What’s Left after a BBQ of My Life
For those of you who have been following my journey over the last six months you may know that I have been going through much change. I have been unemployed since January but God has been the author of my mess and I am okay with that. I have friends who have been in similar circumstances and have been brought down completely. Oddly, I have grown and been strengthened probably the most in my entire life.
About a year ago I knew spiritually I was starving and pretty close to spiritual death. I look back and say I was in an extended desert experience. From living it I can tell you buying desert property and living on it wothout a water source SUCKS! I started to pray that God would break in and renew my spiritual life. I prayed that he would do to me what he would but… please don’t take my job. That was probably not the best thing to do. Never limit God (lesson learned). Well I think he knew my identity was based on what I I did and was able to do. I walked away from my job just before Christmas. I was at a place where I was burnt out and needing a change. I figured I had a about two months before I would start to panic. About the time I was starting to panic a supernatural break through hit. With no income coming in and living on savings I was able to pay off my mortgage and figure away to continue without money coming in.
In January, God started working on me on my identity. I’m not going to go in depth about it, you can go back and read tye blog to see my journey.
So onto the BBQ of me.
My personal theology has been stripped! I told God to shake my foundation and take away anything that was not of Him.
Whatvis left;
1 He is God and I am not
2 He likes mankind and he really likes me
3 Salvation, Grace, Hope, Fullness are free gifts from God
4 I can do nothing on my own to attain acquire anything in #3
That is all for now
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My Sunday Song
Keith Green
Oh Lord You’re Beautiful
Oh Lord, you’re beautiful,
Your face is all I seek,
For when your eyes are on this child
Your grace abounds to me.
Oh Lord, you’re beautiful,
Your face is all I seek,
For when your eyes are on this child
Your grace abounds to me.
I want to take your word and shine it all around.
But first help me just to live it Lord.
And when I’m doing well, help me to never seek a crown.
For my reward is giving glory to youOh Lord, please light the fire,
That once burned bright and clear
Replace the lamp of my first love,
That burns with Holy fear.
I want to take your word and shine it all around.
But first help me just to live it Lord.
And when I’m doing well, help me to never seek a crown.
For my reward is giving glory to you.
Oh Lord, you’re beautiful,
Your face is all I seek,
For when your eyes are on this child
Your grace abounds to me.
Oh Lord, you’re beautiful,
Your face is all I seek,
For when your eyes are on this child
Your grace abounds to me.
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Where in the World are John and Tracie?
Friends ofmine is having some fun made me laugh
So our vacation plans when out the window this summer. A kind friend decided to give us a virtual vacation. So she plopped us into some of her favorite vacation pictures over the years.
We laughed so hard, we shook!
Enjoy!
So as all of you enjoy your vacations this summer, we are simply enjoying the fact that we have 8 amazing children, and that our miracle boy Mattie is alive and home!
If you are at the beach somewhere, sink your feet in the sand, soak up some sun, sip a yummy cold drink, and REJOICE with us.
Vacation would be nice.
But I’ll settle for a nice long nap!
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The One Father, Son and Spirit
By Andre Rabe On June 25, 2013 ·
For us to attempt to define and identify this God, would simply be ridiculous.
For us to describe how God identified and defined Himself in Jesus Christ, is the declaration of the gospel.To define means to describe the nature, scope, or meaning of something.
For something or someone to be infinite, it means that there is no limit to the scope or extend of what we describe. To be infinite means that there is always something more, something beyond what is already known. For God to define himself, means that he places certain boundaries on who he is, on what can be said of him and therefore, by definition, he is no longer infinite in the absolute sense.
