The Maturity of the Father

The Maturity of the Father

Matthew 5:48 –“Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”

 

There is no doubt Christ calls his followers to abandon sin and to pursue moral and ethical excellence within their lives but how we achieve this is crucial. Preaching against sin all the time doesn’t set people free from sin it actually helps produce more. The message we now carry is one of forgiveness and a right standing before God, a consciousness of righteousness not one of sin. 

You become what you behold so therefore if all preachers paint before the faces of the people is sin then you will have people who desire to be free yet continually go through cycles because they can only become what they behold. In this brief study I want to explore what this text truly means and the freedom that it brings. We can grow to a place of maturity, completeness in Him.    

Be Mature:

This word “mature” is the Greek word “teleios” which means, “complete, of full age or mature.” This word doesn’t mean without defect or problems at least in relation to man. God is truly perfect but again that is not the meaning or call coming from this text. There is no such thing as a perfect person but there can be mature or complete ones. 

When you were born again your entire nature changed. The old adamic nature has been removed (sin as a noun) and you were born again of the spirit of God, the nature of God. Because you have a free will you posses the ability to sin (as a verb, action) but the nature has changed. Even as a apple seed has everything within itself to become a fruit producing tree, when you are born again you know have everything in you that you need to be everything God created you to be. But like in the natural sometimes it takes awhile to go from seed to fruit yielding or mature tree. 

The Father is calling to us His sons and daughters to “grow in grace” and come to a place a maturity in Him. But what does that really mean? What does that look like? How do we bear the fruit of the Father? 

To understand the call to be perfect (mature) as He is we must go back a couple of verses to see what exactly He is talking about. 

Matthew 5:43-48 – “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

This maturity is seen in how and who we love. The Father loves all his children even the ones whom reject his love. To many of us believe God wants to punish the sinner and send judgment upon their actions, thank God He didn’t do that to you. Jesus took what we deserved so we get what he deserves. The Father loves his enemies, which last time I checked 1Corintyhians 13, judgment and punishment were not in there. The Father blesses those that curse him, he sends rain upon just and unjust because it is “the goodness of God that leadeth to repentance.” He doesn’t just love those who agree with or love him, anyone can do that, he loves the unlovable (you and me) so that we can learn and give love. 

The parallel to this passage is found in the gospel of Luke 6:36 where the scripture says, “Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful.”  Here we find the same words of Jesus with just a small difference.  The reason behind this could be as simple as Jesus spoke Aramaic and you have two different authors writing this and translating from Aramaic into Greek. The difference is not that major but the point is, “you must be mature, merciful (embracing without any restriction) in your acts of love for that is what your Father is like.” 

Jesus brought the bottom line when He said, Love God and Love people." We can see how much we're maturing by how much we're loving God and others.

iMAGE is everything

Matthew 22: 15-22 - "Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷ Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax^[a] to Caesar or not?”  But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them,“Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s,and to God what is God’s.”

I understand the imperial tax of the time, how they were again trying to trick Jesus but His answer is so much deeper than just what they heard. "Give back to God that which is God's." When God created man, He did so in His "image and likeness," His image was and is on us. Give Caesar his coin but give God your life, give yourself to Him. If you don't really know whose image is on you (in you) you will give yourself to worthless things that can neither fulfill nor sustain true life. 

We know the difference between George Washington and Ben Franklin, $1 or $100. If you don't see the right image than you wont see the value. When we don't see ourselves through His eyes we will allow the world and the enemy to spend us like a dollar but when the image is right we can look at the world, enemy and every temptations and boldly declare, "you can't afford me."

This is also a call to true worship, giving it all, all of you back to the one who loves you and created you. Worth and worship are closely connected. 

"So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s,and to God what is God’s"

When Shawshank and Canaan Collide

Let me first start by saying that this post is more about thinking out loud than presenting any dogmatic theological view. I was reading through part of the book of Numbers again when I came across this verse:

Numbers 13:2- "send some men to explore the land of Cannan .......from each ancestral tribe send one of it's leaders." 


