Of Prophets and Good News!

 Hi folks!

Read if you will: Of Elijah in 1 Kings 17:10-16; 17-24.  Of Elisha in 2 Kgs 4:8-37.

The context is in 1 Kgs 16, that will tell you enough. In Ch 17, Elijah has told King Ahab that there will be a drought. Bad news. A challenging statement from the prophet, because half of the country believed in Ba’al and held that their God was the bringer of rain. Why does this matter? Because Ahab had taken Jezebel the Sidonian princess to wife, and in line with her devotion to Ba’al, had built an altar to Ba’al. And had gone on from there into greater things! Does the King now seek to silence the prophet? Or negotiate with him to resolve this?

But Elijah is not at court…’depart and hide yourself…’ and is out of Ahab’s reach, east of the Jordan, at the brook Cherith. There, is water; and God sends ravens with food. Enough to keep him alive. Then the brook dries up. The famine is taking hold. God sends him to a widow at Zarephath, on the Phoenician coast; the widow will supply food!

Elijah goes. He meets the widow at the Town’s gate, where she is gathering sticks. Elijah asks for bread and water. She tells him that all she has is a bit of flour and olive oil; she is about to prepare something for herself and her son, after which they can only prepare for death! All hope is lost. There is no future. But Elijah’s response is clear. Do as you intend, but first, make a small loaf of bread for me, and then for yourself and your son; the flour will last, and the oil also, until the Lord sends rain. What is the prophet doing?

He has challenged the authority of the King and the King’s supposed God, Ba’al! And Elijah had probably spoken at Court, as prophets will (remember David and the prophet Nathan?) in the presence of all the Officials. There will be drought and all will suffer. This blight has fallen on the land because Ahab has not been a godly leader. He has not placed God before all things. He has placed the power of evil first. He has worshiped a false God. The people of Israel flounder. These were times when foundations of buildings were laid with the blood of a child sacrifice, even. The only way the King can undo what has been said is to kill Elijah and thereby void the prophecy?

But the drought begins. And as days become weeks become months, the country starves. And the poor starve first, for the rich have stores aplenty and can hang on for quite a bit.

So it is that God intentionally sends Elijah to this poor woman. She is not an Israelite and is a widow. Of no status, and a marginal person. No one is there to help, and in bad times, everyone looks out for themselves! But into her life Elijah comes, sent by God.  And he stays with her. And there is, miraculously, this business about her little bit of flour that seems to replicate itself. And the same goes for the little amount of olive oil she has. It keeps on being sufficient unto the day. For each day.

In this one act, Elijah has shown that God is king, and no matter what an earthly leader may decree, there is a limit beyond which a King’s earthly ability cannot move. What to do about a drought? Bring out the rainmakers? Remember how Pharoah brought out Court Magicians when Moses first showed up? Hah! You can make a stick into a snake? So can my Court magicians! Any other tricks? But the drought continues.

Ahab is looking for Elijah, but the prophet is out of his reach at Zarephath, and has created a blessing for a poor woman who has nothing but somehow seems to have bread every day!

The bread, here, is the good news of the gospel! It is good news to the widow and her son! Food is scarce, and they have no means to afford what little there is. In a time when death is certain, God can and will bring hope in life. The Kings of this earth have limits.

And there’s more. For the widow’s son falls ill and dies. The widow is distraught - why?  Is this some kind of cruel punishment? Elijah takes the child to his room and beseeches God to return life, to reverse cause and effect. But God does not interfere anytime with cause and effect, no?  Except when God chooses to provide an example of what divine difference can mean to the Kings of this world. In this case, what Elijah is doing is to prove that where there is death, there may also be new life. It is an awesome story! In drought and starvation, bread becomes real. When death comes along, it can even be reversed! God is showing through Elijah’s work what good news can be! Suddenly there are possibilities! Not only is there life because there is bread now, but there is life even in the face of death. And it is salvation as real time deliverance, a movement that takes us from sorrow to joy.

