Life Span - How Long?

Quick, quick, ponder these few questions:

• How long does the Bible say the typical human life span will be?
• What was mankind’s original diet?
• When and why did our diet change?

There is a little known or overlooked apparent contrast in Biblical scripture that is having major impacts in our world today, and I would bet on your personal life as well. This contrast directly affects both the quality and length of your life.

Got your attention?!

I’ll return to this point and the above questions in a moment. But first, let’s do a quick review a few life basics. No doubt, most of us have heard of and are familiar with the pH scale used to measure how acidic or alkalic a substance is. The scale runs from 0-to-14, with 0 as highly acidic and 14 as highly alkalic. The steps along the scale represent a 10-fold change in either direction. Each food and drink has both a rating on the pH scale, as well as a pH effect triggered during digestion and metabolism (at the cellular level). For example, acidic lemons and apple cider vinegar become alkalic during digestion and metabolism. In the body, it reportedly takes 20 parts of alkalinity to neutralize one part of acidity. Various degrees/levels of cooking increase the acidic content of most foods.

Here are 10 points worth reviewing and remembering, including some common pH levels: (Info combined from several websites on pH)

1. Water: leaving water company (7 0 – 8.0), distilled water (5.4 – 5.7), bottled flat (6.9 – 7.5), bottled sparking (4.9 – 5.5) [Acidity increases while traveling through pipes to homes]
2. Healthy blood: 7.35 – 7.45
3. Healthy urine: 5.5 – 8
4. Acidosis: pH = 1 to 7.40 (triggers a host of major diseases such as cancer)
5. Neutral: pH = 7.41
6. Alkalosis: pH = 7.42 to 14.0 (triggers hypersensitivity and other problems)
7. Vegetables and fruits generally alkalize our body fluids, whereas other foods (to varying degrees), plus cooking any food, typically increase our acidity
8. Carbonated soft drinks generally have a pH of about 3, which is ten thousand times more acidic than pure water
9. During metabolism, everything we consume generates cellular waste (ash) with its own pH rating
10. Cellular repair, replacement, and maintenance release acidic byproducts into body fluids 

The typical American diet is highly acidic – an open door to every dis-ease.

Based on my readings and experience, I submit not only foods and drinks have pH ratings, but also our thoughts, words, and actions also likely have pH ratings!! Thus, it would be totally useless to watch carefully what we consume, but ignore what we think, say, and do that may be increasing the disease-hosting environment in our lives! I wonder whether we may ever see a pH scale for these common life actions? Selah.

How does all of this relate to the questions posed above? Glad you asked!

 

Mankind was created to never die physically – a heavenly policy, so to speak. Genesis 1:29 - 31 records the foods originally assigned for both humans and animals:

And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the Earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the Earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the Earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food’; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.

As an aside, contrary to common belief (including among many learned Jewish scholars), animals were herbivores, not carnivorous. This should help to explain why animals that survived the flood did not attack each other while entering Noah’s ark, and why they were able to cohabit for well over a year. If they had been carnivorous, God’s instructions to Noah would have been totally unrealistic, as the food requirements for carnivorous animals for over a year would have been un-man-ageable!

You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the Earth. (Genesis 7:2 – 3)

Following the ole, familiar story, the results of sin changed all of this and introduced death into our world. But even so, with this diet, humans lived for unimaginably long periods (nearly 1,000 years)! Could it be that their bodies had to learn how to die, or that their diets were so great, or possibly both?

Fast forward to after the flood, when we can tune-in to God telling Noah:

Every moving thing that lives shall be meat (food) for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. (Genesis 9:3)

Ok, what happened and why? To find the answer, back-track to Genesis 6, where God concludes His survey of humankind:

And The Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. (120 – remember this) And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented The Lord that he had made man on the Earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Reducing mankind’s life span on the Earth was Heaven’s apparent formal policy shift in response to rampant sin. Nevertheless, people continued to live exceptionally long lives (Noah lived 950 years, 20 more years than Adam!) This all changed when, after the flood, God announced to Noah part of His strategic plan that would implement the above policy shift, namely a greatly expanded diet. Given our insight from the pH scale, in jest, I imagine Genesis 9:3 could be interpreted as:

Y’all, have a lot more acidic foods with those fruits and veggies! *

The strategy worked, and worked well! Check out the difference in life spans from Noah-to-Ishmael, the next recorded life span in Genesis:

And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died. (9:29)

And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered to his people. (25:17)

NB: The wise will note that ‘gathered to his people’ is a clear signal of life after physical death! If there wasn’t, there would be nothing to gather, but just a corpse that returns to Earth elements.

