, (as in worship) 
and every tongue shall 
confess to God. (acknowledge openly and joyfully)


So then every one of us 
shall give account of himself to God. (a reasoning)


Let us not therefore judge one another any more:
but judge this rather, 
that no man put a stumblingblock 
or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. (R14)


+++

lostness, lastness, death and resurrection, in the parables of the left-handed Jesus

[from "The Parables of Kingdom, Grace, Judgment"
by Robert Capon]

..... From the point of view of those
who object to the left-handedness of the Gospel,
you see, Jesus' mistake was not His rising
in an insufficiently clear way and then sailing
off into the clouds.
That, if anything, was only a tactical error.
His great strategic miscalculation was dying
in the first place:
after such a grievous capitulation to lastness
and lostness, no self-respecting winner
could even think of doing business with Him.

It is not, of course, that we are to run out
and actively seek a miserable life like Lazarus's.
Contrary to the misreading of the spiritual advice
of earlier centuries (for example
the go-hunt-for trouble interpretation of Donne's
"Be covetous of crosses, let none fall"),
we are not to go searching for loathsome
diseases and rotten breaks.

Life in this vale of tears will provide
an ungenteel sufficiency of such things ....
The truth, rather, is that the crosses
that will inexorably come -
and the death that will
inevitably result from them -
are, if accepted, all we need.

For Jesus came to raise the dead.
He did not come to reward the rewardable,
nor improve the improvable,
nor correct the correctible;
he came simply to be
the resurrection and the life of those
who will take their stand on a death
he can use, instead of on a life he cannot.

Immersion ....

Jesus shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost


Jesus shall baptize with fire (M3:11)


Jesus' baptism of death (M10:39)


be baptized with the Holy Ghost (A1:5)


be baptized every one of you in the name (authority) 
of Jesus Christ who forgives and releases from sin (A2:38)


here is water; what stops me being baptized (A8)


Jesus' baptism [of forgiveness and release from sin]
supercedes John's baptism of repentance (A19:4)


were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death (R6:3)


by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body (1C12:13)


been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (G3:27)


Buried with him in baptism (C2:12)


baptism into His death results in a inward cleaness and peace (1P3:21)






Phillip was a baptiser into Jesus
Peter, John were baptisers into Holy Spirit (A8)


Paul was a preacher of Jesus 
and a demonstrator of Holy Spirit. (1C

common to all ...

--- who is knocking and who is opening the door (the strait gate). --

One might think that one has this life under control.
One, certainly, cannot have one's death under control.

Jesus enjoys us to identify with His death and resurrection.
"I am the Door".
Death is conquered by His work at the cross.

The graciousness of Grace is most evident upon one's death.
There is not one thing a person can do to avoid death.
It is common to all.
Only Jesus has lovingly shown us, by example, His resurrection.
Take up the only cross that  allows one to identify
with His death, burial and resurrection, and pass through that Door.

No one earns being sucked through that Door,
one can only trust.
His example of His first fruits of resurrection,
is worked in those that trust that cross.

Trusting Jesus is a place of rest
this side, and the other side, of the Door.

Our self effort at righteousness does not endear us to Jesus.

"Lord didn't we .. "

"Well, what you did was not what I was about .. "

if the world could be saved by righthandedness ..

excerpts from Robert Capon "Kingdom, Grace, Judgment"

... the world can't be saved by [our] living ..
... we don't live well enough ..
... our goodness is flawed goodness ..
... we love our kids but still mess them up ..
... i'm nice and so are you ..
... except when my will is crossed
or your convenience is not consulted -
and then we are both so fearful,
that we get mean, in order to seem, tough.
And so on ..

.. it is not badness as opposed to goodness;
it is sin,
the incurable human tendency to put self first ..
[so] there is
no right deed, however
good, noble, lawful, thrifty, brave, clean or reverent -
that cannot be done for the wrong reason,
that cannot be tainted and totally corrupted by sin ..

... neither we nor the world can be saved by efforts at living well.
If the human race could have straightened up its act
by simple pursuit of goodness it would have done so long ago.

if the world could have been saved by (righthanded) bookkeeping,
it would have been saved by Moses, not Jesus.
The law was just fine.
And God gave it a good  thousand years or so
to see if anyone could pass a test like that.

But when nobody did -
when it became perfectly clear that there was
"no one righteous, not one", (R3)
that "both jews and gentiles alike
were all under the power of sin" -
God gave up on salvation by the books.

He cancelled everybody's records, in the death of Jesus,
and rewarded us all, equally and fully,
with a NEW creation in the resurrection of the dead.

+
+
+

throne of .....

Even Jesus' Throne is described as of Grace.


(law is not exalted)


The following are the descriptions of 


God's Throne


+++++


New Testament


... throne of his glory ..... (M25)


[Glory = Goodness + Grace + Mercy + Loving-kindness (Ex33)]




... Heaven is my throne ..... (A7)


... throne of grace ..... (H4)


... the throne of the Majesty ..... (H8)


+++++


Old Testament


... throne of his glory ..... (1S2)


... the throne of his holiness ..... (Ps47)


... Justice and judgment are the habitation of your throne: 
mercy and truth shall go before thy face .... (Ps89)


..... interestingly -


... Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with You
—they who frame and hide their unrighteous doings 
under [the sacred name of] law? ...... (Ps94-Amp) 


+++++




description of natural thrones heeding God's Word : 

... his throne is upholden by mercy ..... (Pr20)

... his throne shall be established in righteousness ..... (Pr25)

+
+
+

Free Believers i.d.ing religious behaviour ..

