Author: israelx7

“You have missed only one important step,” said the man.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” said the other, adding, “and besides I think I have presented everything in a quite clearly supported argument of reason.”

“May I ask, supported by what?” came the reply.

“Well, first of all,” he said, hoping his response would not betray his irritation at being so questioned, “supported by all the literature and by the opinions and conclusions of almost all others of the field.”

He really hoped this would be the end of the matter, for as far as he could see, and to a man all others expressed their approvals, but only this one man dare have the temerity to both first correct and then question him.

“No doubt” he thought to himself, “this man is being merely contrarian for the sake of it, a one wanting to stand out from others who has picked me as his target,” were the words unspoken. With a hefty sauce of jealousy flavoring all other ingredients.

He had dealt with many others of this ilk, always with endless questions that to him lead nowhere…and are only fabricated as provocation to frustration. Looking for that ubiquitous and much sought after “gotcha moment”.

But, the other man appeared to have no indication of being turned or stepping away, and so the man steeled himself in preparation to remain calm and apparently reasonable. At least while the onlookers yet milled about as witnesses.

For this he was summoning the greatest of his self control as direst labor to appear kind, but not saccharine, saying, “And I hope this puts your mind at ease with my conclusions.”

“Oh” said the other, “I can say nothing of your conclusions nor how they may be affected in the neglect of that one step” adding “What you conclude may mean something but little; but how you conclude is to me, at least, all that matters”.

He went on “I am far more interested in the how of how you do your work than any product of it.”

Saying also “I do not disregard there are effects of conclusions shared, only that without some attention to sharing the work necessary to their right concluding, one has really instructed in nothing.”

This was said evenly and without any accusation. But that did not matter much to the hearer; less in fact, in light of how his boiler was now being fed, and to almost bursting point. But, there were still a few stragglers milling about on the steps outside the doors.

And so he summoned all to contain himself, even though he felt himself slipping into a realm beyond his control. He frantically sought relief and key as to what precipitated this most unwelcome exchange. And that if, finding key, finding first reason of its precipitation he might finally, and expertly lock it up…and so he, in frenetic thought, scrambled to finally throw this man the meat he was after, and be done with it.

But, “what was it? What was it?”

“The literature is clear” he thought to himself. “My reasoning no less sound, and even exquisite” he held in deepest recesses. “My presentation was unhurried and comprehensive of the material I sought to convey, even graspable by a 10 year old” his thoughts raced. All seen within in milliseconds. But somehow he knew, somehow he knew, especially amongst witnesses, that he dare not treat this other as a 10 year old.

A clearly patronizing approach, though tempting, is too easily turned by clever men such as these.

And he had learned egg on his face is not a good look on him, especially where others might see. He was grinding through his cerebral gears trying to get ahead and finally shut down this opposition.

Ahhh! Eureka! It came to him in a flash. A blinding flash in promise of relief…as lightning precedes a deluge coming to comfort parched fields. The tables could be turned to a different tack by his own asking of question also and instead; rather than be the one provoked by their probing. Yes, he had the power to also ask, and probe. Yes! He would ask! He would ask.

And so this fury of heat and blinding light upon him would be…turned…and turned toward that present other. And so he quickly composed himself.

“May I ask about anything I have said that you find incomplete in step or process that causes you now to question?” He wasn’t even sure if this humbling expressed in question and request was real or not. All he knew is he had to assume that position, for better or worse as supplicant, for the merest relief of that sensing his head about to explode.

“Yes, you may” said the man., “And I am happy you asked.”

He went on “Your conclusion that all you believe established in your presentation and reasoning was to one end.”

Yes”, yes” the man responded. He felt more comfortable now for he was absolutely certain that conclusion most sound of all and without any place of contradiction. He felt back again “on his own turf” and at ease enough to ask another question.

“To clear the air, may I ask what you believe was that final conclusion? So that we may see if we are on the same page or that if any fault of communicating is attributable to me, or perhaps, if you are able, accept that you may not have heard me correctly?”

The man almost stunned himself by his allowances and hearing the words coming out of him. He was not used to engaging on this level at all. In entertaining possibilities new to himself for the sake of relief he sensed the gauge on his boiler returning to safe operating range. And he was not at all concerned as to whether he had maneuvered himself there or was brought to it…for now it was enough to feel the heat leaving himself.

That there was a change he was sure, and was relishing it. He no longer feared an embarrassing explosion. And when the other responded he could barely keep himself from blubbering. And the other did respond.

“I believe your conclusion is, and was, that all is to the end of relationship, and that particularly neither legal nor contractual exchange…even if such may have had once appearance of beginning so”. “And” he added “that all is in service to this end regardless of how little, even at any time, or even in any circumstance, things may appear otherwise” “And” continuing “I believe I heard you say ‘Relationship is all’…unless I misremember”.

This is now where the man fairly blubbered as aforementioned. “No, no, no,” he exclaimed being now overcome by an ebullience strange to himself “No, you neither misheard nor misremember, that is precisely the point” and for whatever reason not saying “my point”.

Yet he was aware he hadn’t. He felt oddly relieved of trying to own anything in these moments. He went on to say “No, you got it, you got it! In fact I would say by your summary of my 30 minutes you as well, if not better, grasp all I was aiming at in trying”. This ebullience was causing him to both say and think in ways totally new to himself…even to some giving away of a betterness.

And though he did not know how this could be…yet somehow he sensed were it too overexamined he might lose the joy of the moment. This experience was simply too new and delicious to yet be parsed or stuck as a bug for dissecting…someone…even this man “knew” and “got” all he was striving to say. He couldn’t help himself here…here was where he wanted to stay. He dare not even ask why in its consummation and consumption of all else.

And he could not take his eyes off the beaming smile coming at him now…from that “other” even in this overwhelming and almost embarrassing joy. Though this thought did cross his mind, most fleetingly. Are we mimicking one another? Or, am I only mimicking him? Reflecting to each other as from one another? In all this he felt both lost and found…at once. Lost to knowing, yet in-dissuadable of how right this present moment is to himself. It was newer than new could describe.

In such lostness his next question was laughable to himself, expressed in laughter, subsumed in it beyond caring of how it might cause him to appear.

Here any question of true humility or any feigning just wasn’t there for the considering…he was not trying now to relieve himself to a more comfortable containment or appearance…for whatever reason he felt safer than ever to appear as supplicant…simply because, as something quite new to himself…he really wanted to know. He couldn’t help but ask. Nor did he have any desire to help himself at all that might restrain.

Ad so he did…ask. He asked with tears running down his face even beholding tears of joy on that other face.

“What one important step was I missing?” “You know, the one you mentioned when we first met, can you tell me? Do you think I might be able to get it as you have apparently gotten me?”

Some sobriety had entered, but not as displacing joy, but actually accruing from it. The man really wanted to know.

“Oh”, said the other “I think you got it.” “Yes it’s really there to be gotten…and you got it” This “other” man was also careful to not make ownership of this thing exclusive to himself…it was too obviously up for the sharing.

And as he turned to go his way he was met by an almost begging…”Please, please, might you be a little more plain, at least for my sake of what you at least once thought I’d missed but seem to now appear to have?” “Please?, I really do not know”

This posture tore at the man leaving such that he could not deny.