For instance: when God declares that he is only good, that only light dwells in him and that no darkness or evil has any place in him, it means that he has placed a certain boundary on how we can describe him; it means that he is not infinite in the sense that he is both good and evil. Such a self-definition means that he is finite in that he is only good and there is no evil in him beyond his goodness. However, he is infinitely good and will continue to surprise us with his goodness. He remains infinite in the attributes that are part of his nature, that means we can say that he is infinitely loving, infinitely good, infinitely wise. Yet he has defined himself very specifically …
God has done the unthinkable, he has defined himself in the most precise way, in an actual person and an actual event! The bravest of philosophers would not have imagined such a thing because it would place terrible limitations on how we speak of God. But God did what seems like foolishness to our wisdom. In Jesus, God does exactly what our imaginary gods cannot – he identifies himself in such a way that we may know him intimately.
The one God, who encompasses time and fills it, who is infinite except in the areas where he chose to define himself, has uniquely identified himself as Father, Son and Spirit. These are not generic terms to describe certain attributes. He is a very specific Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; He is a very specific Son, Jesus Christ, the uniquely born Son that is in the bosom of the Father and He is a very specific Spirit, the spirit of this Father and this Son.
This God is the creative source, the creative process and the end result of his own creative genius.
The Father, from before time began, intended the perfect union of man and God, intended the Son, Jesus Christ. The Father is the creative source who finds expression in the Son and through his spirit. It is through the Son and through the Spirit that the Father is freed to be all He intends to be.
The Son is the fulfillment of the Father’s intention and in the incarnation this fulfillment is made manifest in our time-space dimension. In Jesus the invisible becomes visible, the eternal enters time, the infinite willingly and purposely defines himself, the inner motivation, the word of God becomes flesh and ultimately the immortal God … dies! But Jesus’ death does not contaminate God, rather life fatally infects death … and death dies!
He is big enough to become a servant and not be reduced in who he is. He is strong enough to face evil even in his most vulnerable state, allowing evil to do its worst to him, even kill him and then simply rise again!
Is this the best you can do, evil?
Is this all you’ve got?
Where is your sting?
Where is your victory?
He is wise enough to partake of our humanity, to enter our temporality and instead of loosing himself, he finds us, raises us, glorifies us and makes us partakers of his divine nature.
Eternity has penetrated time without becoming subject to the temporal. God became a man without ceasing to be God. The prince of life died and in dying conquered death. Behold He is alive! Death was swallowed up in victory.
This Father who intended us throughout time and eternity; this Son who fulfilled his Father’s intention and removed every obstacle between man and God, this Father and this Son is present with us by their Spirit. It is the very Spirit breathed by the Father and the very Spirit breathed by the Son that is with us now, ever blowing us into the limitless future of the God who makes all things new.
By the Spirit the Father and Son have come and made their home with you, ready to create a future beyond our wildest dreams. What is there to fear? Nothing in the past, nothing present, nothing to come can separate you from the love embrace of this God.
God – Father, Son and Spirit – embraces our time, encircles it and also fills it with enduring value and meaning. He has always known you and loved you. You have always been his will and intention.
Source http://hearhim.net/
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What what?!?!
He is, the I AM, in me!
He came to reveal himself to mankind. He came to reveal himself in each of us. He left heaven to show his self to us in each of us. He became flesh incarnate, he took on a body and was became just like us. He was not a super hero. He went through the same temptations we did. He was so average he had to be pointed out in a crowd for the pharasees. Nothing physically set him off.
The big difference was he knew his identity. HE KNEW his relation to God.
We were created in the likeness of God. Adam was a prototype, Jesus was the ultimate prototype. We were made in the same mold. We are joint heirs with Christ. Jesus knew his origin. Everything he did on earth was done in relationship to his identity with his father (God).
I am copy and pasting the verses below from a past post.
John 5:30
By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
John 6:38
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
John 8:28
So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.
John 12:49
For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.Now with that being said, we are sons and daughters of God. We are not adopted sons and daughters or black sheep im the family. Before the creation of the world it says he knew us.
Jesus moved and flowed out of identity. He did all out of a paradigm of following in his father’s ways.
Heb 2:11
New Living Translation
So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.
