Breakthrough series 10: Through the veil

Taking the kingdom: Part 6 - Peter Whosoever

The power of sin

God is hardly concerned about the fact that you smoke or drink. Oh wow, I bet that will upset some. Indeed, He is more concerned by the reactions of those who don’t like what I am saying.

The dissenters might feel, “I don’t do any of that and surely that counts for something, so surely God must accept me because of that?” I never did like the word, 'surely'.

Let's start at the very beginning

And now we have a motive too … ISIS felt that Parisians had to die because “that city is a place of infidels and prostitution”, but probably more because of its "crusade" against them.

Of course it didn’t mention the captured women that ISIS regularly sells or the children they feed to its leaders. You don’t need more details – it is sordid, but I do wonder why they don’t sort out their backyard mess before sorting out everyone else’s?

However, it’s not limited to them. Although long-forgotten, Catholicism was as pernicious in the dark ages. Other groups around the world are as intolerant and brutal.

My cup runs over

Our moods ebb and flow in cycles. We are oft desensitized to that because of contemporary lifestyles, diets, “feel the same every day” stimulants or the demands of life.

So, as I am feeling spiritually flat right now, I googled that and found a topic at the top of my search list, which seemed off subject. It was about menstruation.

Before artificial light dominated our world, the full moon stimulated the pineal gland to induce ovulation, but the darkness of a new moon induced menstruation.

That ebb and flow ensures her mystique. The menstrual pause heightens sexual sensitivity, to add the tension that saves the relationship from becoming predictable.

I did do that

Meatloaf, so-called pejoratively by his childhood peers, sang, “I will do anything for love, but I won’t do that”.

His female accompaniment sarcastically sang two poignant lines, but excuse me quoting them verbatim: "You'll see that it's time to move on", and "You'll be screwing around".

That was 22 years ago, but now almost anything goes, be it in the name of love or otherwise.

Standing tall

The human sense of consciousness revolves around three spheres: the mind, the body and the soul. C S Lewis argued that the soul is not an entity but a state of being. Traditional bible views are that the soul is the seat of our emotions. I am assuming the latter although I also accept the former.

Thus, we have an intellectual, emotional and physical pillar.

The Law of Moses argued that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and strength (body). In our vernacular that implies intensity, the kind of intensity I would reserve for my wife or my children.

Keep going until it makes sense

So much of life proves that waiting is useful. 

A top restaurant will insist that good food takes times. 

A mother with child knows that once her course is run her joy will be full. 

A student pushes through the years of learning, motivated by the prize beyond and the value of waiting for it. 

A farmer reconciles himself to the idea that what seems like nothing is happening will yet bear fruit. 

Watch me Dad

One of the most primal cries of all children, is "watch me Dad". It is driven by a human instinct for approval.

The symbol of that approval is inevitably our highest known point of reference and it timing in our lives is akin to a pilot setting his gyro compass and altitude before taking off, so he can have a reliable reference system for navigation.

That my will may be done ...

Psalm 139: 5 says, "You hem me in behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me." Its a familiar feeling for many who have times of contradiction and frustration in their lives.

The lifecycle of organisations predicts that uncertainty will precede progress

In business logic we refer to "the lifecycle of organisations". It describes how a firm goes through a startup, restart or revival phase, followed by growth, then maturity or stability, before finally going into decline or a contraction phase.

Loaves and fishes

Jesus, in one of His most practical moments, had a need to feed 5,000 people - and He delegated the task to His disciples, but all they could think of was to send everyone home. That was not His objective.

Beyond the last blow, the final push ... is the redemption of breakthrough

Tim Robbins plays the lead role in Shawshank Redemption, a Stephen King best seller now ranked 1st in a recent top 100 movies survey. It is a surprisingly redemptive work and as such the movie is also a personal favorite.

Andy Dufresne, having been sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank, for a murder he never committed, employs his urbane charm and sharp intellect to become a significant influence in the jail. His influence provides the personal stimulation needed to keep his hopes alive, but also helps to improve the lot of his fellow inmates as they resist the contradictions of an evil warder and his corruptions of the bible.

Behind a poster in his small cell, Andy begins the arduous, twenty-year project of chiseling his way to freedom, using a hand chisel he got from his friend Red Ellis. He eventually breaks through to a narrow alley, which gives him access to the main sewerage channel and the thrall of freedom, which also redeems the many hard years of injustice and thankless toil.

What we stop feeding, be it the lowest sin or highest faith .... will die

A facebook correspondent, Penny Pina, hit the motherlode today when she made the above statement. Interestingly, her surname, Pina, equates to a Hebrew word for substance as used in the Galileean town of Rosh Pina, which means, rock of substance or cornerstone. It was so named by Romanian refugees who started farming there in the mid-19th century. They established a Moshava and called their village Rosh Pina. Later Baron de Rothschild planted a garden in the village, which sits in the foothills of the Golan heights overlooking the sea of Galilee. 

A great African preacher said, "we need to move our faith a little bit down (from the head) and a little to the left (the heart)". It is the heart that feeds our faith, for it the essential common ground where we commune with God. Ours is not an intellectual faith. Although it is intellectually robust, it is a faith of the heart. It has to be felt not seen. But if it does not move the heart or fill our being with a revelation of God, whatever is conceived within us will be still-born and die. We feed our faith through the heart, just as we feed our bodies through the stomach or our intellect through the mind. Thus the same preacher said, "In our hearts are two dogs - a black and white dog. It is the one we feed most that thrives."