These exceptions show us that in God there are no limits. And these divine actions happen when earthly powers try to set limits upon the human condition and create situations of suffering. This is never meant to be a preferential individualized action. There are no specially chosen persons. We are just called to move beyond earthly power that tries to limit us. As long as we are convinced that we are helpless, we will continue to be helpless. God says that we need not be. Hence Jesus talks about moving mountains. When the cause is great, and the challenge that threatens is wickedly great, and the people are at stake, God will show that a different and new thing is possible! Then we grab that difference and run with it!

There is deliverance, and it is salvation. It is real. The good news of salvation is deliverance, as taught by the Bible through all of its stories. And deliverance is a transforming event, far more than a matter of abstract ‘belief’ or ‘faith’. It creates change, now. It is experience, and It brings a transition from sorrow to joy!

It can start with faith and belief. It can also start with an encounter. Then it builds into relationship, for in God in Jesus we are connected, as in branches to a vine. Remember what Jesus said about the being of vine and branches, in John? Exactly so. It is out of these that the Bible teaches the formula of belief = faith = encounter = relationship = our godly (enhanced) will. God has no need for $. Only the world says that. Look for such a formula by all means. You will not find it spelled out. But it is there for all who truly seek the Kingdom. For all who desire the Kingdom above all else! And in the days to come we will go through all of it, step by careful step.

That is the challenge and opportunity of Jacob’s Ladder. You climb the ladder by belief, then faith, then encounter, then relationship, then will. God is not just the God of biblical history, but God of the here and now and tomorrow. And there is no first amongst equals. That is why Jesus says ‘I call you brothers’. You demonstrate God’s power in every challenging situation the world throws at you and there is little you cannot do. As long as your spirit carries the love of God within, you will manifest the godliness that God has placed there, and it will be more than suffice.

Remember the David experience. We move in relationship with God in Jesus starting with dependance – we are children and need to be fed, led, protected, and so on; but we can grow into independence, and begin to stand on our own, knowing that God trusts us, enables us, challenges us to learn and think and listen to his leading into making the right decisions; then we must begin to navigate the trickiness of interdependence and of becoming reliable and effective co-workers with God, without under living or over living! And this is not easy! Perhaps we are too quick in settling for a social identity which ends up as a comfortable and emotional feelgood experience, but not one that is able to take on and overcome the challenges that the world and its systems throw at us! We are easily confused, led astray, subject to many influences that turn us aside. But Jesus says ‘Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.’ It means that we can do so as well!

May the Lord our God make you perfect to do his will, in the name of our Savior, Jesus. Go out in good cheer, for as the Lord has shown, we may overcome that which threatens our wellbeing. Grace & peace, G.

Prophecy - early beginnings...

 

Sun Sep 21st 2025

What is a prophet?

Prophets are always called to specific time and place pronouncements, and/or specific time and place acts, both of which happen in order to reveal, destabilize and delegitimize the power of dominant overpowering state entities that want nothing but absolute power over people in order to exploit them.

No one who understands what it means would want to be a prophet in the biblical sense of the word, for it is a dangerous business. Be wary of anyone who identifies themselves as such. The prophets never did so. They were simply recognized as prophets by what they said and did.   

And they always had only one theme, one mission, that drove them. God’s will to show that God is God, and not to be confused with some earthly power that lacked moral goodness but was trying to pass itself off as God.

God called Israel into being, and after Jesus ministry, the people of God became the Christian Church. The Israel that continues is of Judaism, and even then not exactly so. But the people of God are a people of an alternate nature, of alternate values – led by God, inspired by God, protected by God. We have seen thus far that Israel failed in this mission, and so the Old Testament ends sadly in division and a hope that one day, the mission will continue. And as prophesied, it resurfaces in Jesus and finds completion in him. But old ways die hard; hence the Israelites wanted Jesus, at what we celebrate as ‘Palm Sunday’, to enter Jerusalem and smite the Romans good! A Messiah who would trash the enemy and conquer! But as Jesus said, he who lives by the sword will die by the sword. When you follow God truly, it is God who fights for you. No need for armament. But mostly we choose to be worldly, and not godly.

