Here, of late i’ve enjoyed a great invention by God called “quiet”. Honestly, i should have been learning to enjoy God’s creation of “quiet” long ago, but i think my internal self was far too noisy to even think about it. No, i don’t just think i was noisy, i KNOW i was noisy. There was nothing quiet about me, and when i thought i was being quiet, internally i was very noisy.

The idea of “quiet” is part of God’s sound design for the universe. In His design there are so many “rooms”, so to speak. Here’s a little context maybe: In sound design (audio production, game audio, film post, or virtual acoustics, etc), “defining a room” means specifying the acoustic properties of a space to realistically simulate or process how sound behaves within it. Some rooms are very “alive” like a music hall, and some rooms are very quiet like your bedroom at 3 a.m.. i realize that’s probably more information than most would want, but let us think about that. The goal of sound design is to assist the listener to be in the space which they are occupying. The visual and audible make for an almost complete immersive experience. If we are seeing the forest yet there is no sound of wind, birds, or any of the other sounds which accompany being in the forest, we feel disconnected somehow. So, God went to work to not only give us a visual but also the sounds of what we see in order that we would more fully engage with the world around us and other people.

In light of all that, I’ve come to greatly appreciate the idea of quiet. Quiet in my head, quiet in my heart which tends to make God easier to hear. Afterall, our goal above all things is hearing the Lord, with both ears. And let me point out quiet is not the same as silence.

We are absolutely slammed with noise these days, but our world is radically noisier than we think — street noise, the chaos of internet noise, music noise, the constant roar of all things entertainment, and just the ambient noise of all the people breathing in a large department store can be very intense. The volume is maddening and i haven’t even gotten to the noise in our heads. Even in the quietest part of where we live, there’s ambient noise like air exchange running, and the sound of the fans on the computer, etc. Most people almost never sit in quiet, and even when they do it is still not actually quiet.

On a side note, most people truly cannot stand complete and utter quiet — the noise within our own ears is suddenly too loud. it’s almost as if even the smallest things inside our mind is unnerving, so in a way, we seem to need some sort of environmental feedback which maybe lets us know we even exist and where we are. We get most of our balance from seeing the horizon and hearing our surroundings. The quietest place on Earth is the anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The room absorbs 99.99% of sound and is so silent that visitors can hear their own internal organs functioning. And, because there are no echoing sound waves to provide the brain with spatial orientation, most people inside this chamber quickly become disoriented. When all external sounds are stripped away, the silence itself feels deafening, allowing you to hear sounds you would never normally notice. In fact, with the lights off, the record for sitting in the ultimate quiet room is around 45 minutes, but most people are slowly driven insane for lack of ambient room noise or spacial orientation.

But more than just external quiet, in the Bible, God’s idea of “quiet” centers on stillness, silence, restful trust, and attentive waiting in His presence — and i believe practicing His idea of quietness is a pathway to knowing Him, finding strength, peace, and salvation amid chaos or turmoil.

Quiet is not mere inactivity or empty silence, but a deliberate ceasing of striving, anxiety, and self-reliance so that we can recognize God’s sovereignty, hear Him, and rest in His control. God’s idea of quietness pairs with trust, hope, and praise. “Be still” in Psalm 46:10 more accurately means, stop what you’re doing, let go in quiet trust, release control which leads to deeper knowledge of who Jesus is. One author wrote that when we are quiet before the Lord, “Panic and self-effort give way to expectant stillness.” Isaiah 30:15, “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength…’”

I think we can conclude that quietness (quiet or calm) combined with trust brings salvation and strength, contrasting, what i call frantic human plans.

Karl Barth wrote that, “God’s vision of quiet is relational and empowering: it counters fear and self-reliance, fosters trust, allows Him to fight/work on our behalf, and opens us to His peace and voice.” i believe God’s idea of quiet counters the noise of anxiety, busyness, mindless chatter that seems to surround us, and striving.

In a noisy world, the Bible repeatedly calls believers to cultivate this stillness—not as escape, but as the posture for knowing and experiencing God more deeply. Many find it through prayer, contemplating Scripture, solitude, or simply pausing to remember His presence.