The people of God were living in a moment were "karios" and "chronos" were coming together, they were moving toward their prophetic moment. It was at this time the people of God were confronted with two reports from their leaders. Which caused me to wonder, can you have the right leader at the wrong time and the wrong leaders at the right time? These were the leaders chosen but there report (minus caleb and joshua) turned what should have been a season of victory, promise, conquest and kingdom expansion into a hold the fort, lets discuss this a little longer, Yes we believe what God said is true but we don't know if its really for us, now. So this report caused weeping (num 14) and those tearful seeds of fear and unbelief led to a harvest of 40 more years of wilderness wondering. 

No doubt, even today we live in such a time when the prayer,"on earth as it is in heaven," looks to be a heavenly idea than and earthly reality but the pray Jesus gave, the will of God has not changed. Among the people of God there seems to be voices again rising which conflict and collide with one another, two varying reports. One shouting that these are our best days, move forward, kingdom expansion, we can take it and the others which desire to hold the fort, hang on in the wilderness and pray for a miraculous rescue. The one looks at society and culture and see's the greatest opportunity for revival while the other  eagerly pulls back because they see know real chance at change, "it will get worse before it gets better." Which voice moves us? How do we view our world? Do we believe we can take it for Jesus? Do we have wrong leaders at the right time in history? These are just questions that come to mind as I look at their folly in fulfilling their moment in history and praying I do not the same. 


What would make these leaders so full of unbelief, fear which would lead to their folly and failure? Shawshank. What? Weird? Yes, but hear me out for just a moment. Shawshank was a prison in the movie "shawshank redemption," which by the way was an amazing movie. People didn't escape this prison and it was hard time. There was a old prisoner named "brooks" who was a nice old man who lived his whole life there it seemed and then one day he got patrolled. This new freedom was to much for brooks, bondage had institutionalized him. First they hate it, then they get used to it. Pretty soon it gets so that they depend on it. They are no able longer to fully function in the outside world. That's institutionalized....like Brooks. The leaders who were with Moses had just came out of a lifetime of bondage, strict structure. Many of these leaders that followed Moses would no doubt in modern terms, be considered institutionalized. In this environment, this structure they could flourish and lead but with this new freedom, new assignment, new land?? 

You can't go into the promise land with a wilderness or bondage mentality. When shawshank and canaan collided shawshank won but just like on the movie there were some victorious souls, I forget their names? Joshua and caleb lol. As leaders we must continually have our paradigms pushed, stretched and even shattered depending on the season of the Lord.  If our theology is already all figured out and God formulated, when it comes time for a new move or a transition we could become a hinderance instead of a catalyst, I just don't want to be a wrong leader at the right time. 

"Christ the All in All" - a thought about the completed work of the cross

Many believers today ascribes more to a quasi-Judaic leftover of old covenant theology than they do true New Testament Christianity. What I mean by that is that the good news is that Christ has given you all your Christmases, birthdays and Disneylands in one fell swoop on the cross! He has opened the House of Wine to you; He has opened the treasuries; He has opened complete communion with Himself. In fact, He has held nothing back from you at all. On the cross, your old sinful nature was completely, once-and-for-all circumcised away (Col. 2), and you were given access to a glorious new world. Everything that held you back from God was dissolved. Eliminated. All of your problems really were solved on Golgotha’s hill. It seems too good to be true. That’s why it’s called good news.

To often however, in the charismatic movement today, as with any stream of modern Christianity, the yeast of Judaic religion still holds strong. For instance, people still pray and beg for holiness. They plead to be “purged.” This alone is a telltale sign of absolute unbelief in the finished work of the cross. Religion wants you to kill yourself to earn holiness. There is a straining and a striving that is not suggestive of true faith. Jesus died to give you what you could never gain on your own. Religion gives us reams of books, keys and formulas for trying to get something that we already have as a free gift.

Colossians 2 tells us that we already possess the fullness of God through our union with Christ. But somehow, pop theology tells us that the attainment of this fullness is a lifelong process of struggle and self effort. The problem is that most people are not manifesting, or outwardly showing forth the fullness of God. And so, they lower their theology to the standard of their experience, or lack thereof. They claim that holiness is a result of a lifelong process of trials, experience, or whatever the latest trend tells them it requires.