Now fast-forward a few hundred years to the 40-year sojourn of the new nation of Israel in the wilderness – their punishment for failure to believe and trust God in conquering the sinful inhabitants of The Promised Land. More specifically, everyone from 20 years old and up would die in the wilderness. If everyone in this crowd would have lived to 120 years, per Genesis 6:3, the sojourn in the wilderness would have lasted up to a whopping 100 years! Unimaginable and likely unbearable punishment!!! In His great mercy, God shortened this period and their lives. This had the dual objective of facilitating an earlier implementation of the strategic objective of conquering and possessing The Promised Land!

Moses, through whom God wrote Genesis 6:3, noticed and wrote a prayerful complaint about this strategy:

The days of our years are threescore years and ten (70 years); and if by reason of strength they be fourscore (80) years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. (Psalm 90:10)

Now fast-forward to our day! We typically and seriously MIS-INTERPRET the above verse as God’s formal announcement of yet another policy shift regarding the typical life span of mankind on Earth – totally ignoring the important context in which it was written! What Moses complained about apparently was a strategic plan (a) to show great mercy in implementing the announced punishment of all adults for their disbelief and mistrust of God related to conquering Canaan, and (b) to speed up actual implementation (by the younger generations – those under 20 years old) of God’s strategic objective.

For critical insight as to why this strategic objective (conquering Canaan and destroying a hoard of horribly wicked people) had to be implemented in a timely manner, let’s rewind to Genesis 15 and tune-in to part of a conversation between God and Abraham concerning his descendants:

…But in the fourth generation (roughly 400+ years) they shall come here again: for [the reason for the delay, Abraham, is that] the iniquity of [sins and time of Grace to] the Amorites is not yet full [complete]. (Genesis 15:16)

This oft-ignored verse is choc full of spiritual insights for those who are attentive and wise, and is very relevant for us today! In this simple statement, God announced/revealed to Abraham (and to us, if we are listening!) His policy of protracted Grace to increasingly wicked people. The term, Amorites, refers to the collective hoard of people who were occupying the land of Canaan. This group included many sub-groups. God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants, but the ‘lease’ the (then) current residents had on the land had not yet expired. God would grant them time to repent and do what was right, yet He knew they would not do so. Moses escorted the people out of Egypt 430 years after Joseph’s family joined him there. This suggests the cup of iniquity of the Amorites was then full to the rim, and time for God’s judgment was ripe! (Ponder God’s 3-point modus operandi in Jeremiah 9:23-24) Israel’s staunch refusal to trust God to enable them to conquer the land effectively delayed God’s planned timely punishment of the current occupants of the land. Had the sojourn in the wilderness lasted about 100 years (enough time for the 20 year olds to reach their full life span of 120 years), the needful judgment of the Amorites would have occurred roughly 530 years after Joseph’s family joined him in Egypt – making God a liar regarding His promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:14! It all adds up quite clearly, strategically, and mathematically!

Here are some critical ponderings to take away from this review:

1. What if we still lived to be 900+ years old today?
2. It took the Amorites centuries to fill their cup of iniquity, eventually demanding the judgment of God (400 years from the time of Genesis 15:16, plus whatever time that preceded this conversation). How long do you think it would take for us to fill our own cup of iniquity?
3. Back to my initial question, how long does the Bible say the typical human life span will be, and who stands to gain in deceiving us to mis-interpret Psalm 90:3?! The wise reader will perceive the answer.
4. With insight from the pH scale and the likelihood of pH ratings assigned to your thoughts, words and actions, what’s your game plan to reach for the promise of Genesis 6:3?