So here … sit down. Be still a moment or two. Stop your worry for a few minutes. You know, you need rest. Aren’t you tired of church noise, entitled people noise, the roar of church conflict, complaining noise, accusing noise? Sit with Jesus, just be still and let it go, it’ll all be right where you left everything, all your worries and grieving concerns. Just stop the Lord says. He says to come sit with Him a while and He’ll share and you share, like two friends walking together.

In Psalm 46:10, the primary term for being still or being quiet, is the Hebrew word, “Raphah” and means to slacken, relax, let go, sink down, and cease. It implies, this is good so pay attention, dropping one’s grip on efforts, anxieties, or self-reliance — going limp or withdrawing from frantic activity, grow mute and stand motionless. That’s quite a vision isn’t it? Please note, this is not passive laziness but active trust: stop opposing or striving. It connects to ideas of respite and waiting. There are a few other important words used elsewhere, one in particular means quietness, or cessation of noise and motion as in the calm after a storm. Psalm 4:4 literally is a picture of the Lord saying to stop your agitation and shaking, again, stop your agitated worrying unchecked obsession with your circumstances, and literally speak to your circumstances to “be still”, or be quiet and quiet the inner storm, trust God and rest in the Lord. Friend, find your quiet place and live there.

i think we should also see what God’s vision of quiet looks like, see thematically to understand the Lord takes quiet as a necessity for us. Consider the theme of Psalm 23. It’s a picture of quietness as God sees it. “The Lord is my shepherd”, not task master but shepherd. “i shall not want”, as in, in His presence i don’t need the endorsement of men, nor titles, nor being known. Jesus is enough for me. “He makes me lie down”, to cease from my labors and trust God has got me. “He leads me besides THE still waters”, not just any still place in the river, but THE still water. “He restores my soul”, when i was overcome with the cares of this life Jesus sets me upright and heals all my wounds and afflictions that He would be known as God who heals me, Exodus 15.26. And it continues in the words of God’s kind heart for His people. Go read it. Do you see it?

i love to walk in the light of a full moon after midnight on a warm summer evening. God’s quiet is phenomenal. i want that. i need that. Come let’s go quietly together and learn to create space to hear and encounter the Lord, whom we so desperately need. We will easily find God in the still places, the quiet places, the places we cease from our striving. Stand still and listen. He is there. Don’t you know being quiet creates space for trusting God. Live full of grace, softly and quietly. It’s beyond the beyond of the noise of this world.

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries.

Pro-vision holds hands with vision in the same way a thesis serves as an early discovery process for purpose. The word finds its roots in the Greek “pro-thesis”—meaning purpose—where “pro” speaks of looking ahead or, more poetically, “breathing forward”. Thus, pro-vision is the forward sight that provides everything necessary to advance and fulfill the vision. It is how God brings something into being with the certainty of its existence—His pro-vision is the guarantee that establishes His vision.

Hear this: In God’s mouth, His Word carries holy weight: He speaks a thing into being with divine certainty. His pro-vision is the unbreakable guarantee that His vision will stand.

This is why, when we see God’s preparation (“He prepares a table before me”), we can know there is revealed the sacred order: vision — provision — preparation. There was first a vision and then a pro-vision. God holds a vision for our well-being, releases His pro-vision (providing all that is needed for the accomplishment of that vision), and then brings forth preparation as the visible manifestation of both His vision and His pro-vision. Preparation, the visible beauty of both vision and pro-vision, laid out in glory for all to see.

i do believe though, we often mistake God’s vision as an idea of how it’s going to prosper ourselves, and we take His pro-vision as the things He’s giving us to make us wealthy, comfortable, and living a life of convenience. That’s NOT what He means. He does love that we would do well, of course, but His idea of prosperous and our of prosperous are pretty different. The Lord’s vision for us is to be reconciled to Him, to be healthy and whole, mature, and be filled with the Spirit, bearing out all the fruits and gifts of the Spirit, that’s the vision. His pro-vision is about what He provides us in order that we would prosper His vision. Our error is that we take the wealth of God’s provision and tell ourselves, “it is all for me”, building ourselves large homes, buying huge amounts of property, fancy cars, flashy clothes, when in truth, all along, sometimes, if not often, it all amounts to a misappropriation of His provision, and i consider a misappropriation of Kingdom gifts and benefits to be traitorous. The Lord makes us prosperous not to prosper ourselves but to advance the Body of Christ, yet i do believe many of us have gotten lost in our own self-centered ways, with self-centered meaning, to be centered and focused on ourselves (as if you didn’t know that) … excluding God. Our weight is far more shifted toward ourselves then toward Kingdom purposes. Shift your weight friends.