He stopped his turning and looked squarely into a face he could not help but love in its need. Likewise the other was looking into a face of such need to express what he himself had asked for, it was almost too painful.

Yet he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, look away. Had he pressed this man too much? Asked too much of this one with whom he had just shared unspeakable moments of joy? “Am I seeking to take advantage” he wondered briefly…yet he knew he did not know…and had to. “Please?” he said/asked…one more time.

“The step of relationship cannot exclude the acceptance of all you do not know of that other. You can surely include all you might think you know, but there must be that allowance for all you do not know, otherwise one has only entered their own imagination of the other.” Adding “One is real, one is not, and vain”.

“That allowance and acceptance is the only thing that ensures it is relationship…and not something not…otherwise it is all and only an until.”

He wanted to ask more but now the man was on his way. He was not sure of all it meant, but somehow the perfect sense of it didn’t escape him. He understood vaguely that the “all he may not know” of another could be deeper than the deepest sea, especially in regard to the one he once, and just recently opined about from a pulpit. From the same pulpit he declared Him eternal and infinite in being, yet now, to himself he sounded such a fool.

Nothing now seemed more plain to him of the vastness of all he did not know, and he was at a complete loss to himself of how a man might even begin to consider the all he did not know of another…in not knowing it. How deep might another be? Could he tell? And even more importantly…had he been telling to some sum of a thing that is now plainly vain?

Yet…now he found something oddly comforting in being so undone. And also even now some words rung in his ears as great comfort “You can surely include all you might think you know”. No prohibition there…as long as the unknown is not prohibited nor un- left fully open to, and in, disclosure.

O! But it now struck the man again as lightning. (How many lightning strikes is he set to endure?) “I have been talking about all I do not know while feigning at it”. And thoughts followed “What is this thing I have labelled relationship, but know so little of?” And,no less and also came “how could I ever have been angry at that guy? But I know I was.”

He felt compelled to holler after the diminishing figure, “Hey, I have to admit there was some anger…and I’m now convinced all the misunderstanding was on my end”. Was he letting himself off the hook with word of “some”? He thought.

“Think nothing of it brother” came the unforced response from the retreating walker.

“Oh,” the man thought to himself, “this may even be harder than that fellow knows in his saying to not think of myself as I know I surely once most recently was” Came further thoughts of “But he really appears quite unbothered by it, as though forgotten already and besides, I really didn’t know what I was doing”.

Or what he was doing.

Something is always telling something not only that it thinks, but what it thinks and is thinking about. And by the telling of what it thinks and is thinking about, it betrays it is thinking. An “it”, a some “thing”, is in consciousness.

And the spirit rejoices. For the work is perfect.

My dearest atheist friends who would most strenuously object to having any thinking like my own, often express by word they cannot recognize how very alike we are. Especially those who, informed by what is commonly called science, maintain our estate is nothing more than, and neither can be attributed to, anything other than merely assembled dust. We are both, even all, dust with thoughts and opinions. And, no less, with some ability to both know them and share them.

How absolutely alike we are! What boundary is there between us?

Who, or what “makes” us different? Causes us to know distinction amongst ourselves? Or even promotes some enforcing of it? It would appear (at least to me) self identity is, for want of a better word, sacred to each. The very highest of form is, to a man, the ownership of his own thoughts and being.

And though sacred may be a word some naturally shy away from, such shying away from what is frankly too obvious only makes a point also seemingly too obvious for mention; that need to maintain distinction. A maintenance of that self identity. Do any ever consider how much work (and often grievous) is devoted to it?

O! the depths of it! Man engages the very thing for maintenance that brings the deepest horror to himself, isolation. Do I lie? That he is caught here? This very thing of his own choosing that allows him to make both either alien or friend of another, is itself to him ruler. And he can never doubt its benevolence to himself, for above all, it is his most engaged faculty for the knowing of himself. The which, even if or by denial, is most sacred to himself.

A man said:

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

When a man finds that thing by which he thinks he preserves himself, and therefore his own life, and it is no less the very thing isolating himself from all true knowing of relationship, he may be finally finding something fit for the losing.

Show me a man who, in some way or fashion has not betrayed wife and children, or wife having not done likewise to husband and children if even in self preference of thought, and either you or they (as myself) are all too easily shown liar.

Do I lie?

How easily are broken even that which we believe we uphold as greatest of agreements. Our maintenance of what we call our self, our integrity (imagined) of unity in and to our “self” is such a fractured thing, divided in every way.

The question of whether there is a who willing to abandon his own estate for the purpose of “making friends”, able to deny self without denying relationship, is either what one is thinking about or has not yet even begun to be considered. For once truly considered, it is an inescapable reality full of all and every pursuit of “how then is such a one?”

One either believes or is locked up to self.

There is not one thing nor matter particular or peculiar to man that is not addressed affirmatively in, and by, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the man made spiritually alive is no less made alive to an awareness of these matters. Would it be too bold to say there is no avoiding the consciousness of them to whatever extent the Lord allows and ministers? I think not.

For an apostle neither naive nor timid in his expositions once said that in matters of judgment that “even” the least in the church should be able to fulfill such matters of judgment with a fit discerning as to uphold righteousness. What is made theirs in Christ, by bequeathal, is some knowledge of life and death, some sensing of righteousness and unrighteousness, some discerning of scheme vs the plan of God revealed in, and through, and by His Christ, Jesus.

And in regards to scheme(s) he was so bold as to say:

Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices. (schemes)

Not ignorant of his schemes.

If taking such to the extreme of scheme, even as undone, conquered over, the setting free of those once bound to it by Christ’s victory, the writer here says:

And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Deliver them made subject to bondage through fear of death.

In this stripping of weapon(s) by exposure of scheme the writer of the Revelation of Jesus Christ records these words as spoken by the Lord Himself:

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

What was once held by another is stripped from him and now in full possession of the man (and by the man) who has overcome in every aspect any power once wielded by deception(s) that could accrue to their scheming usage. Any mystery as far as hell and death by which man could be maneuvered is exposed in, and through, the light of the Christ. It is little wonder then, that an apostle looking deeply into His Lord would see the scheme(s) exposed in such light.

He saw. He knew how terror of isolation abetted the unholy fear of man. How seeming failure spoke of matters of death and visible success contrarily spoke of matters of matters of life…by scheme. How a man could be maneuvered in the seems of things to turn right or left according to their appearance to him and what was made to appear resident in each.

A large life (abundance of possessions) was made to seem as speaking of an invulnerability and favor, while the destitute, having little between themselves and the grave, smelled of death and abandonment to isolation.

The apparently “wise” (even the apparently pious) also seemed to have a storehouse for their drawing upon to keep death in form, at bay. All these little deaths kept directing man as signposts along his way “do not go this way, death awaits”…till finally he be captured by that great death.

This has not changed in working except to the man delivered from their deceptions who is now made able to face such without any illusions, and in knowledge of Christ and His work(s). Large does not mean eternal, success before man does not mean anything (and in fact may mean nothing more than the seeking after it, which is itself death at work) and longevity as once testimony of a thing’s establishment in truth can also be easily exposed as built upon the most fragile foundation. All and everything that once spoke “life and favor” by illusion is now exposed in light. The Lord is not discontent with a “little flock”.