    As you ponder these questions, consider this: 

We today are much more savvy (technologically and otherwise) 

in finding enhanced and creative ways to commit wickedness

-- ways that were unavailable to the Amorites!

Another word in chemistry for alkaline is …..(drumroll)… BASIC…

(…as in getting back to our basic diet?)

~~~

* There may be other reasons for expanding human diets to include meat. For example, what if the global flood significantly diminished (washed away) soil nutrients such that the original diet would be nutrient diminished? Also, some Bible scholars believe the mention of 120 years in Genesis 6:3 refers to the time before God would send the flood on Earth, not to mankind’s post-flood life span. What if it’s both? 

Also, several posts in this blog explore Bible hints that, during The Millennial Reign, human life spans will once again be very long, human and animal diets will once again flip (back to the Genesis 1:29-30 diet), and there will be perfect peace between humans and all animal species. 

From Enmity to Amity

Our carnal, earth-limited thinking stinks and is at enmity with God's thinking.   

     I call it stinkin' thinkin'.  

What do you call it?

Praise God, He has provided a clear, easy, no-excuse way for us to move from being at ENMITY with Him (hostility, hatred, ill will, animosity and antagonism), to enjoying AMITY with and in Him (friendship, peaceful harmony, mutual accord), through Jesus Christ's sacrifice, which comprised much more than simply dying on a cross!

On which side of the cross

are you standing?     

God's Church Bell is Ringing (Poem)

The Church 
is God’s:

…Salt in a world that’s rotting

…Light in a world that’s darkening

…Serum in a world that’s sickening

…Vaccine in a world that’s plaguing

 …Ear to a heart that’s hurting

…Mouth in a world that’s shushing

…Heart in a world that’s deceiving

…Foot soldier in a world that’s fighting

…Trust in a world that’s defaulting

…Hand-up in a world that’s sinking

…Hand-out in a world that’s needing

…Kindness in a world that’s demeaning

…Ear plug in a world that’s screaming

…Walking cane in a world that’s blinding

…Megaphone in a world that’s populating

…Defibrillator in a world that’s cardiac arresting

…Way in a world that will be repenting and turning

(hopefully, not too late!)

…Seed for a new world tomorrow that will be beginning … s-o-o-n!

(Count on it!)

Jesus became “Divinity in Diapers”

so The Church could become “Divinity in Diaspora” --

participants in divinity scattered across the ages of time.

There’s still room 
and time for you~

The Fruit of Faith

Ask the typical person, “What is the fruit of faith?”, and their thoughts and answer may very well immediately go to ‘the great stuff we get’ from exercising faith.  Wouldn’t yours, too?  To be honest, mine would also.  Could this be because of the heavy emphasis we hear on faith these days – not to diminish its critical importance in the Christian walk.

Just as The Bible verses are perfectly balanced on Psalm 118:8,

It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man, 

...a life anchored on God’s Love and Word will also be well balanced, living peacefully…

…on the corner of Trust Avenue and Patience Street.

Living on this corner will ensure we will produce and enjoy all Fruit of the Spirit. 

I'll meet you there!

Life is Like a Box of

‘...You never know what you’re gonna get’, according to the film character, Forrest Gump, in the movie by the same name. But there are ways to know ‘what you’re gonna get’.

God loves us just as we are, yet He loves us too much to allow us to remain as we are. Familiar expression? His objective is to shape us slowly and gradually into the spiritual ‘image’ of Christ', Who is the physical image of God, Himself, Who is Spirit. (Hebrews 1:2) This ‘image’ is exactly how Adam and Eve thought, believed, spoke, acted and inter-acted, both with God and with each other, prior to their sinful fall. When they sinned, literally every aspect of their ‘image’ flipped: upside-down; right side wrong. They became totally perverted from ‘the way they were’.

God’s objective is to flip us over, back to right-side up, and wrong side right; and to revert us from our perverted image, back to ‘the way we were’. While we are hell bent on conforming, blending in, not standing out, and flowing with popular trends, He is busily orchestrating to get us to 'live right-side-up in an upside-down world'. Thus, we can have insight into ‘what we’re gonna get in life’ by observing this, His plan, along with His principles and patterns. His principal instruments to accomplish this objective are:

• His forgiveness, which reveals His infallible love,
• The gift of a reborn spirit to all who accept Jesus’ sacrifice for sin,
• His vivid word picture book, The Bible, and