As it turns out, the perfect sacrifice of Christ was actually good enough to get the job done. God happened to have this crazy notion one day that He could actually pull the whole thing off by Himself! If you are not manifesting a holy life, it is not because there is somehow more effort required on your part. If you are not manifesting a holy life, it is simply because you do not believe that you are made holy. This may sound harsh, but in truth, it is a relief. Stop striving for perfection, and rest in the fact that you have it. The nature and flavor of true faith is rest (see Heb. 4). As I rest and trust that Christ has completed His work in me 2000 years ago, before I even got started – then I begin to act and live life like a completely different person. A person always manifests what he believes. If you believe you are holy, you will live holy. If the truth is your standard, the truth will experientially shine forth in your life. If you believe, on the other hand, that you are still a sinner, you will always be wrestling with sin. You manifest what you believe.

As simple and childlike as this sounds, perhaps you have been a Christian for 25 years, and no one ever told you the basic reality that you are not a sinner anymore. Most religionists are great at explaining how your efforts are still needed in this salvation plan, because you are somehow still a saint-sinner hybrid. They tell you that you are some gross concoction of light and darkness. But the reality is that light and darkness do not coexist in the same temple. Maybe no one ever told you that you are the righteousness of God, but you are. Maybe no one ever told you that it’s unnecessary to struggle with sin the rest of your life, or even for one more day.

The gospel is a mystical message. You have to believe it before you see it. You must believe it before it bears tangible substance in your life. Faith (belief) does have a tangible substance according to Hebrews 11:1. There is positive and negative faith – and depending what we expect, whether good or bad – that is the outcome we will receive. Rest assured that what you believe will surely be demonstrated in your life. True believing always involves demonstration. The kingdom of Heaven is not a matter of mere talk, but of demonstration of power (1 Cor. 4:20).

Whatever you believe, you will demonstrate. If you think you are not yet capable or equipped enough to work miracles, you never will. If you believe that Christ’s work was not enough, and somehow you need to help Him, then you will continue to struggle with sin, poverty, sickness and powerless living. But if you believe the good news, that Jesus took care of every single problem in the universe – then you’re going to be quite the happy camper. You will begin to appropriate these riches. You will believe what the Bible actually says, that you already have fullness in Him. It’s not a process. It’s a gift.

We must have our minds renewed to believe the truth. The truth that Christ has opened the Heavens already. He did away with our old Adamic nature. He has brought us into a glorious new existence in the family of God.

The church has for centuries taught a heretical notion that Christians still have a sin nature. Furthermore, they say it is somehow our responsibility to die daily and attempt to put this sin nature to death on the cross, this is what Jesus did! This is perhaps the greatest theological error in the history of Christendom. According to scripture, you no longer have a sinful nature. According to the scriptures, death to self is not a lifelong process, but was a singular, mystical transaction that already took place on the cross 2,000 years ago.

"Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin" (Rom. 6:3-7).

You are unable to kill yourself. He did it for you. You were mystically in Christ when He died on the cross. On the cross, the old sinful you was eradicated. The old depressed you – the old fearful, anxious self died. Your critical, religious, hateful nature was put to death. Every lustful, addictive and impoverished aspect of your old man was killed with Christ. You don’t need a million years of inner healing, counseling and self-help programs. You don’t need more deliverance classes. All of your generational curses of the Adamic nature were put to death with the Last Adam. Everything about the old nature was put to death. Again, we read that the sinful nature (the carnal appetite with its passions and its lusts) has been cut away once and for all in the following verse:

"In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead" - (Col. 2:11-12)

Your old nature simply does not exist anymore. A dead man does not continue to operate in sin. Why try to continually kill something that is already dead? To many new covenant christians practice necromancy (communing with the crucified adamic nature) Many people still view the cross as a place where they need to suffer – and so the cross seems depressing to them. We’ve been hoodwinked! Sanctification is not a lifelong process. It’s a Person. The cross is the most blissful place in the universe! It was there that you were actually set free from suffering, because Christ did it for you. It was there that He took the bullet for you, in order to give you delight. It was there that Heaven’s riches were spilled out for you. It was there that you were delivered from sin, delivered from depression and delivered from boring religion! Do you struggle with something today? I tell you friend that you are shadowboxing a lie. That old nature doesn’t even exist. Consider that part of you dead, or non-existent. It has no more hold over you – it never did. Maybe a religionist told you that you constantly have to fight these old lusts, but this is simply not true. The cross is the foundation for a joy-filled life! It is the source of the intoxicating wine of the New Covenant. It was there that the old wretched you died.