In the early days, when Israel suffered in Egypt and cried out to God for help, God answered, and sent Moses. One man to stand against the dominant power. But empowered by God. And God prevailed. Egypt learned a hard lesson. As in the movie version when Pharoah says to Moses, ‘ Your God…… is God’.

No different when Elijah declared a famine, and food prices had become very expensive and a widow faced death, and Elijah said to her that what little is left, it will not fail. And so the poor woman always had enough. God provides. Note the woman was not an Israelite.

When Jesus came, the same series of events happened, but with final results. The power of evil and wickedness, which seeks always to harm others, is broken for all time. Evil is defeated, but the victory meant paying a price, which God in Jesus paid for us. But we must realize that while defeated, evil will always be there until the end of the age, and will manifest itself again and again, in various lying and deceitful ways.

So we begin to look at what prophets do and what it all means by going back to Moses in Egypt and seeing what happened there. Then we will look at Elijah and Elisha and Israel, and then at Isaiah and Babylon, and finally to Jesus in Roman times. This is a roller coaster ride.

First, think back to what you know of Israel in Egypt. Israel, at the end of the Book of Genesis, prospers, and Joseph is 2^nd only to Pharoah. The Israelites are comfortable. But then a new Pharoah is crowned, and this ruler is different. Comfort becomes a thing of the past! Egyptians are now seen as the only true people, and the Israelites are immigrants, a burden, and a threat even. What do you do with a perceived threat? If you are the power, then, in order to protect your power from a perceived threat, you dismantle it. Oppress these people, treat them as less then human, afflict them, render them powerless. Then you are safe, no? So the Israelites are enslaved, forced to make bricks for no pay and so on.

And this is where the God given identity and mission of the people of God kicks in. God’s people exist to make God known. That’s it. Nothing special about them, compared to anyone else. Except their goal in life! Give up the goal and the specialness dies. And God gives God’s identity to them, so that they are always different, and they are to maintain that differentness. They are, always, the alternative form, the true reality reflecting that which is God – to the sinful powers of this world, the ones who offer a pretend reality.  If the rulers of this world decided to be godly, then there would be alignment. But that never happens because rulers see no other than themselves. But they do love to use God’s ‘name’ in all they do. It gives them such legitimacy, no? It’s true, God wills it! And so on…

God sends Moses to Pharoah. Go, show him, there is only one God. Many lessons are taught, many plagues descend. Step by step, as Moses proceeds, the power of the dominant worldly entity is broken. At the end of it all, Pharoah agrees. Your God….is God. Remember, Moses was not very willing to undertake this mission. No prophet is. It is a high risk burdensome enterprise. You are set against the materialistic power and wealth loving world, and the world will hate you, as Jesus said. 

But that is what we as Christians are called to. We are always to represent the godly alternative to the powers that be. In Jesus, we are all minor prophets, each one in their own way in their own time. Scary idea. But God empowers. This is why Jacob’s Ladder calls us to an empowered life, Not about talking about feeling empowered. But about living it and making a difference.

 

And was Moses about the 10 commandments and manna and not much else? Please read Deuteronomy 15:1-8 to see what else and think hard on it. Therein is a call to a very different type of society. It is all about neighbor and community. Where there is to be no economic exploitation of the poor by the rich; where debts are cancelled every 6 years, so everyone in debt gets a shot at a new beginning; vs 4 & 11 emphasize the necessity of doing this faithfully, so that demeaning poverty can be a thing of the past. We haven’t exactly managed that, have we? Seems like no one listened, no one’s listening. Or that the worldly powers that be are still what they always have been.

Yet this is what it is all about. What are we set free for? A new kind of freedom, one that carries both responsibility, accountability and a very strange God given ability with it. Godly rulers are entirely possible, just that they have to deal with the 3 heavy temptations of money, power, and sex. Well, if you put yourself first you can’t really build community, can you? You take care of No. 1 and expect that the rest can manage, somehow. But community means caring for your neighbor, always. Hence, Jesus says there are only 2 commands – Love God and love thy neighbor as thyself. Treat them as you would be treated! But Solomon had some 30 wives, some 700 concubines. Are we worldly enough yet?

