What Now? – not an disinfectant

Disinfectant: a chemical liquid that destroys bacteria or causing the destruction of bacteria.

Once we know our inclusion and union and adoption as a child of God…once we “see” who we really are and we “see” our Abba…then what, what now?  If you haven’t ventured into the depths of sonship, you should check out these posts about NO separation.  Yeah, spend some time soaking and swimming in the “good news.”  The Gospel of Immanuel, God with us, is really good.  Knowing His love and experiencing His oneness with us is, well…..unbelievable.  OK, so it takes some faith but He has plenty.  He was so faithful towards us that He was willing to come into our reality as one of us and reveal Himself as He really is knowing that we would reject Him to death.  Why?  He is so good it is unbelievable.  Our faith is in His character and nature and person as demonstrated in His love that has Him dying at the hands of angry, lost, deceived, fearful mankind.  He is that good.  He is that huge.  He is that awesome.  He is that messy.  He is that willing.  He is that invested.  He reveals Himself right in the middle of all our junk.  When He does that and we turn to His truth about Himself, we see ourselves.  We see our inclusion and adoption and sonship as the power that sets us free from…wait for it…darkness.

At the center of the fall is separation.  At the very root of our lostness is this idea that God is somewhere else.  Now add a healthy dose of good-bad fruit and we are off to the races looking for stupid under every rock and behind every tree and in every bush.  “More fig leaves, please” we cry.  We roll around in the mud of religion and bring our sheaves of grain to the altar again and again.  Sadly that g.o.d. that needs burnt grain isn’t Jesus.  That g.o.d. of fallen-human projected-perfection looks more like a big bottle of disinfectant than Jesus.  Jesus gets right in the middle of the “germs” and doesn’t get sick.  He joins the petri dish of fallen human darkness to bring the light.  He shines the light in the darkness and instead of killing all the germs He reveals who we are and who He is.  Even in the darkness the light is shining brightly.  Still our dualism and good-bad insistence and religious rampages has us feeling around in the darkness and making stuff up to account for our blindness.  Jesus is the light.  He reveals the Father.  He illuminates our adoption.  He shines a brilliant light on our inclusion and union and oneness.  He reveals His children as His children and His Abba as our Father.

Where we get stuck is in our understanding.  Our “lack of knowing Him” is our darkness.  Our “lack of knowing our inclusion” is our darkness.  Our projections onto, or balance of an “angry g.o.d” with, a loving Jesus is our darkness.  Our teaching that God must punish all of us evil humans in an eternal torture chamber forever and ever at the hands of Jesus is darker than dark.  That is black.  Check out what Jesus told Paul on “the road.”

Act 26:16 But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, 17 delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles — to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. ’ (ESVST)

So what is the power of the “voice of accusation?”  Lies.  That voice is a liar and has always been a liar.  What is it lying about?  Who God is and who we are.  Those lies have us hiding in the bushes.  Those lies have us running from Love Himself and claiming God can’t be trusted.  Those lies have us crying out in the middle of the night “If God is love then what the hell is going on.”  Those lies have us sitting in pews rejecting everyone who isn’t like us into the fictional eternal torment chamber at the hands of….God?  Really?

Darkness isn’t evil it is darkness.  Darkness is not knowing God or rejecting Him for the shadows of our unbelief in His AWESOMENESS!  Evil is something else.  When the Bible talks about evil it isn’t the stuff of horror movies.  That is mythology and superstition.  Evil is bad stuff, like….beets.

Beets are evil.  They provide no service.  They are putrid and rotten and downright awful.  They serve no purpose and have no value added.  They must have been created by something that is awful and horrible because they are awful and horrible.  Yeah, I think beets are evil to the core.

OK, silly argument?  Maybe.  I’m trying to make a point.  What we do in the darkness is the bad or evil stuff.  When I don’t know who I am and who God is, then the bad stuff happens.   As an example, how about rape?  That is bad, right?  So here is a line of reasoning that should “shed some light” (pun alert) on the relationship of “darkness” and “evil.”:

Rape is a work of darkness. In the darkness I don’t know that God loves me. I don’t know He loves everyone. I don’t know the depth of that love. I don’t know that He is in me. I don’t know that His love is my love. I don’t know He cares for me. I don’t know He has made me powerful. I don’t know that I can love women and have a family and live in harmony with my wife. I am in the darkness. I now act out my fears in the darkness. I act out of selfishness because I know nothing else since I believe God has rejected me. On and on. So I rape. I don’t know love for others. I don’t respect others. I need to feel powerful because I don’t know God has made me powerful.  Then something changes and I step into the light. I experience His love. I embrace his truth. I become His love. Now I can’t rape, ever. The darkness becomes light. What was invisible becomes visible. The light was always there in the darkness. The light was shining in the rape. The rapist couldn’t or wouldn’t see it. Maybe he was told he was evil by his religious mother when he was five. Just saying. We can bring the very very dark when we actually threaten people with an eternal conscious torment by a mythological g.o.d. we worship. What could be darker?

So in the light the “works of darkness” or “evil” is exposed as “bad” but the “darkness has become light.”  Check out this passage that supports the argument.

Eph 5:11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (ESV)

See it, WORKS of darkness.  Rise from the dead.  Wake up from our wrong understanding.  Come into the eternal life of knowing Him.

So what does this have to do with “what now?” and “disinfectant?”  Everything.  In the light rape is still rape.  The bad is still bad.  The cancer is still cancer.  It doesn’t evaporate or get vaporized, it gets exposed.  The light is changing the darkness into light.

What is the “darkness becomes light” for the cancer patient?

GOD DIDN’T DO IT TO YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stuff happens and it sucks to be in the pile, but God didn’t do it to you. He loves you and you are His child. I believe God heals cancer. I believe he brings us into situations to heal cancer but more than getting rid of this “bad” thing you have, God wants you to know and experience and live eternally as His child. That is who You are, not a meat sack with cancer. See it? Light changes the darkness.

So “what now?”  We just love like Jesus.  Love created the universe. I bet love can heal cancer. Maybe we just haven’t learned what it means to love like Jesus. Maybe we’ve been to consumed with the OCD insistence on emulating him and copying him and wielding our magic wands instead of learning what it really means to love. That revelation would really blast the darkness with light. Love is what Jesus did. Love is what we get to do. Once we are free from religion, we are free to love. No judgment. No guesses. No excuses. No fortune-telling. No magic wands. Just love. The light shining in the darkness. Revelation in ignorance. Truth in lies. That is the “what now?” and why God is not a disinfectant but joins our junk to reveal Himself and the truth………..And He heals cancer.

Yay God!

Lance