Ref: Hunting for a Vehicle — More than one person asked me to keep this up to date. Today we received a $50 money order for our vehicle search from Milton Buss. I’ll play the game and post updates as this rolls forward until we find something.
The Holy Spirit is my publicity agent.
My message here has little appeal to mainstream Christian believers as a whole. They are not my target audience. It’s not that nothing I write has anything to teach them. On the contrary; I think they are mostly wrong. However, it comes as no surprise that they don’t want to hear that message.
I don’t seem to recall having any particular demographics in mind when I first opened this blog. Franky, I was writing in search of my own peace with God. Had no one ever read this blog, I would still be posting here pretty much daily. The message would be the same stuff, though I can assure you the particular content of the posts would be different. That’s because much of what I write is answering questions or responding in some other way to others. However, the guide for what I write remains the Holy Spirit.
He is the director of curriculum, as well as the publicity agent.
And how does He seem to you when His touch invades your soul? What personality would you deduce from His Presence?
I often say in various ways that our fallen intellect so easily gets in the way of God’s work in our lives. I’ve written whole books trying to help people break away from bad intellectual conditioning that limits what we expect from God. How many ways do I have to say it? Western intellectual traditions will blind you from seeing the truth. God will work with what you bring Him, but if you ignore the prompting of His Spirit about the contents of your mind, you won’t leave much room for His blessings.
I’ve also written tons of material critiquing our Western sense of sexual identity. This is easily one of the deepest deceptions I contend with in my work. The Western notion of manhood is a pretty confused mess and it makes it hard for us to understand what God meant by choosing to portray Himself as a Father figure. I assure you good men of God in the Bible did things we find repulsive, and you can’t dismiss all of it as mere cultural context.
So tell me how many women experience the touch the Spirit with what we might regard as feminine characteristics? Why is it so hard to accept the idea that the resurrected Christ could commune with women in girl-talk? Not the silly crap you overhear from cell-phone conversations, but in the wordless touch of Someone who truly understands the moral torture a woman faces in this world. He’s the Savior of all humans.
So if Sister Wildcucumber mentions her “goddess” on her blog, to me that’s little more than a personal avatar for the Holy Spirit. It’s not how I would say it, but if the result is that she follows Christ, are you going to complain? Because I assure you whatever it is she means by such talk, it has nothing to do with the false worship of idols condemned in the Bible. The whole point of condemning the cult of Ishtar/Astarte was that it made women rebellious against their own husbands, and weakened the covenant relationship with God. I don’t see that happening in her case.
If it bothers you, no one is twisting your arm. Don’t read her blog. I don’t see too many other folks stepping up to the task of working alongside the stuff I’m doing here. Let me assure you: The staff of this online virtual parish is not closed. The standards I applied when I invited her on board will apply to anyone else. Start making comments, send me emails about what I write, etc. Show me you are involved in virtual moral leadership — obviously that means posting something online somewhere, because we just don’t have anything else to work with right now.
Let the Holy Spirit speak through you. The worst thing you can do is be ambitious about being in front of others. Be ambitious for His glory on this earth.
In case you haven’t already noticed, this thing with the virtual mission here is taking off. I can’t easily put it into words, but the power of God is oozing all around us here and things are happening that human eyes cannot see, that human emotions cannot feel. Find your place and get involved if you like. Or start your own work with your own teaching. I’ll do what I can to help, because I don’t take myself that seriously.
Whatever you do, don’t let your own boundaries keep you from getting in on the work of God, because He’s pretty busy right now and it’s a good time to come to the party.
The heart is more than a mere sensory organ. It is the seat of the will. In theory, it is the place where the executive should reside, but precious few humans have an active wisdom in their hearts. They don’t even bother allowing it to sense things, much less take its properly exalted office. The Tree of Knowledge killed the heart, placing the mind on the throne of the soul. This why we are constantly in trouble with God, because He does not speak to the intellect, only to the heart.