Back in 2000, Walter Brueggemann, most accurate translator and Professor of Biblical Hebrew, spoke about the disestablishment of Western Christianity and the collapse of the social hegemony of the church. You would have to read his Prophetic Imagination and his Testimony to Otherwise to get a sense of how he sees things as the prophets saw.  His Old Testament Theology will remain unsurpassed for a long time. A fellow pastor of mine in New  England said to me, ‘you ought to frame your letters from Brueggemann!’  I smiled.  More recently in 2024, Jim Wallis, a gutsy Christian minister and activist, published his work on the False White Gospel, a very historical journey of how Christian stuff has come about in the US. The good guys are few and far in-between. Their claims are justified and their work is definitive. People, however, tend to hear what they want to hear. And since the rest of the world follows dominant influence, this has easily become the blind leading the blind. People talking about stuff, or preaching about stuff, but unable to do anything about it, without money.

Not Jesus’ style. He teaches his followers differently. That is the challenge of Jacob’s Ladder. We will climb it together. Next week, we begin to look at the incidents in Elijah’s time and what they meant and why they happened. We will figure out what it all means for us and what challenges lie therein as we go along! Peace to you all, and much love in Jesus, G.

David, in conclusion

 

Sun Sep 14^th 2025

David, a bolt of lightning....

The story of David is like a bolt of lightning in the sky of the Old Testament narrative - in its attempted jump from the person of Psalm 23 to the being of Psalm Eight. It is not an easy jump and has not been given credence for the longest time. Yet it has always been there. Perhaps no more than all the good news Jesus brings to us, the meaning of which the tradition of the Church has somehow missed – the jump from dependence through independence into interdependence: always in community, and always with God. It is not too difficult to see that the step in the middle – independence – has been the difficult corner to get around. Both church and community leaders, priests and politicians, have denied this to the ordinary person. But God has not.

The dominant way of life in Old Testament times was that of the middle eastern kingdoms, and David paid the price for buying into that. It blinded him from developing his relationship with the God who is. This is not a matter of ‘Christianity vs culture’ for example. It is never a one vs the other; it has always been the way of the good versus the way of the harmful, and that is the same in every culture: what hurts others, and what helps them. We just shade things in ways that are favorable to those in control. God has never accepted that.

David did exceptionally well in the initial stages of dependence moving into independence, enough for Brueggemann, deep in his study of Wisdom, to discover the biblical links that surface in David’s life and actions,  and then cry ‘Aha!’ at that discovery! But Wisdom has stayed hidden for centuries as poetry and prose, like the lost Ark. It may be read as such, but its wisdom carries an inherent link to how the creator Spirit works in our lives..

Our opportunity here is to see David’s life for what it was – a genuine shot at a spirit-based interdependent life here and even beyond, in the presence of God, given the assurances he was given. He took his best shot and got so far, and no further. By the time of Bathsheba’s arrival his mindset is not that of a new creation tapped by God for greater things, but that of a King like unto the nations, and he now thinks he no longer needs God because he has power. He can deal with his enemies as he needs to. They are still there, but he feels that they are no menace to him. He is safe in Jerusalem, comfortable with the wealth and power of being the first true King of Israel. Saul was too much of a county sheriff to count as King of Israel. But David’s misunderstanding of his reality leads to his spiritual growth beginning to grind to a halt.

 It is not a fall from grace, nor a judgement from God. It is his inability or his unwillingness to grow in his relationship with God. Can’t say which, the choices were his. The Psalms give us enough clues about this – his dominant concerns have always been about power struggles and the injustice that he has had to deal with. Very personal, very individual, very self-concerned. All about struggles with enemies! God has brought him through, time after time, and blessed him. Instead of turning wholeheartedly to God he seems to misunderstand interdependence, failing to realize that independence is not the final goal, but just the stage before. Has the Christian church been any different in its interpretive traditions?  Once again, Dostoyevsky’s reminder of the unwelcome Christ!!