To not know by some entrance provided into the experience of Christ of these matters does not mean a man is not appointed to them. He may just not have come to know them…yet. He may still be “playing” in the land of appearances for whatever time God has allowed and appointed to him.

He may have little grasp of their depth and have little appreciation of such matter experienced in Christ where His cries of “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani” came forth and are not yet recognizable to him as also expressed by this apostle, here:

But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:

The touching of a despair and despairing of all things of self…even self sensing, that God alone show forth His power to raise the dead.

Some may say, and no doubt will, and do, “I only want to know of life…this talk of experience of despair is too foreign to what is held, and I hold, as the experience of life in Christ.” Yes, our tendency and desire is often toward the apparently strong appearing, the self assured one, the fully confident (though often only self confident) one, even forgetting, or having never seen:

For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.

This matter of carrying about both the dying of the Lord Jesus and the life of the Lord Jesus to some or many may seem ir-resolvable paradox or a mumbling about matters too esoteric to be understood. But the apostle knew it. And he knew it was not alone appointed only to his understanding.

Every broadcast of truth yields a fruitful harvest.

And so in his boldness, even abetted by what he knew to call the “terror of the Lord” he was made to persuade men. Even to such end as all so called as he might not miss out on the all to which they are called and made prepared to receive in and through God’s Christ.

Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

Embrace who embraces you, even with all things.

If, or when we consider that with which we have been entrusted, that is the gospel of God containing all mystery and things once hidden from time(s) past, we come to realize we have been taken out of time. Quite literally, as ones once occupying time and a place, and as a fish in a river can be caught and removed, we have been plucked from a place and manner of existence into this place we now call true life; that is the Kingdom of God. It is the deepest of truths we are actually given to prove out, even in much experimentation, to know it as true. In that sense we are all scientists proving out each “if” we find of hypotheses presented in our growth. And acknowledging such growth is only of God.

But not only so. Where once we found ourselves with some familiarity, or even some ease of navigating in the old in practices and habits ingrained by repetitions, they begin to have a strangeness about them, an ill fitting and impracticability that is becoming more and more apparent. Additionally, and O! so wonderfully, the new place (which is in Christ) has not what we might label too casually as a familiarity, but rather some unspeakable quality of a “homeness” about it that would almost belie the very truth that it is and remains always new to us. As comforting as it may be to us, even if in coming to some comfortableness about its occupation, there is never any sense imparted of “I am now where certain matters can be taken for granted”. We learn the difference between knowing and presumption. And it is of course this working upon us by the love of God that is all of this accomplishment. I tell you nothing “new” in the sense of information.

“God gives the increase”, one said a while ago. Whether a long while ago or little will depend upon one’s hearing and how devoted it is to time’s framing of all experience per history. There is no situation we will ever encounter, no matter how we may frame it to will or desire in which this is not so…God’s giving of increase. And we do encounter desires here, we do encounter will here, but we dare not be lulled into any sense of our own doing as producing of result, especially growth. Yes, we pray. Yes we entreat. Yes we speak, prophesy, encourage, or warn, caution and/or have some desire of good product even when speaking in matters of, or by, instruction. And inclusive of all matters we might describe as care, or expression of caring. But we dare not take to ourselves any responsibility in it, to it, or for it. And only the novice does not yet see the great comfort and relief in such attitude. Even such tender ministry of comfort and relief to us as experienced in coming to such attitude.

What is meant by this? All is under the Husbandman’s care and tending. But first we must be made aware of this in our very own selves and souls. From there, in gathering, it becomes the attitude in, and of, the church. Poor indeed are we if we do not know this. That if, of His body, we do not yet acknowledge (have something in and of knowing) that in all things it is Christ’s care alone for His own body that is in all exercise to it and for it; we will think a “we” or an “I” has done such thing. This is antithetical to a matter we, again, dare not relinquish by any means…Christ’s speaking:

“I will build my church…”

And as it is uncompromisingly true in any and all particulars to it, the church; each member must be brought to acknowledge (have a knowing) of its veracity. There is no church that is otherwise minded. Such that may appear otherwise for any time as God may allow, will find gates of hell in full prevailing over it eventually. “It” will be stopped. For the stop is already “built into it” so to speak, by any notion of it being man’s doing. And let the ignorant be ignorant.

Will we find labors as believers? Of course. Will we find labors as individual stones gathered into a holy habitation for God to inhabit by His spirit, that is, the church? Again, of course. But I may say with all otherwise convincing as may appear contrary to it and without any fear, no labor will come as more necessary, nor more resisted by the necessity of its most strenuous exercise, than resisting the taking of any credit for any growth, or good product as we may call it if seen, than this labor. And all the more will be the floodgates of hell opened to anything and everything that by any of man’s claim of establishing is presently in being of beholding.

And I have little doubt that to many this appears unspeakable.

And again, with little doubt, I am sure some will point to Paul, claiming to know him or of him enough to say…”But wait!” and go on “Did not Paul appear to have some delight in this saying, even claiming to himself some wisdom?”

According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

We need to look again, and hear again, even if need be from Paul, of his saying in that which is being said. You say you like context, you want context, but do you? Can you place it in the context of the man’s words? Even his speaking if there be any claim of any knowing of Paul enough to find his words salubrious? To even repeat them? Paul is as hidden to the eye and apprehensions of man as is Christ himself, being in Him and hidden with Him, in God. For we know no man, nor can, as after the flesh.

And I have little doubt this is again to many…unspeakable.

How to say what I cannot say apart from entering that peculiar place where I make this incontrovertibly true to both myself and any hearer is, at very least, if not daunting…both interesting and in some ways, fascinating.

The question is both a matter of honesty and of some necessity for consideration, if any has even the slightest notion of integrity as being both an estate of being purely honest, and therefore true to itself, which is of the “moral sphere”; but also some estate better related and understood by some form of mathematics if accepted as true in function(s). That being the total integration of all matters into a “one”, an integer assigned some numerical value of which, as prime description, serves as more than simply a mathematical descriptor. The “prime” one. Not even first as in sequence…but first always and forever over all.

Simply, the “one” in which all things are. The first cause(r) in which all other causes not only exist, but that each or any subsequent cause cannot be separated “off” or by definition for discrete examination.

Consistent and unbroken in consistency to itself throughout so that no part that might be perceived of it (even if erroneously assumed to be able to be perceived) can be extracted for any defining to set it apart from any other matter of it so (though erroneously) perceived. There is neither either/or in it nor “this and that”, in it. All is perfectly and uninterruptedly cohesive both to and in “itself.”

And though far more than “blended”, that may be the point of concession one must make as a man for best impartation of the matter. For if it be, only that “it” is discerning of itself if there be to any particular. “It” is the sole eye that can see itself. And know itself.

And I trust, the wiser of any even with some piety attached have both an inkling of what I speak of as “God”, and, if any piety, also have some inkling that treading so in, or to, any referencing of that “God” as an “it” or even itself, is far more than vanity, but barely avoids blasphemy. If it does at all. It may be wholly so, as only that God would know.

And “He” also would know (as sole true knower) whether for me it is presumption or just “too late in the game” to consider otherwise; by such arrangement of His allowances ordained (to me or any) that must and unavoidably have brought me (or any) here.