If your heart is awakened, your mind will recognize truthful doctrine. Make your heart truly your soul’s master and you will find truth overwhelming your understanding, as it should. This is how we discern the moral fabric, the character of God woven into Creation.
Hear, then, the warning from the Spirit Realm. These are things presumed by Scripture, things you should already have in your heart so that revelation makes sense. These are things God didn’t have to say because they were universally understood when revelation was recorded. They are written into Creation itself. You will not come to these truths by mere intellect, but must awaken the rule of the heart.
That should be enough to explain what’s going on around us. If your heart is alive, you’ll recognize the truth of these things. If you mind recoils, you have a ways to go yet. This by no means suggests you cannot come up with your own formulation, your own way of explaining it. However, this is my best representation of what Scripture says, though seldom directly.
To compromise is human; to forgive is divine.
One of the most pernicious effects of Western logic is imputing to God a perfectionist ethic. This is blasphemous. His Law Covenants are loaded with compromise. Jesus noted that Moses permitted divorce, but the Father wasn’t really happy with it. It’s not a matter of precision in law, but a question of moral failure.
Morality is predefined in Creation, woven into all existence as a moral fabric. Embracing that moral character of God makes everything work as it should; it puts you in an optimum position in dealing with God. It does not resolve all problems and suffering; some of that is just part of our fallen plane of existence. However, it is consistent with God’s character and how Creation works.
I agree with the teaching of Sister Wildcucumber, even though I could not possibly include all of it in my daily life. She would have a similar difficulty incorporating everything I suggest as the will of God in other matters. That’s why we are a team supporting each other and filling in the blanks with our own gifts. Then again, some things in our lives are closed doors; we have already passed that opportunity. We may find amelioration, but God won’t allow us to revisit yesterday. We can always strive to correct past failures, but it’s not an option in some things.
God will deal with you where you are. He will offer to lead you farther along the optimal path, but perfection is not available in this realm of existence. If it matters to His inscrutable plans, there are some things He will force on you. Whether or not it constitutes a blessing has more to do with your willingness to embrace Him personally than the nature of the thing itself.
This is why we teach that the heart is a sensory organ. It is not subject to the mind; the only hope is for the mind to learn how to submit to the heart. The heart can read the moral fabric if you encourage your heart to live and know. What it will read from that moral fabric has to do with your calling and mission. None of us can be adept at all things at once. The whole point of requiring us to congregate in communities of faith is so God can weave us together with our unique callings and talents.
The Old Testament was loaded with contextual compromises, so we are not surprised to see them in the New Testament. Most of my counseling and teaching work is helping people to see past the rules and to read the moral fabric with their hearts. At some point, community peace is more important than perfect physical health, so Paul and his associates called for folks to compromise on dietary habits. At some point doctrinal purity will choke the audience and you have to take it slow, giving them small bites.
By the same token, you can’t camp around any positive experience as your lifelong comfort zone. There is no stasis in Creation, neither on the fallen level nor in Heaven. It’s all alive, down to the very sub-atomic particles. Your heart will tell you that, and the same goes for life in the macro. Not just planets and systems, but the whole of Creation lives. Your mind could conceivably make room for that; only your heart can truly understand.
Learn to live with all life.
Christians have long recognized this as the Crucifixion Psalm. It’s not as if David necessarily foresaw precisely that form of torture and execution. Each item is recognized as a form of suffering, and David runs together all the different images he can imagine. Yet this song is loaded with symbolic references that happened to come rather literally true for Christ on the Cross. Our Savior had the presence of mind to quote this famous psalm. The only fight here is overcoming one’s own human doubt.
God abandons no one, but there are times when it surely feels like it. It is the human flaw, the curse of the Fall that blinds us to God and His divine nature. During moments of suffering, the flesh can easily overwhelm the consciousness. The cry of anguish represents how the sufferer feels, not the truth of the heart. David notes that God had never failed Israel as a nation, nor anyone else God called to serve Him.