But review the stages briefly. First, the dependence of Psalm 23, where we are sheep, totally reliant on the good shepherd. Children, with a long way to go. Then we encounter Psalm 8, in which we are suddenly, lo and behold, a little less than the angels. And how do we get there? Ps 23 is where David is at in his beginning, and Ps 8 is where he could get to. It’s the in between that is tricky – how to navigate the maze that constitutes independence and then get beyond that into interdependence, beginning to be a co-worker with God? God does not shout in your ear. Ever. Ministry is not an independent mission, but a co-worker enterprise shared with God. No one will disagree with that statement, but our actions haven’t exactly carried it out that way. We do our own thing, and then say ’God said so’ but the outcome never matches the promise! So, it is not surprising that whenever the cry of ‘God wills it’ has inspired an imperative to ‘mission’ whatever that might be taken to mean, there has almost always been an ulterior motive of gaining an advantage over some other!  

Remember that the Israelite monarchy failed in its entirety. From Saul the county sheriff, to Solomon the wise, who displayed much wisdom, but then ended up with many wives and their Gods, all in the name of the acquisition of earthly wealth. Not exactly the Godly King.  Nor was godly kingship to be seen in the divided Kingdom with its litany of good and bad kings, hugely oversimplified. In all this, Brueggemann identifies the incidents where David evidences a differentness, but it soon begins to fade.

Why didn’t the Spirit come mightily upon David as he gazed upon Bathsheba and lead him to some other fawn? Nope. That is the true requirement of interdependence ie you choose, and choose rightly! But David by this time had developed a different mindset. Gone were the lament psalms that focused on his enemies around him. He was King of Jerusalem, the first true King - and he felt it. But his feelings deceived him. Could it be that in his view, God was no longer needed? The King could resolve the issues of the day, and the King would have that which he desired. It is not the singular act of coveting and its result that brings him down, as much as it is the decision to turn away from God, who is no longed needed?  We ask most sincerely when we are in greatest need. When we are good and everything is great, we make merry - and forget God. Hence our lack of spiritual growth. Like our preoccupation with the physical body. Today our notion of spirituality is still giving alms, attending worship, doing kind deeds, and mostly, feeling that we have a relationship with God. But that one is not about feeling! It is response-ability to all God sees we can do in our lives! And it goes far beyond physical comfort and material wealth. It just achieves them by different means. The foreshadowing of the prototokos in Ps 8 remains hidden.

Those who focus on the King’s ‘Bathsheba’ incident wonder might how come the results were so devastating. But the King had set the stage. And the weeds he had allowed to grow bore fruit of their own kind. Most devastating perhaps is when a daughter gets raped by a half-brother, and the King says nothing. It ends in blood.

Thus, the David story ends, with a review of David’s great warriors, a song of victory from early days when Saul persecuted him, and a Psalm of his last words, here described as an oracle. But these entries parallel the stories of David before the Bathsheba-Uriah time and its consequences.  They seem to gloss over the final stages of David’s life, which is nothing but a tragic sword history.

It falls to us to realize that the call of wisdom remains, and that it must be reintegrated into the ministry we profess of Jesus, of which we have precious little on record, if any, having lost some two decades of where he was and what he was about. Hence the importance of working in and with the Holy Spirit in the here and now, as Jesus taught. As Jesus demonstrated and practiced. And the few words of Jesus we have can lead us.

Wisdom sees things very differently. Reread some of the early stuff on wisdom when we began to look at David. We know, intuitively, what needs to be done to make things good and right. We just don’t do it. We fail to grasp and utilize the strength of God given human will. The more you use God’s will the better you get at it! But we ascribe our failure to our ‘sinfulness’.  As I said, our low anthropological self-opinion, as a bunch of miserable sinners! And we prescribe Christ as the remedy. And that does not work since it just attempts to pass the buck! Hence, the Church has struggled with improving the world it purports to serve. It lacks the spiritual capability to do so. I don’t mean to be harsh, but what good does not marrying serve if it ends up with desire being expressed in different ways upon unwilling persons and even youth? Very sad, but the true reality of failed spirituality. Of purporting to but not working with God. And it’s everywhere, not just in one section or denomination or division.  We must look within our own God given selves first, find the godly notion, and choose it. Then we must decide to will it into being, via spirit, mind, and body. Then only, does the power of God begin to surge in us. Only then will our self-understanding begin to mature into self-realization and grow into God-realization.