The eyes see and the soul encourages the little eyes to see again. The mind wants, and the more it sees the more it wants until the heart follows suit and then … gradually, almost unnoticeably, we have lost our relish for righteous things and our relationships with other people have been set adrift, little by little by little, because of the destructive trajectory by which all began in a very subtle place. Many of our errors begin in subtleties, such “small little seemingly nothing things” that don’t appear to make a difference in the now, at the zero point, but out at a distance and over time, the error is staggering. It’s like the teenager who finally decides to take a hit of meth to just try it out for the first time. The first experience is so amazing they decide they’re going to have to try it again. Then again. Shortly, they’re hooked, always trying to relive the original high that will never happen again, ever. Almost all addicts spend all their time chasing that first high. It all began in the turn of a thought in their head that THEY wouldn’t be like THOSE others, that THEY would be able to just try once and stop, that certainly t-h-e-i-r lives would never turn out horribly like the infamous THEY.

In light of all that, it’s a provision all right, but the question is … who made the provision? It wasn’t the Lord. In light of that, we can safely say the vision behind the provision was one of hatred towards God with a full heart of destruction for mankind.

Arthur Bert used to say “Where God’s appointment is, therein is the provision”. Before the Lord made an appointment for you, He already possessed a vision of what He wanted to happen. With His vision of your destiny, in His “looking ahead sight”, He prepared, in advance what you would need to accomplish His purposes. We can completely walk in confidence knowing this: my creative metaphor here, that while you are on your journey, God is already waiting for you just beyond the bend, standing on the path ahead with open arms and a knowing smile. This is why it’s easy to say “the Lord has prepared a table before us”, because in the Hebrew word for “provision”, it comes to us with the idea of “prepare”, as in “from His provision we prepare a meal”. From His provision, the armies of the called prepare for intercession and action. From His provision, we prepare a timely word to the body of Christ. From His provision, we prepare to feed the multitudes of starving and excluded people. He extends us the vision of bringing medical aid to remote places, He makes the pro-vision of supplies, doctors, nurses, vehicles, fuel, food, plane tickets, border passes, and necessary facilities in order to advance the vision, so when we finally get to our destination, we use His provision and prepare to serve with all our heart. David meant something far, far larger than just getting to eat a great meal when He said, “You prepare a table before me.” With vision and  pro-vision comes preparing. Isaiah 45:2: “I will go before you and make the crooked places straight…”

In Romans 13:14, Paul writes to “make no provision” for the flesh. In other words don’t use, not one ounce of your “looking ahead sight for the things which advance the vision of sin” which so easily besets us. The Lord’s provision is always tied to His providence, and to use our gifts to advance the vision of ourselves, again, is a misappropriation of God’s provision, Holy Spirit gifts and benefits. i do not want to be an embezzeler of Kingdom wealth. Let us see His vision, use His pro-vision, as a noun, be guided by His purposes which are set in front of us, and prepare, as an action verb, preparing the way of the Lord, making His paths straight.

What do you think?

i’m Social Porter with Living In His Name Ministries.

Let’s look at salvation from a legal perspective.

Because of the choosing that happened in the Garden of Eden, sin entered in. Because of that choosing, satan held a pseudo-sovereignty over humanity and held mankind for ransom on the principal of “government by consent of the governed”, which is when we live without Christ, we consent to whatever weakens our reason, impairs the tenderness of our conscience, obscures our sense of God, or takes off our relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of our body over our mind, thereby we are governed by sin. The Supreme Judge in the Supreme Court of Heaven is sworn to uphold the demands of the law in every case.

In order for man to be free, by law, an innocent and willing substitute had to be found to take his place who could fully meet the demands of the law and represent both God and man. The only solution was for God to become man, paying the penalty, thereby letting man go free. Because God loved us from the beginning, He saved us from the legal penalty of death due to iniquity,

transgression, and sin.

We need to understand some of the principles of Redemption. Redemption means that one who is capable of redeeming and taking the place of another actually meets the demands of the law and becomes the legal substitute by paying the redemptive price for those who are condemned to death because of breaking the law. God decided that through the atonement and the substitution of an innocent victim to take the place of the guilty kidnapped race, He would free it from satan, thereby legally and forcefully evicting satan, restoring man’s dominion, so as to carry on the eternal purpose, as it was intended from the beginning.

Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Jesus was sent to pay the price for the death penalty man incurred in the garden, thereby breaking the power of the pseudo-sovereignty which satan

had. It was a redemptive work based on the principles of redemption for man, who being under the penalty of death, was unable to pay.

When satan put to death the sinless, innocent Son of God, the High Court of Heaven cancelled all his claims against humanity. The Lamb of God, the Righteous Son of Glory paid the penalty of ransom, thus meeting all the demands of God and the Holy Law, defeating satan and his host with his very blood. Now then, we who believe are “alive to God, in Christ”, as Paul wrote in Romans 6:14 “…sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

For the reasons stated in Romans 6:14, if we confess our sin and consecrate our lives to God, satan loses his case in the High Court of Heaven, and man comes away from court with power of attorney by the blood of Jesus, and we are made representatives and officers of God’s law, and can dispossess and cast out, can heal and strengthen, and do whatsoever the High King of Heaven says for us to do. Because of the work of Jesus Christ, it is our legal, redemptive, blood bought, divine right to be free and resist the enemies of Heaven until the intimidating grip of false authority on mankind is brought down to the ground. The walls of hell WILL fall, all the way to hell!

But for those who refuse to believe and turn from their sin, satan gives to them the sole right and power to suffer.

Christ has once and for all hurled satan from his position of power, so that he is a conquered enemy. We don’t have to bind what Christ has beaten and bound. The might of satan, the prince of all diabolical powers, is already broken. Our greatest strength against the enemies of Heaven, is not to fight against the devil, who is exhausted and defeated, but our greatest strength is to come into the likeness of The Son, Jesus, the Christ of God. Jesus has broken the powers of satan, so that those who look to God in faith are liberated from the influences of darkness.

In the heart posture towards Christ in our hearts and lives, there is no room for sitting on the fence. Every person is either for or against Him, whether we realize and acknowledge it or not.

The privilege and the seriousness of following Christ are of such tremendous magnitude that there is no room for excuse for compromise with the world, or for half-heartedness.

By faith, we live everyday in the splendid opportunity of being citizens of the kingdom of God.

The Lord’s Prayer Expanded:

Holy God, You are The One who is near us in mercy and love and at the same time You are high exalted above us, for your Name is the expression of Your Being, the Name who is sanctified in all creation. Let Your divine rule come, Your divine sovereignty which more and more fully attains it’s rightful place in the heart and life of mankind, as in Heaven where your will is obeyed, spontaneously, with perfect joy, in a perfect manner without a shadow of unfaithfulness. Lord we ask for Your supernatural aid and blessing in all the fields of our lives where Your dominion is perfect and all the real needs of man are replenished, not just for us as individuals on our own merit but in reliance on the grace of God. We ourselves ask for forgiveness as we absolve and acquit those who are indebted to us, who act wrongly towards us on the full ground of Your grace, the sweeping love of God. We concede and admit that we are weak, and are conscious of our own weakness that You would direct our path away from circumstances in which we are exposed to evil temptations, but also celebrate and are glad in You who gives us the victory and causes everything to contribute towards the good of those who love You. Help us that our prayers and life habits would not degenerate into mechanical, and ceremonial formality. For You are the Glory and power, the Perfect Friend who reigns forever. Amen.

What do you think?

In Genesis 18 we are privy to a conversation displaying all sorts of heart attitudes which are still applicable today, right where we are, everyday.

As the conversation opens, we see Abraham sitting in the door of his tent, which was his dwelling place, his home and covering. It’s probably somewhere around midday, so it’s hot and he’s taken shelter from the sun. As it goes with us, when it’s hot and we’ve gotten out of the sun for a bit, the same was probably for Abraham in that he may have even been dozing a little, waiting for the heat to fade. There are some really key points in this story for us to notice. Abraham himself is more than likely still recovering from circumcision three days earlier, so he is sitting rather than moving about. The text gives no indication that he has been watching the horizon or expecting company. Suddenly, against that background, three figures are simply there.

