Mystic Portal

I love that title.  When God opens up a door for you it is like stepping into a brightly lit spring morning.  The refreshing clean air with all the aromas of new creation enters your lungs and fills you with anticipation and joy.  You aren’t sure why you are so expectant but if feels like Christmas morning or the eve of a grand vacation.  This moment is His revelation.  The anticipation is the frequency of the Kingdom of Heaven.  The expectancy is  your hand on the doorknob excited about what is on the other side.  The joy in your heart is preparation for the perfection to come.  We are so incomplete as a mere fallen human but so completely perfect as a new creation in Jesus and with Jesus and filled with Jesus.  He is the door.  Do we dare enter?

Jesus brings God to us and us to God.  That may read like an overly simplified catch-phrase of a contemporary ministry but it is actually truth.  Jesus reveals to us the true nature of God.  He shows us who God is towards man.

John 18:37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” (ESV)

So many are still like Pilate trying to grasp this concept of the God revealed by Jesus.  The religious of the time rejected Jesus as God.  The God that Jesus represented was not the one they expected.  Instead of violence and vengeance they got peace and forgiveness.  Instead of a God determined to punish sins they got a God who submits to the punishment of us sinners.  Instead of a God who changes the planet by force they met a God who changes hearts by love.  They wanted a behavior-correcting, perfection-seeking exclusionist but instead they got a compassionate lover of sinners that welcomes all of mankind.  We were all brought into the family of this amazing God in Jesus.  When we “see” who God is as Jesus reveals, we are forever forgiven and received and welcomed and cherished and loved and accepted and adored and elevated and provisioned and supplied and holy and righteous and sanctified and beholden as His children.  Yay!  That should get you really excited.

Jesus said to the woman at the well:

John 4:21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (ESV)

Jesus is the truth:

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (ESV)

And Jesus is the door:

John 10:7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (ESV)

Jesus reveals the truth of the Father.  He shows us how accepted we are.  He shows us how loved we are.  Now, as mere humans, we fall in love with Love and draw near to God instead of running for the bushes.  Let me suggest that Jesus also brings us to God in the Spirit.  When we are worshiping in spirit and truth we have accepted and embraced the truth of God and are now moving to Him in the Spirit.  We, as fallen humans, don’t understand this “new” relationship.  We don’t normally operate “in the spirit” so Jesus has to teach us with His Holy Spirit.  Check this out:

Matt 6:6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (ESV)

The word “door” could be translated as “portal.”  The word “pray” can be translated as “worship” or “exchange.”  The word “secret” is the inward place of reflection.  It is the place where everything is held close.  It is a “secret” because you don’t let others in that place.  The word “room” is a place of provision like a pantry.  It is the place you go to get precious stuff that you are protecting and keeping safe.  The word “seeing” is to perceive or discern.  It is the contemplative place of revelation.  Lastly the word “reward” can be translated as “give back” or “restore” or “give away.”  So this verse could read:

When you worship step through the portal and meet God in the protected contemplation place where He sees what you need and supplies everything you need (LLT)

OK, one more passage.  This should put some icing on this cake (bread):

Luke 11:5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence (persistence, walking through the mystic portal) he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (ESV extra stuff I added)

(Check out this post about Jesus and the bread.)  Jesus is way better than the “friend” in this passage.  His point is for us to seek Him and find Him and know He shows up.  Jesus brings God to us and us to God.

It isn’t a diplomatic adjunct but a hypostatic translation.

God gave me that last sentence and I had to go and look up the two words that were unfamiliar to me:

Adjunct: a thing added to something else as a supplementary rather than an essential part.

Hypostatic: the substance, essence, or underlying reality; any of the persons of the Trinity; the essential person of Jesus in which his human and divine natures are united.

That is just crazy!  I want to explore this more and I am sure we will in coming posts.  This is the launching point for more.  Hopefully  I have stretched your brain to ponder something new.  Maybe it isn’t new for you.  Maybe you have always known this.  I think we are all designed for this and know it on some level.  What is THIS?  Stepping through the “mystic portal” of Jesus to worship God in Spirit, actually not metaphorically.

There is a side of our new nature that we are learning about.  We are familiar with our human nature.  We are accustomed to our five senses.  We understand relationships in our “flesh.”  We are moving from a fallen understanding of our “flesh” and being transformed in our minds to a new revelation of our “flesh” in Jesus.  Still we lack the understanding of God on the spirit level.  God is spirit.  Jesus is flesh and spirit like us.  Jesus is our mediator between spirit and flesh.  Jesus shows us who God is towards mankind and who we get to be towards God.  Jesus is the great translator in both directions.  We don’t understand “worshiping in the spirit” but Jesus does perfectly.

Now that we know “truth” and have left all our baggage behind, let’s step through the “mystic portal” to seek God in the greater God reality of the Spirit.  Doesn’t that make you excited like that spring morning breath of fresh air?

Yay God!

Lance