• (drumroll) …Irritants

Yep, irritants may well be the equivalent of God’s mirror, held up for us to see ourselves more intimately - ‘in-to-me-see’. They act like handy instruments to show us what needs to be changed, developed or pruned (ouch!) in our lives. Irritants speak, and if we tune in, we can hear their soft voices saying, ‘Here’s another area ripe for surrendering, in faith, to God’s power and purpose. Let’s see what He will do.’

Join me in pondering this point as we review what’s currently irritating us. And remember this point during those times that are sure to come when life seems like anything but…

 …a box of chocolates.

God's Waiting Room or Faith Gym?

What do you do after consulting God on an issue, 

and a big part of His answer is or seems to be, "Wait"?

I recently heard (live) a powerful and quite moving speech by Dr. Ronn Elmore (drronn.com) entitled, "Have a Seat in God's Waiting Room". This speech painted a vivid and very entertaining analogy between the experience of waiting in a dentist's office with an awful toothache, and waiting for God to answer urgent prayer. This speech prompted me to ponder the following questions, which may be on your mind, too, if you’ve ever “Had a Seat in God’s Waiting Room” for a protracted period of time:

1. When do I end up in God's waiting room -- before consulting Him on my petition, as with the dentist experience, or afterward? 
2. From God’s perspective, what really constitutes patient waiting? 
3. What to do while in God's so-called waiting room? 

Re. the first point, I readily recognized my waiting room experiences with God are the flip side/opposite of those in typical professional settings. I typically am required to wait after praying. What about you?

Before addressing the remaining points, ponder with me a couple of questions:

• Honestly, when is your faith developed to receive from God the answer to your typical prayer -- before you ask (pray) or afterward? 
• When is your faith to receive the answer most likely to wane? 

The biggest problem we may encounter in God's waiting room may well be the tendency of the devil to manipulate our thinking to focus on ANYTHING BUT the glorious climax -- the manifestation of answered prayer! One of his biggest deceptions may well be prompting us to apply to God's waiting room experiences the 'patient mentality' of our human experiences, e.g., with the medical industry, or other similar professional waiting rooms. I, too, have been duped into believing waiting on manifestation of answered prayers means hunkering down, getting quiet and trying to prove to God and myself "just how patient I can be." After a long while with this approach, the vision and desire would slowly dry up and fade away, to the point that it didn't matter anymore! I gave up; caved in. My vision was D.O.A. (Dead On Application) of the "patient principle", or at least what I thought was patience. It really was slowly giving up the fight.

I now understand more clearly God's ways are so much higher than our ways that it boggles my mind to try to flip the image of the understanding I have about being patient. The concept of patience really speaks to what we "do" while in God's waiting room. This is the place and time our faith may well be on trial, and the devil knows it! This may be when God, in His loving but tough 'faith development' mindset, offers us the opportunity to grow up our faith to receive materially that which He has given spiritually. If so, this is the time to come out fighting, swinging and jabbing with the "S-Word" (The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Spirit's Word!). We do this by increasingly confessing and professing God's promises, listening to them, feeding on them, praying them and meditating on them. We do this until God's promises become our 'new inner reality' over and above the 'temporal actuality' of our current circumstances. As noted in the blog post, "Earth Still Producing After Its Kind" (http://jwootenjr.blogspot.com/2011/09/earth-still-producing-after-its-kind.html), the mind is the biggest planting field of the earth system. The mind and spirit, working together, simply reproduce in actuality the reality we mentally ‘see’ within, spiritually believe, and hold as Truth. Thoughts fed, nourished and spoken are seeds planted, with the resulting fruit assured.

Once this fruit is produced in our spirit, no devil in or from hell can dislodge your 'faith vise' on God's promise. By this, God is incredibly PLEASED! Rather than your vision shriveling up and dying (the devil's wish!), it now has been magnified and has developed exceptionally deep roots that won't easily be dislodged with the slightest pull or push from untoward forces, seen and unseen. This, I have come to understand, is "patience" to God -- quite the contrary to what I originally understood.