You do not have to continually kill your “flesh” (carnal fleshly nature) because it doesn’t exist anymore. When Paul spoke of dying daily, it was in context of the continual persecutions he faced (I face danger every hour, he said at the start of the verse). He literally faced death every day! It had nothing to do with a morbid act of internally killing his fleshly nature. It had to do with this radical grace message propelling him to preach and offend people with its simplicity all around the world. But religion has misapplied this verse, telling us we have to continually beat ourselves up. Many scriptures have been twisted to conform to this concept of a lifelong process of killing oneself. Why would Paul try to kill something that’s already dead? Once and for all, your heart has been circumcised – the old you was cut away. Aren’t you glad that circumcision is not a daily process? Ouch! Live what you believe and start by really believe the Good News!

Rewarding Diligence

Hebrews 11:6 a"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

Some people are just lazy, which is why they never see anything accomplished with
their lives. They blame their lack of success on this, that, and everything but themselves. But God is no respecter of persons. What He does for one, He will do for all. The key factors that make the difference are not about God, but about a person's level of determination and his or her willingness to do whatever is necessary to achieve a goal.

It may be a hard fact to face, but ultimately we are all responsible for our success or our lack of success. We all possess the same promises, the same faith, the same power, the same Spirit, and the same Jesus who sits at the right hand of God to
make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). The main thing that determines who succeeds
and who doesn't succeed is attitude and action.

In the preceding verse The phrase "diligently seek" in Hebrews 11:6 is taken from the Greek word ekzeteo, and it carries an entire range of power-packed meanings. It means to zealously seek for something with all of one's heart, strength,and might. It presents the picture of one who seeks something so passionately and determinedly that he literally exhausts all his power in his search. It is this passionate pursuit, this attitude that God rewards.

If you're serious about succeeding in life, you'll have to adjust your level of
commitment and give your full attention to what God has called you to do. Diligence
cannot be a sideline issue. Your assigned task must have your full consideration,
your undivided attention, and your mental and spiritual concentration. You must
immerse yourself in faith, prayer, and meditation regarding God's call on your life.
Distractions are not allowed.

It takes hard work to achieve any goal, and complaining about that hard work won't
make it any easier. So be constant in your commitment. Refuse to relent! Stay stubborn
and unbending even in the face of opposition until your objective is achieved. Your
consistency and determination will push the powers of hell aside and obtain the
victory you desire!

The Breathe of Heaven and the Renewed Mind

Breathe Again

Acts 3:19 – “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.”

Peter is proclaiming to the people that had gathered because of the healing of lame man who is now leaping that they need to repent. For so long the church has had a limited understanding of this word, which literally means to “change the way you think”. You cannot successfully turn away from anything, sin or old mind sets unless their has been a change of mind which has been caused by the revealing of present truth by the Holy Ghost. Peter is declaring to this host that they need to change the way they think about this Christ, about his coming. The people couldn’t except Jesus as messiah because he had been crucified and anything hung on the tree was cursed but they didn’t understand the mission of the messiah so Peter is bringing light to the darkness, revelation.

I like to say this verse like this, “Change the way you about Christ and His coming so you can return to your original purpose and create a karios or opportunity for the Lord to breathe again.” The release of the fresh breath (refreshing) is directly connected to repentance, not from sin but from a mindset that didn’t understand His coming. As we allow the Holy Spirit to change our mindsets concerning His coming, it creates in the spirit an opportune moment for God to breathe (exhale) again into the earth and the result is verse 21, which is the “restoration of all things” as described in Acts 3:21.

While many are looking to get out, God is looking to get in. There is a mindset, a paradigm shift coming in they way we have perceived the end, which will loose the people of God to receive a fresh breath and release it to the world around them bringing restoration, which has to come.