Since “He” as all cause cannot be said by any subsequent cause to have included or have inclusion of what we would call “accident” (for one would have to stand antecedent to determine “rules of action”…and none of us do) each of us is all and only left at any particular point to “where we are”.

Another, venturing in his understanding, said it best in some grasp of grace associated with his “own” being:

But by the grace of God I am what I am.

Therefore what (or can “what” as such exist) not saying it?

This is also that place of un-tenability mentioned in first paragraph, a doing of what cannot be done. There is no “being” as such, except in and of that “integer”, that is not by allowance. And if by allowance, what does not consider itself so, must therefore consider itself…as that integer. And what is therefore allowed of “that One” must also be in all, and fully purposed of that One. And some men not only think, (for as “a” man I, and any, are allowed to know what “man thinks” even of his own thoughts) but act according to their “own will” toward purpose, and with intent.

And here is where this exquisitely and unutterably deep phrasing holds all sway:

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;;

Some”one” has purposed all matters of creation to a frustration, a futility, a vanity inescapable, even locking it “all” up to it. All is made to be a dog chasing its tail. Here any and all will “of the creation” is totally and manifestly displayed as not merely inconsequential, but totally void of anything over itself by will exerted in that creation.

It is “what it is”. Subject. Not merely as subject, but in all bondage to itself according to the will:

“… of Him who subjected it in hope;”

Yet before the abysmal despair of being assigned all frustration, all purposed frustration that might so totally consume a soul to abnegate its own self; hear, for the love of God hear. For we are not left (as it would seem almost irremediably) by this unutterable phrasing of truth (do you believe Paul “saw”?) if we are made able to not neglect but one word: hope.

We are given to hear (if we are given to hear) a matter all may, if made able, take comfort in. That despite the “locking up” of all things in creation by He who is above, beyond, “outside” of all creation as even Creator of creation in His locking it up; but that He with such locking “allows” (in that unutterably deep and inescapable “locking”) a glimpse from “outside” to that and those “inside”, that in Him is…hope. Without that word given in the darkest defining of our own estate (as it does seem “dark” to be bound to frustration, does it not?) what “hope” at all could be had?

We have hope only by His giving of it…even into that acceptance of “our” estate. We are delivered from…in our acceptance “of”.

Paul understood the necessity of being fully made “receiver” only, no matter what may come to persuade otherwise in pride for the purpose of plunging into all pride:

“What do you have that you did not receive…?”

And if one or any would say “I have hope…” he must come to understand such is only as a matter received as from another, lest, thinking it self generated and being brought to reliance after some fashion of the self’s ability to manufacture, he see such (artificial) hope dashed to pieces. There is no hope from the “self” but only a masquerading.

Do you see this meshing of the unutterably deep and (to us) darkly deep with light here?

And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

If you know Achan, his doings, his taking of things forbidden and to be devoted to destruction and which brought the speaking of and thence the hearing of:

I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

Then and only then will the place of all once shaming become a source, a door, of hope.

If one is yet terrified of shame, he may not yet be made able to see glory.

Till then perhaps this may not be understood:

Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

christianity is today to Christ as Judaism is/was to being Jew before [in the face of] the Lord. The Lord never spoke with denigration of a Jew, but of the vain and useless, even oppositional, traditions and practices that had both accrued and multiplied to true faith by men’s craftiness abetted by a corrupter.. Jesus the Christ never distanced Himself from the meaning of [a] Jew, nor being one:

We know what we do worship for salvation is of the Jews.

But keenly He saw/sees the difference between a man such as Abraham, who was called out and obeyed, and those who only used that man for their own standing. The faith of Abraham is never denigrated but extolled even to contradiction of such presumed standing:

 Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.

For unless or until Christ is made plain in sight by faith, all men do, and must, take their stand on things only natural by which to exalt themselves. Jesus again being so bold as to say:

And do not think to say within your selves ‘We have Abraham to our father, for I tell you of these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham’

No, the natural, and even natural decendency that mean so much to man as to place trust in it, is as nothing to God, unless He be inclined to make more of it. The keeping of a remnant is always and alone in the purview of God; and not given to any establishment by natural identity, nor gained by either decendency nor observational practice(s). For to support itself religion must devolve into such vain practices for establishment; whereby even its descent into corruption is both seen and made known by them:

For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

Such is also decried and described in such practice as this:

Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?

And men can never both see what sanctification is, or whom the Sanctifier Himself is, apart from the revelation of Christ himself. And God forbid (by all plea for mercy) that any man, even such a man writing be so as to so easily make himself a fool by any self exaltation attendant to revelation, (or allowing it) mistaking that it itself is a form of endorsement unless he be made able to see the Giver of such.

And yes, men can indeed come to form temples and and even idols withing themselves in regards to such matters…and thence promote and provoke to all defilement even those who may be persuaded to receive them. Think justification by faith as an example, and those who would thence take a name to themselves for self exalting in all wrong thinking that by such self identity endorses, or establishes them. “We” follow Luther, and we shall make that plain, by name. A mere thing one can give another that too plainly speaks of estate, but not of such as is imagined.

For before God it does not mean what men may either presume nor intend. God knows to whom such revelation is/was given, but if men do not likewise hear the continuing caution of the Spirit, they too will even idolize their revelation(s). And many religions have, and continue to spring up, around such. Yes there is a continuing pressing on required lest we mistake anything given us for such “arrival”. So even Paul would say (in all understanding of this)

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Yet who would have said, or even today might say: “I have outstripped Paul”? Or, “I stand upon his shoulders and now see farther!” And again, God forbid even I be seen as exalting Paul (which is too easily done) but rather that one must first come to such seeing…(and understanding) that nothing shown ever itself is equal to the Shower of it, no matter how sublime such may appear! For even our brother on Patmos, carried away in all vision and ecstasies of Jesus the Christ’s revelation found himself tempted to fall and worship before one (in such vision) but had to be reproved:

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

My only testimony in any or all of this is only to the faithfulness of the Lord in rebukes and chastenings (even scourgings); even knowing that now, were I to make too much of them, I would also, and no less be betraying an idolatry, forsaking His wounds for the exaltation (even by mention) of my own having been wounded. But unless a disciple or disciples does know something of these, even these places and occurences, we are speaking to only children. But we would also be no more than children (and rebellious ones perhaps, even at that) were we to make too much, or really, anything at all of such in our conversation(s). We would merely be forming our own fellowship around another name “the those who have experienced the Lord’s discipline”. God forbid!

Paul understood both the folly and the attendant embarrasment at being pressed (by many obstinate and easily misled children) to do so.

Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?

Yet adding:

If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity.

And later in next chapter sums up such excursion:

I have become a fool in boasting; you have compelled me. 

We needs be careful in such pressing even to any demand (by attitude or obstinacy) we press to the Lord’s sufferings on our behalf, for the Spirit will make plain in such demand or attitude a revelation of matters so far beyond us that ougth to be to our glory…but will be made apparent to our shame. The Lord will minister his sufferings (and has) in mercy to us and for us, but if we be obstinate, the Spirit is not ashamed to make a “dump of them” upon us at such time as we are not yet prepared to them and our undoing will be made very plain to us by them, in even our ill equipping to them. Yet, even so, such can drive to repentance for relief by acknowledging our presumption(s). God forbid we forget this:

These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.

