THOSE WHO EAT ME
15/04/22 16:53
Wealth may be a sign of the ability to make money but it may not be a sign of the possession of wisdom. Wisdom comes from a humble spirit and a willingness to learn. Wisdom is not found among the proud and conceited. Wisdom is drawn to those who can listen.
CULTIVATE THE GARDEN OF YOU
Spirituality and wisdom comes from humility and the cultivation of our inheritance: Oneness with God.*
The medium of exchange of holiness and spirituality in the New Testament, is not money, which is why Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple. Righteousness and life on the basis of contractual exchange was finished when Jesus cried, ‘It is finished!’ So it’s not about us adopting some icon of righteousness that we can use as a bartering chip. It about His life as our life.
EATING JESUS
The Great Exchange since the cross has been Christ’s life as your life. That is to say Christ’s death for your life and Christ’s Holy life alive in you - becoming who you are as Jim and Jill.
Your life in God is not a contract. Neither is it a transaction in which you do this so that Jesus will do that. Your life in God is union with God. You are the branch and the fruit of His vine. Your being is the expression of eating His Body in the Spirit. Get onto the real meaning of the Lord’s Table and be Him.
Godliness is less about doing and more ABOUT BEING because it is in oneness with God that we do holy things and distribute spirit and life.
BECOMING
Brian Zahnd describes growth in Godliness as becoming. “Though we could speak of doing the impossible, I think it’s better to speak of becoming what we once thought was impossible. The emphasis should always be on becoming over doing. At one point in his life Abraham thought it was impossible for him to become a father—it was so impossible that he laughed at the thought of it. But through faith that’s exactly what he became. The seed of faith grew in Abraham’s life until one day he became what he had previously assumed was impossible.” (1)
Some deny the incarnation as the way because they think it lacks substance. So they ignore the new covenant and maintain themselves in the law, seizing on one or two iconic behaviors selectively to preserve the illusion of their obedience. But manufacturing our own grace is no grace at all. This denies us the transfusion of Christ as us and we do not actually become sons and daughters of God. We remain the sons of distracted Adam.
* The parable of the sower is not about rooting out favourite our sin. It’s about the jumble of chaos that is our garden when we will not advance out of the old covenant into the new. In this garden we need not be wicked at all. Just cluttered with the confusion of religion and dull. Dull because we are without spirit and life.
(1) Zahnd, Brian. The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey (pp. 30-32). Kindle Edition.