Still, in moments of sorrow we can surely feel less than human. All the more so when men so easily hate another enough to deny their humanity. The mocking was typical of such hatred, an experience many had faced since the Fall. However, it also mocks God as unwilling or incapable of acting in this world. David cannot appreciate that sort of feeling, because his moral discernment was upon him from an early age. His heart was actively engaged from his earliest memories. He knew all along that men are unreliable at best, but God never fails. So David remarks that he trusts in no one else.
Indeed, the only humans visible are those gathered to watch the entertainment of his fall. The sense of isolation heightens all the senses to physical symptoms of agitation and despair: weakness, dehydration, and a sense of doom. Again, it is easily an apt description of crucifixion. God alone can rescue him.
Then David declares that God has, indeed, come to his rescue. For David it was quite literal in many cases, all the way back to his days as a shepherd. However, for Our Savior, it was symbolic, for His death was His victory. David would have seen his own end that way, too, because Hebrew intellectual culture declared truth manifested differently on different levels of consideration. Both David and Christ returned to their people with triumph and gave thanks directly to God. In both cases, the justice of God rained down on the oppressed and oppressor, with different results.
David bluntly notes that both the living and dead will glorify God and thank Him for His deliverance. Loss of life is not a tragedy if that life was first dedicated to God’s revelation. What matters is that those who yet live do so only for the reason of glorifying Jehovah.
I noted previously a prayer request for another vehicle. One of our regular readers asked for a better accounting of how we are doing this. It seems to me I have no reason to keep this so very private if I want you to pray intelligently.
We do have something of value to exchange or sell toward the price of a vehicle. It’s current value is just over $1000 and there’s no doubt we can sell it for that. We’ve held onto it for just this kind of situation. Here in Central Oklahoma, that could buy something useful. We paid about that much for our 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee a few years ago and aren’t disappointed in how it all worked out.
Our experience has been that we can trust God, take our time and let Him show us the best deal for the money. We have time because the Jeep still runs. It seems the issue is related to electronics, dicey to diagnose and very expensive to fix. It costs more than it’s worth right now. So our Jeep runs pretty good when the ambient air temperature is cooler, and gives us trouble as it rises past 55F. At that, five miles is about the limit, which is roughly the distance my wife drives to work. Meanwhile, I’m doing some shopping today on my bicycle because the store in question is farther than that. Riding 30+ miles at a time is no big deal for me, so it’s just a question of carrying the load and enduring the conditions.
I don’t doubt that some of you wish you could help. God bless you, but don’t use our PayPal link for that on the donations page if you are working in US dollars. It’s really hard to move that money out into cash or to transfer to anyone selling a vehicle. (We don’t trust PayPal with our banking info.) Honestly, you really need to pray first and foremost. Yes, I’m convinced it makes a difference. If you want to contribute materially, email me (ehurst at soulkiln dot org) and ask for details.
Here in this part of the world, we can probably still find something decent with our current resources. We are starting our market research right now; my wife is in charge of this because God keeps blessing her efforts. I know that I can find something pretty good for $3000 easy, but I’d frankly be surprised if our parish and others contributed that much. This is not a big fund-raising campaign, but I’m not embarrassed to accept gifts from anyone. FYI, or personal inclinations are toward a small pickup, but we would accept a full-sized one, too.
This is not an emergency and we are patiently waiting for God to show us what He has in mind. Thank you for your love and support.
Update: The reader who asked me about this has a challenge to all the rest of you: She’ll match dollar for dollar any donations I receive for this vehicle.
I’m watching it almost every day.
It’s an addiction, cultivated within our Post-Modern Western society. It’s the result of cascading errors. First, they deny that there are higher planes of existence. This totally abnegates hope and aspiration, a reason to live. Substituted in its place is a very shallow drive for pleasure, though defined in many ways. The use of logic itself becomes little more than a form of pleasure. Indeed, the summum bonum is entertainment, somewhat more than pure physical appetites. Even casual sex is more about the art form than it is indulging hormonal drives.