+
+
+
Symptoms you may be suffering 
from a religious behavior management disorder:


1. You feel spiritual pressure to be a good Christian, 
rather than confidence that you are able to live 
from your new and supernaturally-strong heart.


2. The message you’re hearing from church leadership 
is chiefly about avoiding sin, 
rather than indulging the goodness of your new heart.


3. Fear of not living up to God’s or others’ expectations 
is stronger than your sense of God’s delight in you.


4. Spiritual heaviness.


5. You're constantly being asked by leadership to be more committed.


6. Every message is about getting you to do something, 
or to stop doing something.


7. The leadership is more concerned with managing people's sin, 
than releasing a new life that is now within them.


~ Ted Nelson
+
+
+
15 signs that you’re dealing with one of the “chosen”:

1. Others who don’t agree with me are unbiblical 
while I am always biblical.

2. The original Greek/Hebrew is never pulled out 
to support other people’s point, but always my own.

3. Others who come to different conclusions than me 
while reading the same Bible are twisting scripture, 
while I always know and speak the “untwisted” version.

4. Satan has blinded the minds of others 
when they do not see things they way I see them. 

My mind is never blinded.

5. If anyone strongly disagrees with what I believe 
then they are a Heretic.

6. Any verbal Christian who disagrees 
with what I think scripture says is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

7. The gospel that I preach is always the same gospel that Paul preached. 

Anyone who differs from what I preach 
is preaching a different gospel than Paul 

and is therefore an anathema and cursed.

8. If I can use more words (the bigger the better) 
than others in a comment thread, I win.

9. If anyone sways from the penal substitution theory of atonement, 

then they do not believe in the Jesus or God of the Bible.

10. Orthodox belief is always what I believe.

11. Others are on slippery slopes, not me.

12. I have a pure reading and understanding of scripture; 

my opinion, preferences, culture, personal beliefs and upbringing 

have absolutely no influence in my biblical understanding.

13. I am always part of God’s in-crowd.

14. There is an absolute Truth, and I know it. 

Anyone who disagrees with me is believing and speaking lies. 

Satan has deceived them.

15. In the end, me and my God will win. You’ll see.



~ Jeremy Johnson+
+
+
1. Does your church tightly control the flow of information within its ranks?
2. Do they use public shaming as a method to gain the compliance of followers?
3. Is your spiritual leader intolerant of questions or critical inquiry?
4. Is your spiritual leader the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation?
5. Do they have unreasonable fears about the outside world 
such as evil conspiracies or persecutions?
6. Are you discouraged to associate with former members, 
being warned that they are "evil" or "defiling"?
7. Is leaving your group to join another church equal to leaving God?
8. Does the surrounding community view your church as a cult?
9. Do they consider it evil persecution when criticized or questioned?
10. Do the goals of your spiritual leader 
seem to supersede any personal goals or individual interests?
11. Do you fear being rebuked, shunned, or ignored 
for expressing a different opinion?
12. Do former members often relate the same stories of abuse 
and reflect a similar pattern of grievances?
If you answered "yes" to three or more, 
your church is showing signs of being unhealthy. 
If you answered "yes" to six or more, 
your church is very unhealthy. 
If you answered "yes" to eight or more, 
your church is more than likely a full-blown authoritarian cult.
+
+
+

thesaurou that fascinates forever .....

..... then peculiarly, Jesus finishes with the following : 

Have ye understood all these things?They say unto him, Yea, Lord.

Then said he unto them, 

Therefore * every scribe 

which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven 

is like unto a man that is an householder, 

which bringeth forth out of his treasure

things new and old. (M13:51)

I was blessed to read an expansion from Robert Capon

soon after I quoted the verse above in my previous post.

Some of the following is from 
"Parables of Kingdom, Judgement, Grace."

This is Jesus bringing a humorous but pointed end 
to his teaching in the parables.

"Ya understand ?"

"Yep."

"Ok then you'll will get this next bit too ! ...."

Understood (synekate = bring together) all these things?

i.e. have you pulled these new ideas together?

Yes (nai) has all the meanings from 

"definitely got it" to "probably" to "sort it soon" to "move on" !!

Cheekily, Jesus says 

"ok, so you've pulled all the new ideas together from the parables, 
ok then, you will get this."

Here scribe (grammateus) is referring to the real scribe

not the political/religious one.

The scribe,

taught by the Kingdom;

taught for the Kingdom;

taught in relation to the Kingdom;

a learner in the Kingdom;

every careful listener to the new things 

I have been teaching about the Kingdom;

is like a "lord of the manor" (oikodespotes)

who brings out (ekkballei) 

things from his treasure (thesaurou),

things attained today and now revealed from yesterday.

If you get what I've just opened up for you,

you will unlock the treasure house !

Jesus has taught on the mystery of Kingdom;

it is universal (catholic) (kneaded into the whole lump),

it is paradoxically hidden not plausibly manifest,

it is now, not future,

it operates in the midst of hostility not only in welcome,

it mystifyingly has responses of non-violence, patience,

non-interference, and "put it on the line, investment";

rather than warfare, haste, plausible interference,

and easy safe purchases.

In this thesaurou is a new thesaurus of words 

shedding light on the mystery of the Kingdom.

Here, Holy Spirit constantly cross-references Himself in His Word,

making all things new to the eternally fascinated learner. 

+
+
+