Acts 3:21 says specifically that Jesus is received into heaven “until” the restitution or restoration of all things, which comes as a result of a fresh breath that comes from a change of mind about Christ and His coming. We do the word injustice when we limit the Lord to only two comings. He came to Adam in the garden, Abraham as smoking flax, Moses as a burning bush, Joshua as the captain of the Lord’s host and many other pre-incarnate appearances. Even after His initial
Ascension (to place blood on the mercy seat) He appeared for forty days; again He appeared to Paul on the backside of the desert. The Lord has come, He is coming and He will come.

The Lord has visited every generation and I believe He is visiting us with with wisdom and revelation about His Kingdom so that we can participate with Him in the restoration of all things.

Colosians 1:27
“To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:”

The Church, the Bride who is to release the glory of Christ and the wisdom of God into the world.God’s confident expectation of the glory being released in the earth is Christ in you. As Jesus takes His rightful place in our heart and restores the fellowship that was broken in the garden, we receive the same glory and commission which the first Adam had. The original commission is still the commission today.

Work out your salvation? Carry your Cross?

Aren’t we supposed to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling? What about our Cross? Let's take a fresh look at some old ideas.

Philippians 2:12 -"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling"

Read that verse from the A.S. Way translation: “… work out, with fear and self-distrust, ay, with trembling self-distrust, your own salvation. You have not to do it in your unaided strength: it is God who is all the while supplying the impulse…"

Paul wrote this during his Roman imprisonment awaiting possible death. Knowing that he might never return to his beloved Philippian church, his most generous supporter, he lovingly tells them that they must not rely upon him any longer but they must trust in the impulse of God within them.

The apostle was essentially teaching them to drink from the Source of salvation, and not just be the messengers of it. The sense of the Scripture is not working out our salvation in our own strength, but in fact, it is the opposite. It is that we should trust none but God alone, who is giving us the strength and the impulse for our salvation. We should approach our salvation with trembling self-distrust, resting solely in God’s wondrous ability.
If we miss the meaning of these simple Scriptures, we are in danger of placing the emphasis upon ourselves instead of on Christ.

Christ is our substitute; His sacrifice should not, and indeed cannot, be followed. I’m not talking about giving our lives in martyrdom for the Gospel; I’m talking about attempting to pay a price that only He was anointed to pay.

Matthew 16:24- "Whoever wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me."

This seems to be one of the most twisted and misunderstood verses in the Bible. To most people, this verse seems more like another burden to bear, rather than a burden lifted, which is its intended meaning. Jesus said first, “Follow Me.” Where was He going? He was going to Jerusalem to be crucified and to pay the ransom for all humankind, to lift the burden of sin from humanity. This Scripture is not a call for the self-sacrifice of the disciples or the believer but a call to follow and trust in Christ and His work that He was about to accomplish on the cross.

He had just revealed this to His disciples in the previous verses. And of course, good ol’ Peter rebuked Jesus for saying such crazy things. This “Crucified Messiah” did not fit into Peter’s grid.

In the most practical sense, Jesus was saying to His disciples, “Hey guys, we got some rough times ahead. I’m gonna be killed pretty soon but it will be OK. You boys better stick with Me; I know what I’m doing. Don’t go running off on your own and getting yourselves into trouble. Just trust Me!”

It is Christ who bore our burdens, and continues to bear them and us to Himself. In our trying and hard times, we are to rejoice even more, knowing that Christ has everything sovereignly in His hands. I’m not saying that hard times don’t come; I’m simply saying that you can have supernatural joy in the midst of them. In the eternal sense, this verse means that we are to follow after Christ’s sacrifice, not mimic it, but trust in it alone for our salvation and sustainment.

This verse in Matthew 16 in no way implies that believers have anything to do with the removal of sin from their lives by carrying their own cross. Here is a simple question: Whose cross was Jesus carrying? His own? No way! When Christ was hanging naked and mutilated on the tree of Calvary, it was not for His own crimes, but ours. He was murdered! He was innocent of all evil.
He was our scapegoat—the substitution for all of humanity.“ He was not carrying His cross; He was carrying our crosses!” He commands us to “deny self'—this word here actually means “to forget and lose sight of self."

The sense here in this Scripture is not self-sacrifice in the way that most would see it. It actually is a call to deny any heavenly advancement through self-achievement. It means that salvation or any of its benefits cannot be owed or due to ourselves!

Celebrate the full and finished work of our King!