But the result is a false dichotomy. There are three human lusts in Scripture: flesh, eyes and pride. In our Western society, the proper order is keeping the third in service to the second. There is a faux denigration of primacy for mere fleshly appetites or the primacy of pride. Letting either flesh or pride dominate your interests is considered pretty much the same basic sin, while moral goodness if elevating the lust for various flavors of intellectual entertainment. Thus, the lower reasoning power becomes king, and everything else is somehow déclassé.
Yet this leaves a broad highway for mere entertainment to dominate. There may well be endless debate over which types and flavors of entertainment are superior, but the basic assumption remains that humanity has no higher aspiration.
Among the many things our society does to pervert femininity, it’s the elevation of drama that destroys real romance. Women are given naturally to some higher interest in drama than men, but in our inevitable Western drift to feminism, taming males means making them more interested in their own brand of drama. The most common expression of male drama is various expressions of heroism and virtuosity in hobbies. In our current social context, a primary form is gaming. Women carp about men gaming, particularly computer gaming, but this is the best you can get when Western feminism rises to rule social convention.
This elevates to demigod status those who are adept at making role-playing-games happen. Both the designers and developers become quasi-priests, while the most adept players are the quasi-warlords. The man who plays exceeding well, invests resources in organizing gaming activities and runs his own RPG server is king. This is entirely the only reasonable expectation from feminist political dominance. Feminist carping about the resulting Western masculinity expressed in gaming is simply the natural result.
Never forget: The signature impulse of fallen femininity is to dominate men (Genesis 3:16). Political feminism was never about equality, but dominance. The consummate feminist is a dominatrix of one kind or another. That they have largely succeeded is evident in the vast horde or feminized men who serve them in political activism. The “real men” call these servants “rabbits.” What no one wants to admit is that both “real men” and “rabbits” are creatures of feminism. That some men will never be dominated is natural, but the entire field of social instinct is limited to this false dichotomy: If you aren’t a rabbit, you are left with a very narrow range of masculine expression.
This suffocating environment makes no allowance for the moral shepherd and shepherdess of Scripture. We will be continually misidentified as something else, depending on the context. I don’t play RPGs because that’s wholly inconsistent with what God has made of me. In the first place, the entire range of fantasy is alien to Scripture. In the second place, there simply is precious little appetite for entertainment in the shepherd’s soul. The drive to guard and shape moral consciousness in self and others makes virtually all available entertainment painful.
I’m left watching as women struggle to suppress the natural results of their dominance in this fallen world while the men struggle to escape in the only routes visible. If it’s not gaming, it’s a broad range of other Western male hobbies, to include very real wars, wars that are inescapably pointless because their objective is always materialist, particularly in the perverted nest-building of Western feminists.
Romance struggles to survive in such an environment.
Walk in the light you have. I’m not here to dictate orthodoxy for others; I can only relate to you what I’ve experienced. Theology as commonly done among Western Christians is wholly misleading because it pretends certitude here in this life among the Shadows. It’s the wrong certitude. If you don’t first and foremost have a driving call to seek God’s face, your theology won’t mean a damned thing.
I consider it a cardinal sin to proclaim intellectual certitude of that sort. It misleads the soul and places the intellect in the executive, the very nature of the Fall itself. It opens the door to a wealth of false expectations and keeps you from turning your face directly to the Lord. We already have way too many things standing between us a God; we don’t need to create more false idols to drain away our one hope for getting out of this world alive.
Again, this is simply my pastoral advisory. You have to find your own path to peace with God. Mine includes rejecting a wide range of varied theological positions commonly found in Western Christian thought. One of those is a broad category called Universalism. This is another case of confusing the Two Realms. It presumes to assert things we cannot possibly know, and misses the point in things we can know.
In essence, Universalism asserts that everyone will go to Heaven and the only difference is that a few of us who are aware of that can walk in peace while waiting our turn. Naturally that’s a simplified characterization, but it flatly denies things Jesus said. It’s based on Western logical assumptions and presumes to judge Scripture.