And of a great boaster I have known, and if any doubt to the veracity of this, how that God may let one go on in great folly assuming His silence as either approval or endorsement, such a man can speak of such a day(s) when God “speaks up” to set things aright before him, and before whom no presumption stands…except to utter shaming. Yes, I know such a man, even all too well. And what may yet remain to him (for even saying “all too well” may be a boast) for God’s shaming of presumption, he does not know. But he is being convinced God does know, and as only God does know.

And God has faithful ministers yet in the earth, a remnant, who are able to speak to this man’s folly as need be.

A blessed one all too easily reminded such a man once (may once be enough…but only God knows how deeply such salubrious medication is taken!) and it yet speaks of such liberty that such a man can barely let it go when even wandering off into all manner of folly thinking he may hold “a” key as seeming sole proprietor while yet fearing in doing so he may also be entering only more presumption. For God’s speaking always remains so intensely personal and precisely targeted that to a man it is easily presumed to be exclusive.

Don’t worry, you are not that important.

A blessed one reminded such a man. And he is far more delighted to find relief of worry than to seek to rather embrace how self important he may naturally grasp at. And some have learned this, and are learning this, and will learn this. For God may indeed, and according to His will raise up a man of all importance…and even has, unless we be not of the faith. But He alone is necessity to all, even if any other be so blessed to have words of extolling delivered to him by such faith. speak. We needn’t worry; we will never be, nor are in heavenly places, confused for Him. But if while yet in these tents we sense even some elevation, God is faithful. He is not ashamed to reveal what none other in any “other” tent except that of the Son of His love…could bear.

And Christ does not tabernacle “in christianity”, but only where He so chooses and is not forced nor force-able to either adhere, nor be an adherent to anything other than the name of His Father.

Sometimes I fear lest I only be adding to further confusion.

But then comes:

Don’t worry, you are not that important.

It is embraceable, only because He is embraceable.

In Jesus’ prayer and speaking to His Father in the presence of His disciples He says this:

They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

In one sense it is odd, isn’t it? As though the Father is in any need of informing by such a statement as to both who and what the disciples are in relationship to the world and the Lord Christ Himself. Of course the Father knows whom He has sent into the world as salvation, and no less those appointed to it. But we may come to appreciate the just how many things are said by our Lord as for our instruction and reminding. And of course such is true for Jesus never speaks falsely nor unnecessarily to, or with, the Father; so all the more we may come to realize their necessity is more for us to hear, and by hearing, begin to understand.

We are very much to appreciate, embrace, and thence rejoice in all the wonder of this vast separation to be made clear to us in that statement. And Jesus goes on to say and speak of some of the whys and hows we encounter such verification of these words. These matters are of utmost importance to us. We are not at all loved of the world because we do not belong to it, nor under the influence of the Prince of this world and his minions. In truth we are quite hated by it and them…we simply do not fit, nor are made to fit to its ways in submission to them. We are made fit for an elsewhere, even by the blood of Christ. As His testimony is sealed as to whom He is in Himself, being faithful to death in the baring of his soul to death, so even is our testimony by that same blood. The seal is set to all His word being true through His death, (being faithful to it) and the resurrection whereby such is manifest as truth in that rising.

Regardless of all the wonderful things said and miraculous works, apart from that rising out from the dead as testimony they would at best be only nice words and good deeds. For the scripture is not without others who had miracles worked through them, nor spoke good words of instruction and admonition. No (or yes!) Jesus the Christ is all of different in ever aspect one may consider than prophets before.

Our brother Paul was not shy to enter such confrontation with what to some yet appears the unthinkable proposition in regards to the resurrection. But Paul was made very bold in both his explorations of matters spiritual and in his speaking of them. He knew he was justified only by the blood of the Lord, and in being so justified and given to such liberty by it, he was unafraid to confront matters in such a head on way that the more timorous never could. Nor even yet, can. But by his forming to such, many deep truths emerge that the more timid are either unprepared to approach yet, or are not yet formed to.

When addressing those who were in some contentions that

the dead be not raised

Paul confronted the end of that argument, for his keen spiritual senses often saw to the end of arguments, and no doubt (I am persuaded) because he had already confronted such matters for consideration in himself before God. And it is not unusual, even today, for a some (or even many) thinking that because they have read Paul they understand as Paul understood, and as if standing upon his shoulders now, can exceed him in grasping at further truth(s). But first one must attain that understanding, which is as much in requirement of revelation to us as it was to him, and no less. Yes, we can read Hemingway and still not have the stuff of Hemingway to either see as he did, nor write as he wrote.

And Paul’s heavenly perspective, if in doubt to any, must be settled to themselves or else as our brother Peter writes, there is wrestling with his words (as with other scriptures) to our own destruction. Thanks be to God he is able to deliver His own from both that folly, or if engaged, to deliver out from it…even when destruction is tasted. Yes, we can be quite lawyerly at times thinking clever arguments are for the leaning upon. And to the clever, the Lord shows Himself clever…and even more so, as need be. Till we are tied up in our own lies and beg release.

But Paul, being made bold (and thanks be to God for His making him so) addressed those in that contention presenting that unthinkable proposition that he was made unafraid to utter.

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

Oh, what a statement! What a thing to consider, much less say! “Why even ‘put that out there’ Paul?!!!” Because Paul had some very deep consideration of the significance of the resurrection in its meaning to him and had already faced in himself the unspeakable liberty of it in its truth, but was also quite aware by such unspeakable-ness it opened all doors formerly closed, and if wrong in its essence could only also lead to unspeakable presumptions about God. For do you see, Paul was unrelenting in such faith toward God that He both is and true, and dare not even momentarily consider enterring that which would make him (Paul) a liar before Him.

For this matter of the resurrection totally upsets and sets to some other required understanding of God that had, in all times past, been hidden. And if such understanding is not only made required by the resurrection, but even provided for by it, then all else must be abandoned to its very foundation of once prior assumptions. Yes, Paul knew. Paul understood. Paul embraced all overturning in himself of all those matters Saul was once in all confidence of.

And because this was no small matter indeed, even being accomplished in himself, the confronting of other matters accruing to arguments and contentions, meant nothing to him in his address. After all, in one sense, in one quite ineffable sense Paul found a Saul made dead in himself by such truth, and was already fully persuaded by such that the “dead” do indeed rise to life. Even if for some it yet remained an only figurative rising. Paul knew from soles of feet to top of head God alone is able to make the “dead” live. But he also understood the curiousness of it, the unspeakable reality of it that is so very (even impossible) for a man to deliver in word lest God give light to such word(s).

We can hear this in his stating here:

I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live, yet not I, but the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.

No man can survey from an ‘outside’ how this can be so, how that a man can be both dead in cricifixion, yet alive. No man can perceive how such can be in experience unless he be in it. One is either in, or out, for here there is (really as in all matters) no middle ground. And Paul understood this matter of issue with words, how that no “man” can either know this, or experience, nor understand how both an “I” and a “yet not I” is made present to a man. It is I, but it is ‘yet not I’. One is crucified, and one lives, even simultaneously in the same vessel, in all experience in the same vessel, and such is God’s tabernacling with, and in, man. No, the natural man cannot know nor understand, indeed his best ascription would be to either some delusion of split mindedness or mental malady.