In all of that, the Lord drew my attention to a process in vs. 2, where it says, “he lifted up his eyes”, “he looked”, and “when he saw”. If we look a little deeper than the English simplization of the verse, looking at the Hebrew, variations of seeing come to light. To say, “he lifted up his eyes” is an idiom meaning he was looking around, not looking at anything specific, like someone who is waking up from dozing, noticing their environment, with no particular focus.

The next phrase is “he looked”—Hebrew ra’ah. Something has caught Abraham’s attention. He’s no longer just scanning the landscape. His gaze locks onto something—or someone—of special note.

In this case, the word “ra-ah” carries a note of surprise, a sudden realization. It’s the difference between casually saying “look” and saying, “Look at that.”

Three figures appear where a moment before the visual field was empty, which was completely out of the ordinary for a man sitting at his tent in the middle of nowhere. I believe God Himself is directing Abraham’s eyes. It’s the kind of moment that makes you think, “Oh my—where did they come from?”

Now watch what happens with the same word the second time.

The phrase “when he saw them” uses ra’ah again, but with a deeper nuance. This is no longer just noticing. This is prophetic seeing—eyes wide open, head and heart fully engaged, contemplating something astonishing.

And that little word “when” matters because “when” is a time word. It hints that a moment passed and Abraham took it in. Realization and revelation settled on him.

God alone is the sole source of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, and if God doesn’t give us wisdom and insight, we simply won’t have it. i am saying, there is wisdom here to be grasped in a modern society where uncertainty is deliberately advanced by those whose hearts are darkened to leverage others for their own advantage at the expense of those held in uncertainty. You know those types, the ones who count every word to either gain a following or to shape a response. This is not that.

God operates in the opposite. He wants us to be certain, and to be wise and have understanding. As a result, here is three facets of seeing, intentional orientation, sudden discovery, and focused perception and understanding. Thinking of those three facets, we can see they describe how we come to understand things, they reveal God’s process, and point to His preferences, and standards.

The Lord’s heart is not only for us to wake up and grow up, but also to be interested enough in Him to take notice and understand. Today, too much of the church is simply spending their time being continually cycled through an organized program every Sunday and it’s very contractual. Typical leadership seems to have the attitude that congregations need to be managed, and as long as people are engaged in “activities”, they feel like they’re being a part of something larger. It is government by consent of the governed. Church leaders design and run the programs, schedules, and activities and the people keep showing up, participating, giving, and staying. Their continued participation is treated as consent. As long as the congregation remains engaged in the organized cycle, leadership can claim (or at least operate as if) they have the people’s agreement to be managed this way. It is consent to being managed rather than consent to growing up. The people are content and consent to a shallow, activity-based arrangement, and leadership is content to sit up high and govern on that basis.

From the beginning, God almighty desired to be known by the object of His affection, us. He not only offers us deliverance and salvation, but He shares His attributes with us, and “seeing” is one of them. He desires we be involved with Him, doing more than simply possessing fire insurance and fully engaging in activities, but knowing Him and understanding, certain and confident He is all He says and more. His ways are better than ours, higher and profitable. He will, indeed, if we are willing to do more than just casual looking, God will open our eyes to “see” and comprehend. He wants us to do more than simply go to church, His desire is for us to advance our relationship with Him and the body of Christ. That is the “having life more abundantly” part spoken of in John 10:10.

Not too long ago, upon hearing the scripture from John 10:10, where Jesus said that He came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly, an inmate at jail church said, “i’ve been living a two-part life. A life as a rebellious criminal, and another life as a believer. All my days i’ve been in poverty on both sides of that two-part life, and now you’re telling me that Jesus wants me to have life abundantly? i’d sure like all that abundantly to show up about now.” The man was looking but not seeing, he may have been focusing in general, but not on the Lord specifically. His head and heart operated independently of each other, and were not in sync. The inside of his house did not match the outside, or, his conscience and character did NOT get along, in fact they probably often opposed each other. He was conflicted!

There was always the undercurrent of criminal thinking, and if he got entirely too honest then the thrill of leveraging the outcome at the expense of someone else would be gone, his eyes would be opened, and then he’d have to be responsible. Just going to church didn’t solve any of his problems, but for a while, he sure did look good without actually having to be righteous.

Let us do more than just live a life of continually rising from our drowsy state, more than just looking around with unfocused eyes, but be fully engaged with God, head and heart as one. Choose to look, purposely note what God is pointing out to you, and look carefully enough to understand. Like Abraham, let us orient, discover, and then discern.