This, dear friends, is the good news of the David experience. It is the true gospel, the glad tidings of good news! God says ’I will not take my ‘khesedh’ (grace) from him. Read the entire section in 2 Sam 7:8-12; 14-16, esp. 15-16! It is a very radical statement, meaning that ‘you are my creation, and I trust you to do the right thing. Go do it.’ If you fail, there will be consequences, and you must deal with them. That’s it. This to me is what it means to be human. You do the best you can. If you fail, never mind, you carry on. You fix it and move forward, the missing piece of forgiveness in much talk about it. Mistakes are fine. But fix them. You will succeed. Never mind whatever life throws at you. You will overcome. Just don’t give up. Ever. Realize that you never walk alone. Live in that grace. It finalizes in all that Jesus says to us. Believe. Have faith. Sure. But act on it. And in the acting of it, you will discover just how God walks with you, always. And that you are the one who decides your own fences, your own limits, your own capability. Be at peace in difficult times and walk forward in strength.  Every blessing in Jesus, G.

David & the mystery of death...

 

Sun Sep 7^th 2025

Hi folks,

Trust all is good with you! Once again, for anyone who didn’t hear it, this is not a church post, there is no mission, no fund raiser, nor anything like that; just a journey into the Kingdom in the here and now, for all who are interested.

This week we look at that strange incident when David, now married to Bathsheba, has to face the death of their child. I say strange, because it is most unlike the kind of responses to death that we are all familiar with. We grieve, we mourn, we cry and weep, and do this individually and collectively. For some time after, we may be revisited by memories that range from warm and loving to sad and bittersweet. Death is relational to most of us. The more we care for someone, the closer the relationship, the more likely it is that we will feel their loss. Our sorrow is because we cannot recover that which has been lost. This is particularly acute when death comes unexpectedly, as it can and sometimes does, in all instances of cause and effect.

David does nothing like that in this instance. He has, up to the moment of death, done all that he can; he has fasted, prayed, beseeched God, all to no avail. The child has not recovered and has died. David gets up, washes, eats, changes his clothes, and gets on with life.

What are we to say to this? We have no idea how he felt on the inside, so we cannot know or assume to know. All we can see is that his functionality is in no way compromised by death. It does not mean that he does not care or grieve over his loss. But the standard expressions of grief are not there. David continues to be a different man in many ways, and this is one of those ways that make him unique. Should we agree? Or disagree? Or count it as an exception? Do we even need to have a response at all, other than to be ourselves? AT minimum, it is a good reminder not to be incapacitated by loss. How so? Because both the Testaments speak of returning to God, and Jesus says so. This is critical. If we believe Jesus said so, well and good. We may be true blue biblical Christians. But that is not enough. Only knowing this will make the difference, and that is only possible in the space between your spirit and the Holy Spirit.

Suppose we take it from there then, and ask -  what does it mean to be ourselves in the face of death?

Are we euphemistic about death? Death and dying are not popular words. It is common to say that someone has passed. We understand that to mean that they have passed away from this life, are gone and are no more. Do they exist in some different shape or form? Are they still themselves, but in a different place? Who gets to go to ‘heaven’ and who must face ‘hell’? These actualities have been hugely oversimplified. They are not and have nev er been black and white issues. We must ask ourselves, not just what we think in facing the death of others, but how we intend to face death ourselves.

Let me cut to the chase. We are mostly preoccupied/concerned/focused  …I am not sure which word fits best, but we are far more conscious of our bodily existence than we are of our spiritual existence! Yet, as Sting once sang, we are Spirits in a material world!  Is our bodily preoccupation why many balk at the thought or possibility of death?Perhaps it is a question of identity consciousness that we must work on?

