The Lust of the Flesh versus The Passion of The Christ


The fellowship, even the oneness that the Lord is after in and for us in this present age is rooted in His Passion, “The Passion of The Christ.”  “We Love because He first loved us.”

There is a passion of the flesh, which Paul tells us is about Christ and the Church, Ephesians 5:31, 32.  Paul begins what we know as Ephesians 5 with this, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” (Verse 3)   Sad to say, there is great confusion in this connection leading to moral failure on the one hand, and to repression and denial on the other.  In either case, what is missing is the kind of gender-neutral spiritual intimacy among us that Jesus prayed and died for.

We need to be clear about this intimacy.   We need to know how to discern the difference, if the world is ever going to see the passion in us that was manifest in Jesus.  This is the Passion that Jesus demonstrated on the cross, and prayed that we might share, not only with Him and His Father, but also with each other, as directed in and by His Spirit at work in us.  This is a passion so great that the closest thing to it is what I call the sexual parable.  It is pictured in being created male and female in its image, again, Ephesians 5: 31, 32.  This passion is also pictured in Song of Songs.  It is also pictured in the relationship between David and Jonathan, “I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women,”  2 Samuel 1:26.

In Christ this passion is not about the flesh, it is about the Spirit of Christ in us – The Spirit that puts us together and makes us one, not only with Him, but also with each other.  This is a passion so great that if we don’t get it right, there is bound to be moral failure among us just as there was at Corinth, where Paul was determined to address it early on.

The problem of moral failure is not solved by turning the passion of Christ into passionless doctrinal love.  It is solved by discerning the difference between the lust of the flesh and the passion of the Christ in and among us who believe.  We must let the lust of the flesh be contained within the marriage of the flesh, “the two shall become one flesh…” Ephesians 5:31, so that the Passion of The Christ can be expressed in our fellowship with one another without regard to gender, and that without moral failure.

Love!

Posted in J.Ferris: Top Posts | 3 Comments

The Vine and The Branches, and the mutant Stem cells

Revelation in connection with what has been calling itself “church” continues to get clearer. This morning it hit me as the title of this post suggests: (Vine – branches – stems). We know that branches that don’t abide in the vine get “thrown into the fire.”

John 15:4-6:  “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”

The stem cells may be attached to branches that are still in the vine, but if they are mutant stem cells their fruit will be devilish rather than Christish. Jesus said, “Your father, the Devil…” The children of the devil are not the devil, but they are devilish.  The children of the Lord are not Christ, they are Christish – Christian. As such they are the fullness of Him Who fills everything in every way.  Mutant stem cells taken together are the fullness of the Devil, who may not fill everything in every way, but for the present, fills a lot of bad stuff in a lot of ways.

Taking out the stem cells is a daunting task, they have a lot of defense mechanisms, if you can manage to get at them in one place or set of circumstances, they mutate or morph into another place or circumstance taking new forms of defense mechanisms with them. They cause both the growth and the spread of cancer.  They are very defensive. When their mutant associates, non-stem cancer cells get injured the stem cells respond by multiplying to help their mutant friends. This is one of the down sides of current cancer therapy – the tumors may shrink, but the stem cells increase and some of them run and hide in new places. During periods of remission they are able to hide out most any place, and then in their own bad time reemerge as recurrent cancer, the same as the original or mutated into something new. They are very wily moving targets.

What comes to mind here is something Jesus said to the religious experts of His day: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” Matthew 23:13, 15 (NIV).   I should say the the NIV omits verse 14 except by a foot note: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Therefore you will be punished more severely.”  I should say that religious experts do that quite well also.  They share a gospel of sorts, but along with it they preach a lot of error, and as the Apostle Paul wrote:  “Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?” 1 Corinthians 5:6

Perhaps enough said for now about mutated religious experts and their down line.

This just to say that we continue to travel over land and sea in search of the truth where cancer is concerned. Our hope is that something will emerge in the face of all the attention that is now focused on mutant stem cells, something that will either straighten them all out or wipe them all out.

Love!

Posted in J.Ferris: Cancer & Medicine | 2 Comments

Addendum to Flunked the Final

Addendum to Flunked the Final

No amount of high class culture, not even with advanced degrees from Harvard, Oxford, or Fuller Theological Seminary is any substitute for a life lived in The Spirit.  Flesh is flesh, no matter what degrees it might have or station in life it may have attained.

Posted in J.Ferris: Miscellaneous | 2 Comments