What do you think?

Now that we believe Jesus is Lord, we don’t fit in the world anymore, so where do we fit?

In the last many months, on and off, i’ve been in a discussion of being indifferent versus having excessive compassion? Many times i was pegging the meter because I was indifferent, and felt guilty about being indifferent, and wondered why I didn’t feel bad because I didn’t feel bad about being indifferent? Other times i was pegging the meter in destructive compassion because I knew God was compassionate and I should be compassionate also, but I couldn’t help but become a real mush brain, getting sucked into the downward vortex of being sympathetic instead of empathetic.

Finding the middle ground on that was completely a work of the Lord. Not being indifferent, while not being angry, and not being excessively compassionate at the same time is all entirely a God thing. When I brought up the initial topic of indifference versus being compassionate to my own deprivation, I think the, metaphorical wheels on my airplane were clipping the tops of the trees, with the wingtips occasionally scraping the ground. If i wasn’t flying too high nearly passing out from lack of oxygen, i was flying too low nearing a crash moment, but thank you Jesus it didn’t happen and the Lord leveled me out soon enough.

I guess the parachute in that whole dilemma was me coming to grips with… Where am I in all of this, not where are other people in all of this, but where am i? …and learning to not be angry or indifferent with the rest of the world because of all the things their relationship with God is Not. The Lord reminded me again, after reminding me again, after reminding me again that there will always be a long line of irritating people with the wrong view of just about everything, but I don’t have to keep standing there agonizing with them over the torment and woe they’ve generated for themselves, or unwittingly bought into.

I am reminded of the story a friend of mine named Wilson told me about when he was in prison many years ago. He said he gave his life to the Lord and suddenly woke up to see the long line of people always wanting to either get him in trouble, getting him into fights, or wanted to sell him drugs. He said he cried out to God and asked over and over, Lord please remove from in front of me the long line of difficult people. He said one especially distressful day, the Lord said to him very plainly, Wilson, there will always be a long line of those kind of people, but you don’t have to keep standing there. Oh.

If we don’t fit with the world, and the Lord has called us out of religion and church-ianity, where do we fit? In the past, i’ve been burdened day and night in weeping prayer asking the Lord where I fit? His reply to me was simple… “You fit with me and I will make you fit where you need to be fitted.”

Consider the time after the Lord came to heal the sick and made salvation available to all who would believe. At the end of things, God will have given plenty of time for the world to prove to itself we will never possess righteousness through evolution and that God is the only One who decides when the end of a season is over and a new one starts. We are right on the tipping point of a big transition as written about in the Bible. Isaiah61 and in Rev19 are two passages which run parallel to each other, both referring to the bride who is making herself ready.

Imagine, right now we are in God´s fitting room trying on our wedding garments, and we’re starting to get the idea, this is no ordinary fitting room.

We don’t get to choose our own wedding apparel, that is the Lord’s doing. Isaiah61:10, “For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness”. The world’s way of fitting the wedding attire is to cut or let out some material to fit the body of the bride. The Lord´s way is to fit the body of the bride to the one and only wedding garment, the righteousness of Jesus as opposed to the self-righteousness of man. Some of us are too fat, so He dresses us down, adding frailty, and some of us are too thin, so He builds us up, adding strength, so that we all come to the right size, personally and collectively, as a body. Righteousness is the size of the wedding apparel, and it only comes in one size.

This refers to one purpose, among many, concerning sanctification as steps to maturity. Look at this from another direction …in Revelation the Lord is both Lion of Judah and the Lamb without stain who is the only one able to open the scroll. Some of us are lions transformed into lambs like Peter, and others, are like Gideon, lambs who God transforms into lions. The Lord knows exactly how to fit us into righteousness, He knows exactly what we need that He might present the church to Himself in majestic brightness, without spot, wrinkle or even a smudge, that we would be holy and without blemish, just as it’s written in Eph5:27. There is how we fit.

Along with other references to God’s party and marriage invitation in the Gospels, the Lord also has something to say to the guests trying to crash the party without the proper attire…. the door is shut to them because of the refusal to submit to His will and values.

What do you think?