We share the same origin, we have the same father. We are not adopted, we are not the black sheep of the family. We are direct sons and daughters! I have had to shed my bad notions my garbage thoughts on this. I have always heard and used the wording of adopted sons and daughters, but have found that the wording of adoption.
Ephesians 1:5
He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
The use of the word adoption here is not the typical western use. It is actually more along the lines of the Jewish barmitzva or coming of age.
Galations 4:5-7
His mandate was to rescue the human race from the regime of the law of performance and announce the revelation of the sonship in God.
To seal our sonship God has commissioned the spirit of sonship resonate the Abba echo in our hearts; and now in our innermost being we recognize him as our true and very dear Father.
Can you see how foolish it would be for a son to immediately participate in all the wealth of God’s inheritance which is yours because of Christ.
We were co-crucified, co-buried, and co-resurrected with Christ (in him). Jesus moved as a son not a servant or beggar, but as a son! We being sons and daughters need to walk in that same revelation. Your true identity, your original blueprint, your you, is based on the relation of sonship. He left heaven to reveal this for you!
That is all for now. …….
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My Sundays SONG
Undignified
David Crowder Band
I will dance
I will sing
To be mad
For my King
Nothing Lord
Is hindering
This passion in my soul
Chorus:
And I’ll become
Even more undignified than this
Some may say
It’s foolishness
But I’ll become
Even more undignified than this
Leave my pride
By my side
And I’ll become
Even more undignified than this
Some may sayIt’s foolishness
But I’ll become
Even more undignified than this
Than this
La, la, la, la, la, HEY!
La, la, la, la, laLa, la, la, la, la, HEY!
La, la, la, la, laIt’s all for You my Lord!
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Speaking beyond words
A man had been looking at the reflection of the moon on a lake, it was reflected on the ripples, he was trying to get a accurate view of the moon on the water but it was continually moving.
He was getting frustrated until he looked up and saw the moon, the original the source is the best place to look.
2 Corinthians 4:4
The survival and self-improvement programs of the religious systems of the world reveal the minds of the unbelievers; exploiting their ignorance about their true origins and their redeemed innocence. The veil of unbelief obstructs a person’s view and keeps one from seeing what the light of the gospel so clearly reveals: the glory of God is the image and likeness of our Maker redeemed in human form; this is what the gospel of Christ is all about.
To find the truth look to the very source. God is not confused about you, we need not be confused about God. How does he see you? How do you see him? Your beliefs about God determines your view. From age 6 to 6 months ago I had a view of God as judgemental and it kept me from seeing God rightly and in return seeing how he sees me. I love the Bible and have had a renewed hunger for digging into it. I have noticed in Paul’s writings in the NT he wrote the words “In Him.” Him/He is the source. Look to the source. The word is like a manual. A lawn mower tells all bout the lawnmower but guess what? It won’t cut your grass. You need the mower. The Bible points and tells all about God but we need to look at and towards Him. We were made in his image. We are to be a son/daughter. His image his children! I was under the false idea that after the Adam fiasco we were cut off from sonship and it would be restored after our death.
John 3:16-17 states ” For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
God did not come to condemn us! He really really likes us! He is not bi-polar or unsure of himself. God
The value of land is redefined upon the discovery of gold, silver, or oil within its boundaries. We are like that land upon finding Christ in us we are redefined, metamorphosed into our our original identity. Our blueprint has been re- genesised! He has been there all along! The treasure has to be revealed.
It is finished, God was done he entered into rest. ..
Entering into rest, grace is a gift it can not ba attained on our own efforts, its in dieing to self and availing to his rest…
He did it it is finished.
Matthew 13:44
Faith is not something we do to overcome the reluctance of God
A little leaven law keeps you busy as to miss Christ
Pray from the throne room not to the throne room
Hampster wheel mentality, our works are that vain. On a wheel bound for sedentary
He does not impute my sins against me, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ! He died for my sins, he forgave them once, he does not need to re-die or re-resurrect.
