Loving Like God

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”  Isaiah 53:4, 5.

It is difficult to think about passionate human intimacy without this passage coming to mind. At first glance it can appear that it is physical healing that we need, but on closer examination and experience we quickly discover that it is healing of a much deeper nature that is needed.

Where this matter of healing is concerned we are much more inclined to think in terms of hospitals, doctors and nurses, but Jesus didn’t come that we might have any of those things more abundantly. He came that we might have “life, and life more abundantly.” In the first instance, it is “life” that we need to get, not a doctor or a nurse or a clinic.

That said, and on deeper reflection, we can appreciate that the flesh and blood intimacy attendant to the practice of medicine changes venues in Christ to the practice of life and relationship. The physical intimacy that sickness brings to the fore is a picture of the spiritual intimacy that “iniquity” brings to the fore. We are on Jesus triage team. All the arrangements are made in and by the Spirit, but this only means that the intimacy required for healing is even deeper. Like medics, we practice relational intimacy in the battlefield, Colossians 1:24.

Our passage from Isaiah strongly suggest that there is a lot of room for misunderstanding where the love of God is concerned – “we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted…”

But even in his time, Isaiah understood that “… he was pierced for our transgression… crushed for our iniquities… punished for our peace… and wounded for our healing.”

Love!

• By Jay Ferris, originally posted January 2013.

For more on this subject, see “Is There No Balm in Gilead”

Ephesians 5:1-21

Back in 1999 I wrote:

“During our time away, Carleen and I stopped by a bookstore.  The sign out front read, “Giant Book Sale.”  While browsing inside, I came across a little illustrated book, a sort of commentary on the book of Revelation. It seemed to suggest that “the woman” has been removed from the scene while the dragon, through man, the wrong man, runs roughshod over everything for 1,260 days, whatever that means.  It is clear, however, that this is not the reign of the right man, but the wrong man.  In any case, by the time we get to the end of Chapter 13, there are two males and one female. Ultimately the “man child”  will rule, but for the present, it appears that the crowns are on the beast, an unredeemed, and un-redeeming man.

The church right now is more an auditorium for male ego gratification than it is a sanctuary in time and space for divine relationship. Or, in the words of Liza Doolittle, “Words, words, words, we get words all day through, first from them now from you, is that all you blighters can do?”  Seventeen hundred years of show business ought to be enough.  When Jesus demonstrated what it was to be a servant, it wasn’t by preaching at His disciples.  Male preaching for the most part has preempted the time during which the church is gathered, and might otherwise be getting to know itself, and the Christ who is her source, and life. To be truly cleansing, ‘… the washing of water by the word’ needs to be interactive, it needs to be conversational.  ‘What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has…’

Males want to do things, their own things.  Females want to be related, ‘Your desire will be for your husband…’  To see the church from God’s perspective, we must first see a woman.  When we look at the church as it is in the present, about all we can see is a man, and he doesn’t look much like Jesus, not even Jesus in the flesh. The Book of Revelation not only reveals Jesus, but in some sense, indicates what it’s going to take to get the wrong man off the throne, ‘… the removal of what can be shaken” .  See “Wonder Woman” e-reader.

I hope that sets the context for the redemption that is on my heart where these present “levels” are concerned, levels of relational intimacy.

Time is more precious, the less of it we have.  “Redeeming the time for the days are evil.” From a Biblical perspective, the closer we get to the end of time the more evil the days become, and fortunately the less days there are for the increasing evil.

What I want to address here is the increasing urgency to stop wasting our time on words and relationships that don’t edify.  Jesus Christ has a lot He still wants to say to us, and he wants to use our mouths to say it.

Perhaps enough said for now where the importance of redeeming the time is concerned.

Love!

• By Jay Ferris, originally posted December 2012.

For more reading, see previous intimacy level post, “Ambassadors of Light”

What are some of the implications of what it is to be an ambassador, and especially an “ambassador of Christ”?  To begin with there is a governmental or kingdom implication to the word “ambassador.”  An ambassador embodies the border of the kingdom or government he or she represents. This is representation at the point of greatest contrast.