To be a teacher is more than just knowing stuff. It is more than simply telling answers. It seems to me that anyone who only wants to walk among other people, never asking questions but only telling answers, doesn’t want to really be involved with the body but only needs subordinates. i figure teaching is a lot like being a pruner. If someone is considered a professional pruner for grapevines and fruit trees, they’ve got to have a deep appreciation for the vine or tree, they’ve got to be patient, gracefully disposed, willing to be involved, possessing a huge understanding of how it works, and an ultimate goal of making the vine bear as much fruit as possible.

In early Greek culture, someone who was a teacher was spoken of as you would speak of someone who was a choral master, someone who blended voices and choral poetry for public performance, and was also responsible for a correct performance. Aren’t pruners and teachers very similar? i think yes. The pruner helps train the vine to go a different way for the reason of keeping the vine healthy and to bear more fruit. The calling requires real wisdom and insight for a plan of action. It may take the pruner several seasons of tying up branches and limbs in a certain direction, trimming some off and letting others grow in order to achieve the goal of the master of the vineyard. Can you see how the pruner, like a teacher, creates a grape vine which functions like choral poetry? Sure you can. It can also be said that anyone who teaches is also characterized with learning, for to teach is to learn, and every time a pruner puts his hand to the vine he learns a little more about the characteristics of what makes it tick.

i’ve heard it said that every vine, to the discerning pruners eye, has unique characteristics, and each variety of grape vine is as an individual. We, as the people of God are individually unique, and every good teacher should carefully become familiar with their subjects, gently being involved with their pupils, shaping them, snipping a little, directing in a better direction, all with the purpose of improving each one to be more fruitful. That is a good teacher, or a good pruner.

Yet here, i want to point out an observation about the teachers/pruners of today. There are indeed some very good teachers/pruners around. But there’s also a multitude who are pruning the vines, not with a set of sharp shears, a well honed knife, and a keen eye, but they’re pruning with a club, beating the branches off the vine. Many who say they are teachers are brutalizing others by only telling answers, being very unsympathetic to the agony of their pupils, and filling their heads with twisted notions and half-answers framed more to control rather than make them fruitful. A good teacher is a poet in the classroom as well as in the field, instructing and explaining specific talents, and even strategy. Don’t professional pruners also teach the vine the best way to go, and strategize with the vineyard owner? The vine is purposely planted north to south so it gets as much sun as possible, with the sun going east to west. As a result, the pruner must prune some leaves to cover parts of the grape cluster from the heat of the sun, as well as remove just enough so as to allow the sun to ripen the yield of the field evenly. It’s a very intuitive business, and one requiring great understanding about how the vine grows.

If, in God’s constant agriculture analogy, from Adam and Eve being tenders of the garden to the call for us all to be fruitful, i see apostles as planters, and teachers as pruners. In the O.T., the word for pruners came with the idea of someone who strikes the strings with their fingers. It was a delicate touch on the strings to make a beautiful sound, not in the sense of pounding the instrument in a effort to beat a melody out of it, which would be like pruning with a club. In fact, the way the Lord gave us the Hebrew word, the first letter is a knife, and the last letter is a picture of constructive or destructive cutting away, and the letter right in the middle is one of wisdom. So, for pruners, between the knife and trimming of the vine is a flowing stream of wisdom. Can you see the picture there … can you see the sequence of a knife, wisdom, and cutting? With a little knife, choice and wise constructive cutting away draws out the greatness of the vine, as in a creative process to prosper all the little knife trims.

If we prune with a club, the vine will be years in recovery before it bears fruit again. Aren’t brutal teachers who choke their students down to “make” them learn, aren’t they trimming the vine with a club, and their brutalized students might well be years recovering to become fruitful again? No wonder in James 3:1, scripture reads, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Why? Because the fruitfulness of the vine is in your hands as a teacher, probably more than anyone else. Pruning 101 says you’ve got to be gentle, prayerfully consider to understand each branch and vine, use wisdom and think carefully before you cut one back or let another stand. Be wise and don’t cut down fruitful trees. C’mon, i know you’re probably irritated with a lot of poor students, but in the mean time, don’t cut down fruitful trees.