In my view, personal testimony serves best here, not academic theology or logical persuasion. The operative words in scripture for me have been ‘I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may be…’ and ‘this day you will be with me in paradise (not sure if the Aramaic transl. really says ‘paradise’. Does not matter.) These NT verses echo the OT ones that say in Ecclesiastes that at death, the spirit returns to God who gave it. And my journey beyond faith and belief began at those points and moved forward. You must choose that which speaks to you. I can only point to what I find and experience.

It has grown to become more than belief or a matter of faith. It is an experience that only you can discover for yourself. And it begins here and now. Enough for me to say for now that the dominant Christian traditions have had little to share about death and the life beyond. No one comes back to share anything, do they? Ah well, so much for epistemology.

We still do R.I.P’s all the time. What does that mean? Rest in peace, Latin form? But it’s a cold dark end – for the body that is. And for the spirit? That is what the Holy Spirit can and will teach to those who seek it.   

This is why, as we age, and the body begins to wind down, the spiritual life that we live is of the utmost importance. We will deal with all of this incrementally and slowly. I have no desire to lead anyone or mislead anyone! You must find out for yourself. And only God can show you. Only if your will of your spiritual experience is aimed at transcending your bodily limits, will this kind of experience become reality that transcends faith, belief, and religious teaching. As I said, the mind controls the body. But the spirit controls the mind. That is the upward journey. It is meeting God in the space between.

It seems weird but only because it is so very different from the ways of the world. When we are done with David we will look at Elijah and Elisha, for they precede Jesus in many ways. Only then will we get to the first section on the mind of Christ. God’s strange differentness is real and is out there. Abraham was old but God asked many things of him. And enabled him. Same with Moses, when he led Israel out. Jesus completed all of the actions and teachings that went before him. His words were critical of the establishment then and its claim to power, and his actions turned all expectations upside down. Jesus has not changed. We have become too used to the ways of the world. So we say to ourselves that it’s nice to hope, but we don’t really know. But seek the knowing. Ask, and ye shall receive.

The proof of the life beyond death is in your God given ability to make your spirit, not your body, make a difference in how you live and function in this world. The body is a vehicle, and it is controllable. At death it is discarded. If some of us think  - well, the teaching is that at death we fall asleep, and will remain asleep until the Lord comes again, we are most welcome to think that. But I ask you to think of the resurrected Christ, whose being moved through walls. No, that is not a physical bodily thing anymore. Something totally different. And some of us may feel, yes, at that final day we will all be resurrected just like that.  Just as some of us may think of Revelation and look for signs and wonders that tell when and how. But the way of the Spirit and the ability that the Spirit gives is here and now. The Kingdom of God is not a wait until you die experience.

We must learn the real things of the Spirit from the bottom up, and it can be a slow journey.  Has been for me anyhow! We must learn how we can will a positive difference and then go out and make that difference happen. We must challenge ourselves. And the Holy Spirit will teach each of us. This is God’s desire for one and all. As is truly said, seek, you will find. 

As we proceed, those of us who are determined, will find ourselves growing at a different speed, strength, and awareness, from those around us. This is why Jacob’s Ladder is a good lead. He dreamed, and saw a ladder, and there were angels on it. Start there. Dream your way into reality. The lines are never as clear and fixed as we have been told that they are. God waits. Jesus calls.

David learned something of this. And it rubbed off on him, causing him to behave differently from the norm in so many ways. Here, in this instance, he rises above physical death. It is as if he has achieved some insight into the seeming finality of death, I will go to him, but he will not return to me. Can’t go backwards, only forwards. Death is not the end. Just a new beginning of something else – a life in the Kingdom.

And to make it there, we do not have to wait until our time of death for God to decide our fate! We can decide now. It is much more than some ‘I take Jesus as my Savior thing.’ That’s just the entre!  It is a commitment to walk and practice God’s ways, ways that we all almost know by God given instinct, and to watch and listen for God’s leading. For it is there for all of us, but few listen. Hence, many are called, few are chosen.  

The true spiritual life is a life that uses mental and physical capabilities to their limits and then exceeds them as needed. It is Psalm 8 becoming real here and now. And it is doable. Walk this way. May the Lord of light himself lead and guide you every day. May you exceed your assumed capabilities in thought, mind, deed and ability in every possible way.  Blessings, G.