Category: Epiphanies

What GOD Wants…

“I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image-making. I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to Me? Do you know what I want? I want justice–oceans of it. I want fairness–rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.” God, in Amos 5:21-24 (MSG).

What Ever Happened to the Sacred?

In our desire to ‘be special,’ we have rendered ‘everything-the-same’ and, perhaps unwittingly, robbed ourselves of the beauty, awe, dignity and reverence of the sacred. For example, our emphasis, if not outright exaltation, of ‘the Marketplace Minister’ to a near or same-level position as a Minister of the Gospel. Both are needed and, therefore, important…but who (and what) is MOST important? And how about ‘sex-outside-marriage’ as another, even more graphic example?

Acceptance vs. Accomplishment

Being “accepted in the Beloved” is not based upon ‘performance’ (albeit faith and obedience are indeed both required for acceptance)…but being “accomplished” in the Body (i.e., “to grow in grace and in knowledge of the LORD Jesus”) certainly requires (at least some of) it (character/life transformation and at-large Kingdom Advancement).

‘Knowing’ Epiphanies

In Psalm 46:10, these progressive aspects of getting to know our Creator-Redeemer came to me-1) “Be still and know that (‘ONLY’) I am God,” that is, ‘there are NO other Real and True Gods other than Me, the LORD God (now revealed/known as Jesus Christ); there are ‘only’ persistent, pounding posers’ (e.g., self, world, Satan). 2) “….KNOW God,” i.e., ‘start learning ABOUT Me’ through Bible Intake, Prayer, Fellowship, Giving. 3) “…know Me as YOUR God,” i.e., ‘make ME your very own and only LORD and God and PURSUE knowing Me EVERY DAY as your Master-mentor (aka ‘Leader, Dad, Friend’ or ‘Leader Original Righteous Dad’). 4) “make Me KNOWN,” i.e., ‘achieve all I have created and AM calling you to be, as a Follower of Me and Right and, therefore, become an influencer-leader of others for their eternal good.’

Threads of Destiny

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. noted how we are all inclined to either chaos or community. He argued for togetherness from a Birmingham jail cell: “In a real sense, all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”