What do you think?

i’m Social Porter with Living In His Name Ministries

Genesis 1:31, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” It wasn’t merely good from God’s perspective, it was very good, and it could not have been good unless God made it. That means He imparted Himself into all which was made in order for it to be good. Here begins, a closer look to find the attributes of God Almighty intrinsic to all that was made. i am by no means a scholar, nor do i consider myself scholarly. i simply try, read, make notes, and truly have a heart to know the Lord. As i’ve said before, God is the most important person in the universe and He has the most important things to say in the universe. i’d really like to know Him and hear what He’s got to say, more than knowing myself, you, or anyone else. The simple glance of His eye is more important than the deepest things born of flesh and blood.

i reckon a great place to start is by looking at the book of “first things”, Genesis. What did God hide of Himself in The Heavens. Let’s “BREAK IT DOWN”.

There are two parts to the concept of “heavens”, one is physical which includes all that is above the earth, and the second is in reference to the beautiful base camp and dwelling place of God. For the sake of brevity, i’ll keep it to the physical.

In 1530 the word was translated as only the “visible dome or arch of the sky”, but at a closer look, God made it so much more. In Gen1:8 the heavens are referred to with the word “expanse” attached, which brings with it the idea that God “hammered” it out, so to speak, when He created the “vault above the earth” known as “the heavens”, that plasma blue dome over our heads. From my limited view of things, i imagine the Lord in the never ending extension of His dwelling place developing the “expanse of the Heavens” by holding His concept, like a malleable ball, in His hands. With His fingers, He pressed it down, pushed it over and stretched it back, rolled it all out flat, folded the sky back together, then rolled it out again, stretching and pressing outward until He got it to the right size according to His design parameters. Then with a precisely shaped Holy Ghost hammer, He tapped it all into place to become what we now see over our heads.

When the Lord created the heavens, that in and of itself was an infinitely incredible feat of wisdom, engineering, and rolling creativity. Isaiah40:22 says the Heavens are stretched and spread out like a tent or a curtain. From the Heavens we get sunrise, and sunset, sun, moon, stars, rain, snow, thunder, etc. Clouds and birds constantly find their course in the space we call the sky or what God created as “the Heavens”. We have many idioms and metaphors in reference to the heavens, like when Israel was disobedient, the Lord said He would make “the heavens like iron”, a metaphor meaning no rain and He would give a deaf ear to them except to hear their repentance.

The heavens tell of the glory of God in Psalm 19:1, they declare His righteousness and praise Him according to Psalms 50 & 69. The O.T. word is spelled in such a way so as to indicate that the Lord is revealed and also concealed in all He made, and i do believe something moves in our heart when we look into the expanse of the sky. Something deep within us responds to God who has hidden of Himself, wonder and eternity in the Heavens. The very idea of “the heavens” was designed for us by the Lord as a shelter, where God, who is the very geometry of creation, connects to us like a flowing stream. In English, we just say heavens, but God intends us to realize it is much larger than simply saying “the sky”. In all things which He made there is a common thread of God revealed and God concealed … “Deus absconditus/Deus revelatus” (God concealed/God revealed)….in other words, for many He is hidden from reason, and to others He is totally discoverable to them who press on to know Him.

Through the Heavens, the personification of the geometry of creation connects to us through the door by which the first breath, the spark of the Spirit ignites our imagination. Through the door of the heavens, God breathed the first breath on all things living. He created a need in the heart of man for the vastness of perpetual endlessness He calls “the heavens” as a reference to His great love for us. He gave it to us to look up and wonder, for us to know His goodness while watching the moon look back at us from behind night clouds. You may think this odd, but i must admit, i…have dreamed, in fleeting moments, of having tea with the stars and catching lunch with the morning breeze. We need the expanse of the Heavens.

A poet named Queenie wrote: Some people are like stars, so close yet so far away. Some people are like the moon, Shining so bright, but rarely noticed.

Some people are like comets, They burn so bright and so fast that they don’t last. Some people are like constellations, They look so put together when really everything is far from it. Some people are like the night sky, They look so dark far away, but really are filled with light.

Romans1:20 reads that God’s invisible things, as his eternal power and Godhead, “are clearly seen” in the creation of the world, “being understood by the things that are made.” i can see how especially the heavens leads us to the knowledge of God. The expanse of the Heavens over our head preaches of God’s glory all night and all day, with each day always pointing to the next, declaring His salvation in all languages to every soul under the dome of the sky, in every part of the world, without ceasing. Now that is an amazing thing the Lord made. What do you think?

i’m Social Porter with Living In His Name ministries.