(Not gonna lie, these were literally my unedited notes. They may seem a bit random towards the end…. plz deal with it)
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Did the big guy know who he was? (A true Father’s Day gift)
I have been thinking about Jesus as the pattern son or the template we are supposed to emulate. It was around February 2013 that I feel God really started to work in me the concept of identity. One of my favorite quotes has become:
“What I think/say about God does not define me, what God thinks/says about me defines me”
This past week I started to notice Jesus and how he dealt with identity. He moved not on what people said about him or wanted of him. I have listed a few verses that show how Jesus moved. There is a common thread in the verses, and that is in Jesus’s relationship with his Father. His relationship is that of a son. He knows his identity. He moves in that relationship. He is secure in his identity and his relation as a son.
John 5:18-20
18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Then answered Jesus and said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do: for what things soever he does, these also does the Son likewise.
20 For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all things that himself does: and he will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel. …
John 5:30
By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
John 6:38
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
John 8:28
So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.
John 12:49
For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.
Now with that being said, we are sons and daughters of God. We are not adopted sons and daughters or black sheep im the family. Before the creation of the world it says he knew us.
John 1:1
In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Jeremiah 1:5
Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
He knew me before created the world. He created all of mankind to be his sons and daughters. Many of us have garbage and or baggage to get rid of in regards to identity. The only source for our true blueprint has to be what God says about us. He declares us whole and pure before him. With Adams fall we automatically came with a sin nature. Andrew Farley asks the question “How many sins does it require for us to fall short? ” the answer is not one it is actually zero. This all due to Adam. Jesus died on the cross and we were co-crucified with him. We were co-resurrected and forgiven one time for all sin. This act redeemed our innocence. It restored our original design. A re-genesis for all mankind if they choose to walk in sonship. That sonship is our identity. We have that same relationship a shared identity. Our true identity is found in Him.
2 Timothy 1:1 and 1:9
The amazing news of announcing this life which is unveiled in Christ Jesus is what my ministry is all about! The promise is a person! I, Paul, am a man on a mission; God’s delightful desire sponsors me!
He rescued the integrity of our original design and revealed that we have always been his own from the beginning, even before time was. This has nothing to do with anything we did to qualify or disqualify ourselves. We are not talking religious good works or karma here. Jesus unveils grace to be the eternal intent of God! Grace celebrates our pre-creation innocence and now declares our redeemed union with God in Christ Jesus.
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Addendum:
This is in reality a true Father’s Day gift. To know your daddy and to know his heart towards you is priceless. You have a father and in him you are defined perfectly. To be able to walk in the understanding of sonship means more than anything. My identity needs to be founded in him and him alone.
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Where are you looking for your identity?
My origin is pre-earth/pre-birth!
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My Sunday Song
After All (Holy)
By David Crowder Band
I can’t comprehend your infinitely beautiful and perfect love
Oh I’ve dreamed dreams of majesty as brilliant as a billion stars
But they’re never bright enough after all
You are Holy
Oh Holy
Holy, Holy, Holy
I will sing a song for you my God with everything I have in me
But it’s never loud enough after all
You are Holy
Oh Holy
Holy, Holy, Holy
Heaven and earth are full, full of your glory, glory
My soul it overflows full of your glory, your glory
Oh blessed is he who reigns, full of your glory, your glory
My cup, it can’t contain all of your glory, your glory
Hosanna we are found after all
you are Holy
Oh Holy
Holy, Holy, Holy
I can’t comprehendYou’re infinitely beautiful
**it was a toss up between two songs honorable mention goes out to Delirious’s Undignified**
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In Him
He is, I am, in me.
2 Timothy 1:9
The Mirror Translation
He rescued the integrity of our original design and revealed that we have always been his own from the beginning, even before time was. This has nothing to do with anything we did to qualify or disqualify ourselves. We are not talking religious good works or karma here. Jesus unveils grace to be the eternal intent of God! Grace celebrates our pre-creation innocence and now declares our redeemed union with God in Christ Jesus.
Kilen's Spot 