I tend to pray in response to needs others or I have, not when my faith to receive is strongest. Do you, too? As a result, I spend an inordinate amount of time in God's so-called "waiting room". Looking at this situation from the flip side, I now see this waiting room is not always where I am assigned to go and wait for God to get everything aligned and carefully worked out before His answer is manifested. Often, it may be more of an assignment for me to "go to the faith gym!", to develop and strengthen my faith to be able to receive my needed answer.

This tendency to do "need-based praying" rather than "faith-based praying" is both inefficient and unproductive. Knowing others and I will have needs that will move me to pray should, in itself, be sufficient wisdom for me to develop, en avance!, faith to receive well before any need materializes. Thus, I need to get ahead of the need-based praying “8 ball”, so to speak.  Do you?

In light of the above, God's waiting room may well be more like a "Faith GYM!". In this case, to help minimize time in His waiting room, before praying…

"Go to the gym, FIRST, thou sluggard!" 

(Takeoff from Proverbs 6:6)

May this concept and the above picture help you, during your waiting experiences, to achieve a sustainable laser-like focus on your end result, musing what God is shaping for your life. As you do, allow the vivid pictures of what you 'see' (the results of your prayers) to ignite within you the fiery desire to fight and overcome any and all obstacles, seen and unseen, to the realization of your vision.

To help anchor this concept in your mind, please accept my challenge to share it with someone. Whatever we share, we retain; and what we teach, we (re)learn.

wOw!! This concept and picture really excite me as I, too, am definitely in God's Waiting Room ... oops, I mean Faith Gym. In fact, that is where I intend to LivE -- deliberately... always in expectancy!

How about you? 

NB: Thanks to BJT for the picture suggestions.

A Same Sex Marriage I CAN Support

I've got both good and bad news to share:

Good News:  This is the ONLY same-sex marriage acceptable to God!

BADD News:  This is the ONLY same-sex marriage acceptable to God!

If this is bad news, you are in a BADD vise-like grip:

Bold Arse Devilish Deception

Got it?  

Enough said.

The Final Nuclear-type Effects

The U.S. triggered the world's first nuclear explosion. Since then, while nuclear proliferation has run a mock and nuclear tests have been rather frequent, world powers have thus far managed to avoid another nuclear explosion in the context of war. This notwithstanding, some of the effects of what we currently recognize as a "nuclear-type" explosion WILL be unleashed in the context of war, and this WILL be the final one. I say this authoritatively and with no reservation. However, these effects will in all likelihood not be the results of an explosion, nor have typical damaging environmental consequences.

You may have some doubt about my words. Not to worry, no offense taken. Trust me, while these are my words, the truth of this 'news of tomorrow' is not mine. Check out what Zechariah predicts, the context, and indicated timing of the following:

And this shall be the plague with which The Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. (Zechariah 14:12)

This might refer to the 1st War of Gog and Magog, described in Ezekiel 38, which is predicted to occur some time during the great tribulation, the last half (42 months) of the tribulation age. Sounds like the effects of a 'nuclear-type' explosion to you? Note, I did not say "man made nuclear bomb" or actual explosion. The power of God, implemented through the words of Jesus and/or acts of holy angels, is more than efficient to achieve these or any other intended results! 

 

Can't believe our all-loving God would do such a thing?!  

Study your Bible. Get to know Him not only as 'The Lover of Your Soul', which He definitely is, but also as Judge Potentate of The World, which He ALSO IS.

----------

For more see: Revelation - Future Attacks in Israel

See also: Zechariah Prophecy & the Neutron Bomb

Ignite the Fight

It takes a certain personality type to start ('pick') a fight. Admittedly, I do not fall in this category.  
H-O-W-E-V-E-R....

You and I were born into the kingdom of darkness and evil, under the 'kingship' of a merciless, hateful god. He likes to keep his subjects, and will do W-H-A-T-E-V-E-R it takes to keep them subjected to his plans until we die. This is the only way he can assure we will live a useless life, far from realizing our God-ordained purpose. And for many, this is his way of assuring he will have their company during his God-promised eternal torment in a mercilessly hot, inescapable hell!  