Yet…true, indeed. How a man might “live”…in both life and death…even at once. But, Paul had no issue with it as it was being resolved to him and in himself. He saw the Christ of God and understood such words as “of myself, I can do nothing”. A thing sentenced to death in a man of all inability, so that The One of all ability be manifest. Oh, yes, Paul understood, and so he would also write:

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

Paul understood that death and life in One that life might be at work in others…and knew all too well it is/was, to his salvation. (Who loved me, and gave himself for me) “Why so personal, Paul, why not just say us?” (Because until it is so exquisitely and intensely personal…it does not “work”.)

For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

Even to this very end for those so called to it (and which believer is not?)

So then death worketh in us, but life in you.

christianity, such as it is, must always seek, and does indeed, props for the support of itself. There is a fear attendant to it that if “it” be lost to the world, the whole of the creation is lost to it and by its being lost. It is just a label derivative at best trying to, by such label, make to the world its plainness of belonging to the Christ of God. It yet speaks of some universal embrace of a thing (itself) which all internecine strivings manifestly give the lie to. Divisions abound, contentions fill pages and reams and yet it would present itself as firm in foundation for an ascribing, even a sure adherence to opinion as a real thing to be recognized “in the world”.

But there is only One whose recognition is of any necessity to any. A dead man alive knows only One to whom all is owed, and also His name, hidden from all organization(s), clubs, name takers (denominations) and the self defining.

And the world will not know you, be able to identify you, nor will you care to be known of it as anything it might even understand. Or define.

But this must be faced and resolved in each and to each as either true or not, for it alone is bedrock of assurance, and far more than a recitable or repeatable creed that would make one a “member of the club”. With all perks of ascending to pulpits, or assuring himself of some betterness and/or more enlightendness, giving instructions, advising and or rebuking according to “club rules” and the like. All those things that in vanity reinforce to a man he is a member of it…in good standing.

And if one does not yet know how much such are loved and adored by man, visit most any pub, where the drunk will preach their truths from barstools and such merriment abounds (at least till fights break out) among the inebriated with what ferments of an only earthen yeast, destined to return to earth.

And yes, I am no less made subject to accusation of inebriation, for until such comes, the man himself does not know what bread he has been eating, or what wine he imbibes.

For if he finds joy in such accusation, he cannot help but wonder where that must come from.

And yet again, a thing is affirmed to himself…

For if the dead rise not…

And one is made free to explore all the ramifications of even the “no” of things…to learn of Him who is the yes and amen to all of God’s promises.

And find out they too, indeed have a Father.

Not of this world.

The call from God to Himself through Jesus the Christ remains. His word of power to

repent and believe the gospel

has not, and will never diminish in its ringing throughout the creation in His assignment. God has spoken it into the creation through the mouth of Jesus the Christ, but we dare not count such as anything ever less than true God’s speaking. Of same power and intent light came into being by His word, and such is not diminished in any sense by being spoken through the mouth of a man once in the earth. For even if what was once perceived as a tabernacle of clay, He who was:

born of a woman, born under the law

has shown Himself in all of spirit and the true tabernacle when what was outwardly torn down for the release of that spirit in his going away as seemingly once only, or mere, material. In His having submitted to appearing outwardly only as any other man might. Indeed, in that “taking away” of the outer to which He submitted in the

joy set before Him

we find Him testifying to His own of its expediency. His response to their grief was not of indulgence of it, but rather to a correction:

But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.

Saying:

Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

There is much we must learn of this, and in this “going away” accomplished on our behalf. For as we follow we learn of many obstacles and vexations that seem in all impossible to overcome…because they are to our own presence. Of ourselves…even with what we would consider “best intent(s)” they are encountered and made present to us. Yet it is in our “going away” by the power of the spirit to reveal we have already died in Christ, that it is no longer the former I facing them but Christ Himself.

What can be frustrated must be (for all will be frustration to the power of our own selves) even to such provoking of crying out for light that we learn it is neither by might nor power but by the Lord’s spirit alone things are set to order. Yes, we have been provided a “going away” through the Lord’s death for us that we too are comforted by the ineffable power of the Lord’s spirit. But if, or yet while we may strive to overcome, unconvinced to whatever measure yet of the Lord’s victory in all, we will find ourselves…relying on our own selves…to frustration. But this has a salubrious working in us, for we may learn the truth and gift of being “taken out of the way” that it is now Christ Himself confronting such matters to all victory and the (even His) manifestation thereof.

This word of repent and believe continually echoes in the earth, even in our earth of which we temporarily inhabit as tent. And such even, of frustrations and vexations due to lack of sight, must give way if we believe, they cannot but take their place in the Lord’s ordering in His now tabernacle of which the believer is. Yes:

We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

But if, or while we may remain confused as to this (the Lord knowing such training of disciples is both costly in endurance and bearing…as has been borne by He, Himself) He does not renege upon nor is reluctant to affirm:

In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.

And till such time this word is made full in us it would be quite queer to us to rejoice in such encounter of tribulation, trial, and yes, even seeming frustration. Nevertheless the writer is bold, no doubt having learned this himself, in himself, as from being in the Lord:

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

And we learn indeed not only could not such be written as by a natural (or carnal man) to another as good instruction, it would be fruitless to all resistance. Only the man of the spirit can speak it in truth, and only the man of the spirit can hear it and receive it. It is quite opposed to all that is natural. No man of himself will ever find joy in being made subject to testing and trials, unless He has seen (by faith in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ) His full overcoming in, and of, all. And such faith, by the revelation to a man that Jesus is indeed alive and very active gives not only testimony to, and of His resurrection, but of God’s grace in imparting of such faith. And such is the faith of the Son of God that saves us…a gift in all.

No man can prove to another anything of these matters, anymore than Peter by some clever figuring could arrive at speaking:

Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God

And we might admit we may have all had such excursions at times or other into such argument that to us appeared clever whereby we could cause another to submit to our own reasoning(s). If none other has ever engaged, so be it, but I know I have. Been a man quite clever in my own eyes, and unashamed to seek to make this as public (even in the faith) as possible.

I can testify of myriad rebukes, surely and consistently…and would rather speak to my own shame than deny that even in and through those necessary rebukes, the Christ of God in ministry of all correction by the Holy Spirit has proved Himself consistently true and faithful; to not only do so, but to much more minister grace for the bearing of such chastening(s).

For I know apart from such comfort found to sustain in even (what were to me) most grave rebuke(s)…I could not recover lest one also provide comfort. We learn the mighty hand can indeed humble us without letting go of us, and that is our salvation. Not in seeking to grasp at being (as I have done so very very vainly) to be “right” and self justified…but rather that His righteousness alone is worth the seeking after, and can only be done so when all of my own righteousness appears to my shame. Do you know the way of this? For my part I can only confess to not knowing how much more of “my own” is so easily confused for His that I might most stridently present.

And what remains to be dealt with, God knows.