When we speak of diplomatic recognition, we are talking about the honor extended by one government to another.  When such recognition is withheld, it is an indication that there is enmity between the nations in question.  We extend recognition when we wish the other government to stand, and withhold recognition when we want it to fall.  Such is the way of governments.

Geographically, the place of an ambassador is an embassy compound.  The building is an embassy.  It is understood among nations that the territory occupied by a foreign government – the embassy compound is the territory of that foreign government. U.S. embassies occupy U.S. territory in remote locations. Whether small or large, the territory associated with an embassy has the same standing as the home territory of the nation that embassy represents.

The U.S. embassy compound in Moscow is U.S. territory. The U.S. embassy compound is in, but not of Moscow. An attack upon it is the same as an attack upon the United States.  So it is with ambassadors of heaven.

“And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven,” John 3:13

Quoted here from the King James Version of the Bible, we see an important truth pertaining to the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of man, “… the Son of man which is in heaven.” Jesus said this in His conversation with Nicodemus while he was here on earth.  Jesus said that His kingdom was not of this world, but that, in Him, the kingdom of God had come near. Jesus himself is heavenly territory.  He was able to be in foreign territory, (this world) but still be in heaven. Jesus was God’s Ambassador of heaven. He was God’s embassy, and He was also the embassy compound of the kingdom of heaven. He was in a position, not only to extend diplomatic recognition, but provide political asylum. He is the hiding place and refuge for those who would flee, not only the trials of this world, but the wrath to come.

So it is with us with Joshua, (Jesus), by faith, The Lord has given us every place we set our foot so that we might represent the Kingdom of Light, the Kingdom of God’s Dear Son.  Jesus Himself is the Kingdom of God, and he is present both in the world, in our hearts, and at the same time present at the right hand of the Father at the throne of heaven.

That much I set to paper in 6/24/92

In the context of our last couple of posts, it came back to me at a time when the bloody message of the Benghazi atrocity is not yet fully dry in the ground.

From the muse of 1992, I would like to borrow the thought for present purposes that we, like Jesus are the embassies of The Kingdom of Heaven.  At the moment I want to apply this to the warfare surrounding the communication of the truth about intimate relationships that come from God.

What struck me in reference to what I need to say below is that in the beginning the first believers were appointed and anointed by The Spirit of God to be the Ambassadors, and even the traveling embassies of Christ. In the beginning, they had the endorsement and full support of the Kingdom of Heaven.  When they were attacked by religious extremism, Saul, for instance, Jesus took note, and struck Saul to the ground while he was heading out from Jerusalem, and on the attack.

Without getting into the many attacks on Christ’s embassies before and since that time, I would just like to make an application to our present realities.  The principality and power that supposedly stood behind, the U.S. Ambassador and Embassy in Benghazi looked the other way in the face of its being attacked.  As it happens, it too was an attack by religious extremism.

Application:

This is a GREAT challenge!  I know of few if any men who are walking in intimate relationships, relationships fueled by the Spirit in the passion of The Christ, gender neutral, or without regard to gender, (refusing to know one after the flesh).  Of those I do know I know of none that are willing to come out of the closet, to serve as ambassadors of this Truth.

There are many more women who aren’t afraid to serve in that capacity, and are even willing to talk about it – represent it. I suspect I have barely seen anything but the very icing on the cake in this connection, even where women are concerned.

The Problem with women is that they are so devalued by religion, that they have no standing to represent this truth, which they embrace so much more readily than men.  This seems to be common to all the religions, especially among religious extremists, including what is masquerading as “Christianity.”

In short there are very few ambassadors of this dimension of our inheritance in Christ. Those who dare to do so are either ignored – (the women) or attacked by the religious extremists. The situation really isn’t so different from what went down in Benghazi.  If Ambassadors of the Truth are not supported by The Truth, then they become the cannon fodder of religious principalities and powers.

When the ambassadors of Truth in our own day are sharing the Truth revealed to their hearts, the diverse systemic governments of what has been passing for “church” either stand by or take steps to have them eliminated.  This two is part of the warfare that surrounds the foxhole. Perhaps for those who have eyes to see, Benghazi might serve as a case in point.

I hope I have made myself clear concerning this level of the problem of foxholes.  And have done so in:

Love!

• By Jay Ferris, originally posted Dec 2012