SEASONS 2

One July 24 I started a series of postings that I entitled, SEASONS OF LIFE. I sense that the Church (Body of Christ) is moving into the final SEASON of Redemptive History. If this is true I am looking for mature sons of God to be revealed. I want to be one of them. To me this means that authentic Christians will begin to live up to their name in character and demonstrate the Kingdom power that Jesus talked about in John 13-17. Jesus came teaching about the Kingdom and His life and death brought it into existence. He told us to pray for it to manifest in the earth. "Thy Kingdom come and will be done, hallowed Father, on earth as it is in Heaven." However, we can not seem to move past our Self-focus, our victim mentality, our helplessness; even though Pentecost was to empower us to live like Jesus. Many like me, are reluctant to move into our inheritance as mature image bearers due to pride issues. We know we are hiding many unresolved issues that have not yet bowed the knee to Christ.

How obvious it is to me that all humanity suffers from the same effects as our original parent's dis-connect from the Creator. The following are descriptive phrases for the results of this disconnect:
"nakedness"
"falling into ourselves"
extreme "me-ism"
narsistic lens through which we view and interpret life events and relate to God.

Would it be too harsh to say that our fear of nakedness sets us up to take on a victim mentality? Everything wrong is someone elses fault. Self-pity and anger rule us. Yet we continue to look within ourselves for ways to "even the score", maintain the control we need to protect and pursue our slice of life. We want God to garuntee pleasure on our terms. This unresolved stress is being stored in our physical body and its pain is constantly crying out distress signals. We deal with their agony with anti-depressent, anti-anxiety drugs and sleep aids. Cancer, diabetes, bi-polar disorder, high blood pressure, are as common to Christians as those who know not the Prince of Peace.

For us in America in the 21st century, we have about maxed out the American Dream. What will we have when all of this collapses? Will our gracious God come looking for us in the winter season of our life and our nation's life and ask us the same question:

"Who told you that you are naked? Yes, your misery is real because this life is not your final home and you have spent too much focus and energy on temporal things. I am still covering you, still loving you, still holding you in covenant. Come into the Secret Place with Me. I will give you a different perspective on your nakedness. No condemnation and no shame. I took that into Myself. Let My life flow through you. Soar with Me on the wings of Spirit energy. My love with bring wholeness to your body and soul."

God created us to be lovers.
Greatness lies within us.
We are beautiful and awesome in our design.
We are healers, builders and extremely creative in vision.
But we can't move in the flow of who we are, because we are not being nourished and affirmed by the I AM who made us in His image.

We ought to be moving from glory to glory and doing exploits of Kingdom dimensions.
We ought to be restoring our society and rebuilding the waste places.
We are sick, life has us defeated and we don't have answers to give. Something is terribly wrong with this picture of the church of Jesus Christ. Have we settled for a ticket to Heaven when we die? This greatly disturbs me. I guess you can tell. Right?

I have just run a "rabbit trail". Hope I haven't lost you.

I will bring this posting to a conclusion and bring us back on track. This posting has focused our attention on the final Season of Redemptive History which I see as the Bride of Christ being made ready for the return of Christ the King. In this season, the people of God will focus on hearing the sounds from the throne room and seeing what it looks like as the Kingdom manifests on earth through the Redeemed community. We must throw off all that restrains and distractions and press on to know the Lord.

Next blog I hope to fill in the Seasons God has brought us through. This may give us a better perspective for the present season. We are the Bride and He will make us ready.
In each season of redemptive history, we have seen God's people do exploits. Think of Joseph, Joshua, Moses, Daniel, David and many more. Their heroic lives are examples of what a whole generation will look like before Christ returns.

I don't know how the rest of this is going to be presented, since this seems to be coming spontaneously, but then perhaps that is how a blog can be useful. I am vulnerable to your response, for this is not all thought out manuscript, so be kind and give me allowance if you disagree.