So, as you might imagine, ANY effort to break his hold on our lives is picking a really big FiGhT!  Even though Christ fought and won the deciding battle against satan's authority over mankind, his (satan's) final punishment is still pending.  Until then, we have been charged to ignite a fight -- the good fight of faith, systematically breaking any and all strangle holds our former god still has on us.  As is clearly visible in our world, there are many.  

Christ paid the price for action-oriented believers in Him to enjoy abundant life, free of such strangleholds.  Just as the Promised Land was available to the children of Israel during their 40 year sojourn in the wilderness, they were initially reluctant, but eventually would have to apply their determined, persistent FAITH to possess it.  In releasing their faith, GOD, Himself, fought the core spiritual battles for them, En Avance!, but He first required them to "ignite the fight".  Once done, the physical victories were absolutely 100% assured, though battles had to be fought, with patience, endurance, blood, sweat and even death of many.

Perhaps you are like me, not the personality type to start a fight, but more inclined to reason your way through conflicts.  Our former god is so unreasonably hateful, it will take a real fight for him to let go!  Ask anyone who has struggled with addictions of any kind, lustfulness, habitual lying and gossiping, stealing, etc.  While God's Grace help is available, and victory is within our reach, the very first step in our 'victory dance' is to ignite the fight. Take a first step of faith, standing on God's promised help.  Since earth was established as a "word-rich, word-ruled-and-rocked" environment or realm, then start saying exactly what God, Himself, says about your problems or stranglehold.  As you do, you, as I did, will quickly find the battle is too big for you!  Like kindling, your "self" will be very quickly drained in the struggle, consumed in the fire, at which point you will hear/perceive the rallying call of God's troops, His holy angels, shouting as they come to your defense and assured victory:

"The Battle Is The LORD's!!!"

The Rest (End) of the Story

In our seesaw type of a world today, it clearly seems as if the 'ways of the world' 

are winning over anything related to values promoted in The Bible.  

Take heart, the darkest hour of the night is just before the BREAK OF DAWN~

Take courage, you and I have read "The Rest of the Story!"  

WE WIN!

Polluter or Tree?

No matter the amount of ‘spiritual pollution’ we may be in, each of us gets to choose our spiritual equivalent: 

• to be part of the ‘sin pollution problem’ in our neighborhood, city, state and country, 
• or a healthy ‘tree of righteousness’ that, in unique ways, aids in cleaning up, preventing or not contributing to sin pollution.

On which side of the problem do you see you?
More importantly, how do you think God sees you?

Report Card: Self-grading Faith NOW

We all grow up and become well versed in tracking various aspects of our growth processes. We receive and respond to school report cards, health report cards, and job performance reviews. We dutifully track our work level productivity and profitability, as well as our earned income per week, month and year. We even track and double/triple check every possible (hopefully legal) income tax deduction to make sure we are only paying the absolute minimum amount in taxes. Thus, we ‘live’ by these tracking processes. They comprise critical threads in the fabric of our lives.

But what do we track as carefully and methodically in our spiritual lives, which are far more critical and eternally valuable than anything we experience in this physical life? Where do we find our ‘spiritual report cards and grades, periodic productivity reports, performance reviews, and benefits statements?!’

The Bible meticulously reveals and unfolds God’s will for believers in Christ to live the abundant life. Moreover, we, ourselves, are allowed to define the parameters of such a life. Jesus teaches, as does the entire New Testament, that our ability to walk in this abundant life is directly and intimately tied to the level/quality of our applied faith, including our ability to trust patiently and unfailingly that God’s will is unfolding in our lives.

Nevertheless, many of us elect to diminish this message in favor of a misplaced, misunderstood ‘arming ourselves to suffer for Christ as He suffered for us’. Jesus did indeed suffer, and we are to arm ourselves to suffer, but NOT for what He suffered. Only He could suffer as The Christ. Our suffering has more to do with the common struggles of living a holy (i.e., separated) way of life from the way people of the world typically live their lives. It’s a struggle to swim up stream when the whole world is seemingly headed the opposite direction! I doubt we are called to suffer the lack what Jesus died and was raised again to pay for us to have, namely life abundant, full of joy and victory. The typical mantle we don in the name of ‘suffering for Christ’ is likely a cleaver deception of our common enemy, to steal, kill and destroy our two-stage inheritance in Christ, rendering His death and resurrection of no effect in our Earthly lives.