God’s word issues from God alone through His Christ. Religion can neither contain it nor even speak of it except in derivative terms of like to like as in comparisons. Religion cannot control it, nor dispense it, try as it might to think itself so…as in “God is found here…in this thing of our practices, ordinances, creeds, and houses made by hands”

Let no man deceive you with “their” articles of faith by and through which joining can only occur…even if you agree with them. Being joined to the Lord is for no man’s endorsement, and surely no man’s denial. For to submit to man as the “yes or no” as holding what God does and can do, or cannot do, be wise. For one has then “turned over Lordship” to be in the hands of one less than God over all. This does not mean resist all men at every turn, but to rather understand the attitude of Paul and embrace it to wisdom:

But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man’s person:) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me:

For to fall to the esteem of what some others hold for some others will only leave one in rather faithlessness as Jesus described if long continued down that path.

How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

And yes…men seek to be…impressive. And there is much joy to be found in the receiving of stripes and many rebukes of such…when finally heeded. We do not stand upon any man’s standing nor opinion of us…but to the Lord alone.

But we who believe have been delivered from such matters as like to like and into the very presence of God through the faith of Jesus Christ, to even appear there as unblemished through that faith. What yet remains of the earth and earthy is being perfectly handled as our minds, being renewed from that place of blamelessness are being changed…while yet we even occupy in these tents of clay.

God reveals an unblemished man to a man; not only as testimony to His perfect righteousness in all, but no less and also, by the faith that manifests to that man receiving, he is already in Heavenly places…for otherwise…he could not see. Yes, Jesus the Christ is the man who occupies Heaven. Is seen there, and is only seen truly…from there. Even while we here appear to occupy in earth. And His desire is that we fully occupied “there”…that He occupy…even and still in all power in “our” here. “Let” Him loose by your being bound to Heaven.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Perhaps you have often wondered, even as I, this curious working of which Paul (once Saul) spoke to such wonder in:

When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me

Of God’s choosing and sovereignty undeniable in doing so. The rain falls upon all, yet not all see God’s hand of mercy in it, not all know the glory of God in Christ that covers the earth as the waters cover the seas in the presence of His holy Spirit poured into and over the earth. But God tell us the how so of His working that is both irresistible and undeniable when we come to understand Jesus the Christ as the very Word of God; neither up for equivocation or explanation(s) and His being (as He is) over all:

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

“and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

Just as:

Repent and believe the gospel

yet rings throughout the whole of creation, God having spoken it through the Son of His love born into time for us; yet so does His sovereignty over all matters in the creation to accomplish all of His good pleasure in that to which He has determined to send it.

Be pleased to be such a thing the Word of God has made home to accomplish all of His good pleasure and work in, and upon.

And if need be, or more is needed, I could easily tell of myriad and fruitless exercise in myself to both be to myself, and thence for display to others…more than just a thing. Rather let any who are called to wonder…wonder at what God can do with such a thing. It will, and does, require an acknowledgment of exchange. But that is not in any man’s hands to accomplish, bring about, nor rest upon his endorsement nor agreement. What has been done has been between Christ and the Father…even if all done is done to our eternal benefit. May we not forget in what the treasure is held, nor of Whom such treasure…is given.

Men strive to do and be more than they know themselves to be.

God, never.

Obviously “christianity” is not reading this. But if any…only man. Man (inclusive of woman), and either “a” man or “a” woman and always individually. In other words you, whoever you may be, with an identity. I can never speak or write farther than a you as a “me”, even if, at best, I am persuaded such speaking is before God. Yes, I am persuaded I am speaking to a someone, but very much persuaded this takes place in the presence of another someone.

Yet to even speak to you as though that someone needs a referencing to is at best seemingly awkward, as though making Him a third party to our conversation (for you are having thoughts in response), when it is alone He Himself that is originator of all and any conversation…both present to all, and even before the present is present to us, knowing all from the beginning. And no less, already knowing all of thoughts. Yes, He already knew/knows I would write, yes, He already knew/knows (if you do) read. Therefore He is above in presence to us both whether we (or any) are aware or not. Yes, this is my persuasion, that God is here.

He is not for summoning nor conjuring, nor to any making of Him of more here, for He is the fullness all is in to His upholding. Even if we lie, there is a truth to be found, for then we are clearly liars before Him. So an apostle would write “for we can do nothing against the truth, but for it”. And true liar or one who truly lies we have every confidence of exposure. For Jesus the Christ has already assigned him his identity as a, or even the “liar from the beginning”. And it is both too late (in that sense) for him to be anything other than that according to his assigning, and also, only God knows if our assigning is to the truth, in truth. Yes, we may make many claims for ourselves before one another as those who “only want the truth”, but God knows.

Is that enough? For if it is not enough that “God knows”, to whom or what would one make further appeal for establishment? Me? That is as laughable to me as you saying it is to you establishment is owned, and owed. Yes, if we do not, or are not yet able to see what a funny boat we are in (with joy) together, we might at least concede…it is peculiar. There is a place no lie can stand without identity of it being lie, and that is in God’s presence.

The only question for us might then be…is it as inescapable as we (or even one) might claim? Where can we (or one) go from His presence? Do you (or I) merely repeat or recite that it is inescapable because we saw it in a book…or do we know? For it is only through His affirming to us that the scripture is true, that we may begin to see that the scripture does indeed affirm He is true. And God’s reasoning is always circular and perfect in its referencing being closed ended, and not trailing off to a linear reasoning we are so used to…as though starting on a road following until we hit an end to a road where we must then supply more of our own reasoning to continue and build for further advancement. No, He is God…because…He is God.

He does not even so much as fill that position…as He is that position. God overall…even if we may say what is over all…is God. One is who He is, another merely our defining. And we are being delivered from all of our own…defining(s). For you will see all definition comes, must come, can only come as at from a remove, using a this (as understood) to describe a that as perceived; with ourselves being neither fully a this or a that…but as things handled by us. No, we are not at all used to truth as being so familiar to us (even though we may think so) for in the earth we have never met before One who can say His word is actually fully of He, and of Himself inseparable. And be true.

And what is no less inescapable for us in that truth, even the truth that is God, is that no one (ourselves included) is ever better than their word. They may be shown worse, but each is only as good as his word. And now if we would like to add all our own up, yes, even in this presence of God, it is easily seen that “our” good is purely relative and by such relativity manifestly corrupt as to be absolutely useless in any application to ourselves…except as a manifestation of the utmost of vanity. We might like to think we can “distance ourselves” from our lies through clever and lawyerly application, but we are in the presence of the One without need of, nor distancing of Himself from anything He says.

No, unless He supply mercy (has He?) we are all condemned with no place to stand. We may, at best (and even sometimes worst) want to be shown or even deeply desire to be shown as “good as our word“…till we meet Him. And there we may discover after all, yes, it is far better I not be shown at all. But…who then “to show”?

One cannot help but show…something. And yes, even the mercy that is at first ministered that we might even know some taste of it is all the more craved for its working that one escape the showing of themselves (that can only bring judgment)…but plea that another, not merely, not theoretically, not in vain hope…take one’s place. To even give another (place or placement)…where one can stand in the presence of God. And “be” for another. Is this not true?

And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?

Has someone done that? Made provision to give…if faithfully handling what belongs to another? Who is the righteous One?

Can His righteousness be handled faithfully by another? God knows.