The moral laws by which we live here are universal. They are universally available. What moves the hearts of humanity to accept or reject and all the varying degrees in between — all of it is wide open and God works with us according to the fundamental covenant of His divine justice, His mercy in revealing the moral nature of the universe. Everyone is free to embrace as much as they can and God has promised to meet us more than half-way. Every step we take closer to His character amplifies geometrically, as it were, the blessings possible in this life. At the same time, we become accountable to keep pushing ahead. Stasis is not really part of the covenant because it’s not possible to ever arrive in this life.
Eternal life in Heaven is beyond human grasp; we cannot even begin to understand how it works. We are permitted limited glimpses into some symbolic/parabolic indications of it sufficient to take action in confidence that God will take it seriously. We are permitted to see some aspects of it so that we don’t get off on the wrong track. One of the primary texts in Scripture is still Romans, particularly chapter 8. Paul flatly says we cannot possibly want eternal life if we don’t already have it. The fallen nature is that bad. Breaking us out of that is an act of divine grace and wholly on God’s initiative. It is most certainly not universal in nature. Some folks will end up in eternal damnation.
The main point to keep in mind is that we simply cannot know for anyone else. We can know for ourselves (see 1 John 1) in a certain sense, but it’s not that intellectual certitude humans crave. It’s more subtle than that. We cannot know how we were brought across the line into it, and cannot begin to formulate how it will be for others. We are warned not to pretend we can know. All this talk of “Jesus came to give us free salvation” has taken on a pool of conceptual falsehood that borrows way too much from an intellectual culture that is alien to Scripture. So while the words are proper, it’s what we make of them that is all wrong.
In the Old Testament, those who could gain eternal life would have to go through the applicable law covenant to get there. It was contextual; if you walked in the light you had, God would honor your faith. You were obliged to study it insofar as you had access to revelation. In the New Testament, we can claim that eternal birth without having to first wade through the full history of revelation. Not only do we have the record of revelation easily accessible in most human languages, but we can gain the awareness of our spiritual birth with precious little reading of it beforehand.
It’s not as if spiritual birth began with the Cross. It’s that the Cross reduced the ritual obligations and we need not go through a big rigmarole of conversion. There is one sacrifice for sins on the earth; Jesus closed that section of the Laws of God in His person. The Laws were forcefully moved into their proper place, as a parable for something much more important. The focus is not on observance of the Laws, but the meaning of divine justice itself. If we can embrace the meaning of Christ’s life and sacrifice, we can gain immediate access to the full blessings of the Laws.
His resurrection is another matter. It speaks in ways words cannot, offering to us an awareness of life beyond this realm of existence. It is the ultimate assertion of otherworldly focus, reducing this realm to insignificance. We have only one reason to live in this world, and that is to follow Christ out of it. The whole meaning of the Laws is outside this world where they apply. We blaspheme when we reduce the mighty miracle of grace to a mere formula of ritual and observance of particulars. We blaspheme when we reduce grace to mere intellectual assent. We blaspheme when we reduce grace to a human decision. How it is that someone comes to care in the first place is where the miracle of God begins. That sense of concern goes far beyond mere guilt over sin; it’s an overwhelming sense begging to make peace with God.
There is no magic formula. You cannot sell it; you cannot lead people there if they aren’t there already. In our Western world of manipulation, the whole business of religion has been deeply stained with human willfulness and blasphemy of presuming to understand and control human access to God. The Gatekeeper to Heaven is God Himself, and He alone. There is only one answer when God asks, “Why should I let you in?” It is: “You invited me.” Any other answer means you have no business there. You cannot come to the point of wanting in without having already a standing invitation. God has not changed since before Creation. The fundamental nature of revelation hasn’t changed, either; it has only blossomed into fullness in Christ.
Jesus Himself warned that the invitation is not universal. The story of Lazarus resting in the bosom of Abraham includes a warning that some would not make it.