Just as in any other developmental aspect of life, our Christian walk is supposed to pass through progressive phases, all the way from being a baby Christian, to being increasingly matured in our faith. Any baby whimpers, cries at the least discomfort, and loving parents try their best to respond immediately. Same with baby Christians. The problem is we all like and expect, as adults, the same loving attention received as a baby, but don’t receive. God has His maturation process for us all, and His ways are not our ways. To develop patience, we walk through trials, etc. During early maturation stages, we suffer because we want the attention received as a baby, but don’t get. If God were to give it, we would not mature. The level of our suffering is, therefore, directly keyed to our willingness to accept and walk through His maturation process, which includes His tests. Toward the end, we endure sufferings differently, and squirm less and less …until we arrive at the point of transforming suffering into pure JOY! (James 1:2) Jesus transformed suffering into joy. Remember Hebrews 12:2?

As we grow in Christ, it is critical to understand God’s maturation process and to develop our faith along the lines of how Jesus operated, just as He commanded. 

Faith speaks.

Just as God reveals and exercises His faith by speaking words, Jesus similarly spoke to reveal, release His faith in what He perceived The Father was doing (John 5:19), and He required the same from His disciples …and now from you and me. The great capstone of His expectations and requirements is for us to ‘speak to mountains’ -- revealing, releasing and requiring our mountain-moving faith in what we perceive God is doing (i.e., His inner voice), to work on our behalf. This is how we access the ‘all things’ The Word declares have been purchased for and made available to us through Christ, as noted in 2 Peter 1:2 -4 and elsewhere. As we do this, God performs His good works in and through us. This is ‘in yo face-faith!’  On the surface, it looks and sounds like incredible arrogance! Often misunderstood, it is too easily shunned by many of us who seek simply to blend into the ‘garden variety, don’t do anything to stand out’ Christian. Consider for a moment the great cost of this approach. wOw!

Mountain-speaking faith isn’t something we tend to do or exhibit early in our spiritual maturation process, now is it?? Nope. Neither do I believe Jesus expected His disciples to do this very early in their 3-year walk with Him. Similarly, I think The Book of Jude, especially verse 20, may be well placed at the end of the New Testament for similar reasons. Praying in the Spirit, and thereby ‘building up our most holy (i.e., separated, standing-out or out-standing) faith’ just isn’t something we tend to do very early in our maturation process, now is it?? Nope. Praying earnestly in this manner is 100% faith, because the understanding mind is not involved. Again, the objective of building up our faith is to more clearly and accurately perceive God’s inner Voice saying, ‘This is the way. Walk in it.’ (John 5:19)

Paul speaks of the Christian’s spiritual diet transforming from ‘milk of The Word’ to strong meat. If feeding on/hearing The Word produces faith, surely these two diet extremes would produce different kinds/strengths of faith, no? Get this:

Faith is NOT a monolith.

in this regard. we simply don’t ‘have faith’. There is faith for salvation, for health and provisions, faith to intercede, faith for A, B, C, X, Y, Z, and beyond. It may take stronger faith to reach for and expect to receive Z, rather than A. Just as muscles of our bodies have different strengths and purposes, and must be developed, used, rehabilitated, etc., think of faith as the overall strength of your spiritual body, but with clearly identifiable elements, with designated purposes. You go to a gym to develop specific muscle groups. Consider, identify and develop the various groups of your spiritual muscles.

We are all well experienced in being graded by a teacher after completing a class or course, and Jesus will eventually ‘grade’ both our faith and the works we were able to accomplish by faith. But we don’t have to wait for this final grading in order to know how well we are progressing. We can grade ourselves, with insight from The Holy Spirit within us. Consider the great benefits of not waiting for your final spiritual report card!

My wish for you:

Matthew 9:29 and John 5:19

Stuffing Fun In