Yes, God knows who has sanctified the Lord in their heart to no confusion, knowing that all righteousness is in Him, alone.

Can it be held…faithfully? This that is another man’s?

Ahhh, but it gets so intensely, so perfectly, so exquisitely, so painfully, even so unbearably personal now, doesn’t it? For who alone stands before God as a man without excuse, without resort to clever manipulations, there to appear for you, that you may appear here…for Him? And escape all judgment for only representing one’s own self?

Where is your identity? Has it been entrusted to another for keeping, and safe keeping at that?

Have you given it over to a thing by some clever ruse? Do you stand for a thing? Even a thing that is not nor can be self defining for it has no standing before Him with whom we have to do. A thing whose words are all of this way and that way, and yet another way, speaking in all inconsistency to every hearer; even to and of those who even claim to be “in it” or of it, as well and no less as to those who make no such claim? christianity, such as it is, always and at best (which is to quite the worst) will and can only seek to represent itself. And strive it always does to.

The man Jesus the Christ alone has standing before God, even being the very Word that Is His very word inseparable from Himself, and even quite over all who may yet argue who or what what is a “real” christian, or true christianity, or even God forbid descending into such a foolishness and foolish matter as seeking to be, or describe what is a “good” christian.

If seeking to find some line, some outline, some limning whereby a matter is made separate for the beholding and the describing or defining as “this is this, but here ‘this ends’ and here a that begins” as with the Father and the Son is not merely fruitless and vain, for there the imagination inserts a space…even if it be so miniscule as to be called either negligible or irrelevant…for…there is none. None. But such is only, and manifestly only the undertaking from a looking “at” very much from an outside perspective.

God’s perfect and circular reasoning in all yet stands in perfect frustration to all not yet delivered from their own self exalting logic of linear exacting. God is in Christ, no less than Christ is in God. And where are you being hidden so that here, He may be seen?

And one is either in, or out.

What are you in? Of whom and what…are you a part?

Even member?

And I can only write, even speak to you as one most in need of mercy for always and ever having been to himself…only a show off. The very vainest of the vain.

Is there mercy?

What other plea might we have and hold?

And to whom?

Is not He here? Even to hear?

In, or out.

A man may speak in boldness or presumption, and to be true I am persuaded; I must confess I do not know my own manner in these things nor am I less than convinced those are the only estates any man may occupy. Faith spoken in the earth is very bold, refuting the seems of things, and presumption born of lie in the man is to the end of supporting such seems, such mere appearances. Self has great self interest in support and persistence of that self to upholding a status quo (by which it believes its identity to its self is secured; which is lie) but faith is always about a piercing through of veil to touch the real, and by touch secure, and by secure to apprehend.

And piercing things is never less than bold, or piercing through things (if better understood) is always resisted by that through which such piercing is taking place. All things in creation are given to an unutterable inertia to remain as they are. They resist both change and movement from place lest a stronger hand from outside the creation upsetting such a law intervenes…which in the creation, and to the creation, first appears as interference with it.

“Do not poke the bear” we either often hear, or say.

But such is our faith. A matter (even a true and eternal matter) given into the creation for quite an upsetting. Even to the end of a setting of up, a restoration of order to uplooking, a setting of things to right side up rather than the previously persistent upside down of things…with things looking only to themselves for identity and measuring all else according to these false scales. Enmeshed in looking only to self in such fall and falling, a descent is reinforced as though in irremediable and endless feedback loop to a grasping at anything in the creation for stop. Will all please stop! Stop!…that I might think and appraise…clearly! Stop…that I might find center, and centering.

But “it” does not. For on every side we are aware of assault. Encroaching to a diminishing. And so we gather our “forces”.

Success appears or wealth…(in whatever myriad form[s]) “Ahh! that might take my mind off this failing and falling.” Pleasure(s) in whatever form might keep at bay such unnuterably deep knowing of being pursued by, and to an abyss. And so things are grasped at, doggedly pursued and heaped to acquisition till they pale, and things then, only further down found in descent, are also reached for. And thus also dragging down with it a whole creation. And yes, even knowledge or so called “man’s wisdom”, does debauch us. Nevertheless the more doggedly we pursue, we find ourselves pursued, for dreams do come over which our own control and say prove utterly ineffective. Yes, there is a speaking and reminder…from deep and depths beyond our reigning. And ability to rein in.

And a veil is calling for piercing. Even screaming for it…to the precise measure of its resistance to it. We do not know our own end. For of ourselves we cannot know our beginning…that place where once we were not to ourselves, but came into the perception of knowing ourselves as ourselves. We know only enough to be terrified; terrified both by what we do know, and no less terrified at our lack of knowing.

Our identity, which we are always striving to both preserve and secure to ourselves is always in utter flux by an assault of things upon it, and things over which we have no control. For success “forms us” no less than trauma, and a kiss no less than a punch in the mouth. We would like to think we are “our own”…but there is a manifest debt owed in any thus claiming. We find that as much as we might like to think of ourselves as initiators, as doers, as active agents…as “free”…we are in all obligation as only reactors. We are trapped in ourselves in being in, and of the creation; and as far from a clean slate upon which truth may be seen as written and written clearly to any understanding to a knowing, unless there be an intervention.

Our center, that bull’s eye, that target off of which kisses and punches rebound as hitting to set the rest to some order in ourselves and to ourselves, cannot be seen nor found in us; for it is the fundament from which all else springs…even investigations and any seeing or desire to see, and the eye cannot see itself. Only else. Only, other.

But if you are a stranger to yourself as all men ultimately are, the one they claim to be “at home with” as if knowing himself better than he could ever be known…there is hope, even hope for that intervention.

I never know if it is the boldness of faith, or the presumption of sin by which I speak until it is made known to me when speaking of things that are not. Yet, to speak of things which are no less is holding a rebuke of things that only seem to be, or hold some propped up opinion of themselves for their being to assume a stance (as though being like God) as self sustained. And self sustaining. As being real, eternal, and true in its (or their) nature and to its nature…even to the exposing of “its” fundament.

And so when I am boldly moved to say there is hope as a matter that is; and where such hope is found as in He who is, I cannot escape my own not knowing that to speak of things that be not that hope, even if strenuously presented by others as holding that hope, whether I am acting or merely…reacting. I have no bone (that I know of) to pick with christianity anymore than I have with any other religion or religions, they are in their assignment of place as thing or things.

But the hope I have found is not in a thing or things, but in the maker of all thing…and things and so I am not shy to say one’s hope does not either lie in christianity nor even in “being a christian” such as it may be declared, defined, or understood.

The call that comes is from the One who alone hears the call (the cry, the scream) of the veil for piercing and also alone fully knows the resistance in such desire to it. The veil must be removed…even in all its want not to be. And He accomplished this…in Himself.

No the call is not from nor to “being a christian”, nor a member of christianity. Though many seemed unashamed to issue it. They have their assigning.

The call, if you hear it…is of Him alone, Jesus the Christ of God. And if you hear it, let “it” do its work, nothing hindering.

Even…christianity.

It is neither real, nor eternal, but He is.

And He…is not a christian.

He is the Christ of God. He will show you a clean slate…to see, to read, to understand, to even know.

And He alone does this, and this is God’s work, and it is marvelous in our eyes.