Organic Church – Holy Triage

We live in a world that represents the elite’s vision to harvest profit. Everything including education is designed to make us produce for the elite. We are slaves and most of us don’t even know it. There are a few elite controlling the masses via big government and via large corporations. The elite keep us hypnotized with a few promises and the crumbs that fall from their tables. We are slaves until the day we become aware of our slavery. Once we are aware we often become alone because we begin to see something that most don’t see. We are hypnotized by the media, video games, greed for gadgetry, sex, a lust for power and popularity. EVEN when we launch movements it often becomes more about us then the cause. Once the elite can no longer rule us in this fashion then prepare for a dictatorship that will be soon to follow.

This is a reflection of a parent who keeps there kids entertained for the purpose of keeping them out of their hair. What happens when the child one day wakes up to this form of manipulation? On that day begins his/her revolution which is often labeled a rebellion.

The American Indians that we robbed, raped, lied to and then murdered did not believe in hierarchies. The American Indians did not believe people were meant to rule over each other. The people we stole this country from became our slaves for a time until the day we didn’t need them and decided to make them our enemies to justify murdering them. Today we are at risk of succumbing to the same fate under the power of the elite.

This is why I love the movie AVATAR!

It is the darkness that conceals what lies deep down at the core that God seeks to eliminate. All I did was articulate what some feel / sense yet fail to understand. Evil means simply to conceal the truth. The world we live in that God tells us to not be of has found many ways / means to shield the truth. Again… I know this is dark, but it is what many feel / sense yet fail to understand. HOWEVER, the truth is when a feeling / sense gets articulated (becomes light) causing some to go into denial (hide) and others to be set free.

We are like gifts that God is unwrapping in this life, but some would rather not be unwrapped because they prefer darkness rather then light.

Today I interpret everything on my own constantly facing new truths that combat old lies. I now realize the dangers behind mediators who have too much at stake to simply say I am wrong. I now realize the god they are serving has become money at some point, turning their once on fire churches into cold businesses. As I started to see clearly for the first time even more has been revealed. It became clear they are slaves to the money that pays their bills, slaves to the institution and slaves to their own spotless reputations, these same spotless reputations that keep their paychecks coming. Church in a building is now a show and the show must go on… even while as Mother Teresa said “loneliness spreads like the leprosy of our generation”.

On many days I am not a God fearing man. Being a prince is a lot of pressure for an imperfect man to bare. How about we add the fact that the ideal man does not even exist, therefore God’s solution is the fact that He asks us to be merciful (meaning not punishing when someone deserves it) and gracious (meaning being nice even when someone doesn’t deserve it).

I have been with my wife Jana 16 years and I can say with all certainty that I am far from the prince that she deserves. If my wife was looking for the ideal man I would have never made it past the first date (I said stupid things on our first date). Did I mention the fact that we met in a bar and neither of us was sober. I was what many would consider a backslider christian and my wife rarely thought about herself as a christian. In fact if either of us were waiting for or looking for the ideal mate…… both of us would still be single.

Just saying (with a smile) my own perspective. Jesus didn’t die so we could sin, He died because we do sin. Grace and mercy means accepting that as handsome and as beautiful a person may be…. we as Jesus did need to lay down our own lives and sacrifice our definition of what is ideal sometimes. He may not always be the handsome prince. She may not be always be the beautiful princess so grace and mercy become the glue that keeps people together. Without out grace and mercy we will find ourselves either continually being kicked to the curb or continually kicking people to the curb.

1 Peter 4:8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Remember the quote “too good to be true” and you will be OK.

In the past I have been guilty of planning and producing the “Me Show”. The “ME SHOW” is about trying to be somebody when you feel deep down like a nobody. I find it easy to love and forgive those types of people because I know what it is like to feel like a “nobody”. I have had friends that constantly boast and I have accepted them knowing that behind all the bragging lies pure misery. When your identity is based upon external forces that are beyond your control…. life is like riding a wild horse that can never be broken. I see people everyday thinking they have the power to break the wild horse (life), but these people are only happy when they are temporarily holding something, something that will eventually lead to their deep misery when the wild horse (life) kicks them off… over and over again. This is why I find the Buddhist concepts of desire leading to pain very realistic.

Now that my “ME SHOW” is over my goal today is to simply pour out my heart with no strings attached…. even draw attention toward others and away from me when I have the opportunity. Love given and received freely is my reward. I am glad to not be in a position where my financial security or my self esteem is dependent upon my popularity. I can freely speak my mind without the worry of people deleting me from their friends lists. After graduating from Bible college I decided not to be a pastor because watching other people’s “me shows” started making me sick to my stomach.

The best favor anyone can do for themselves is avoid seeking an identity in the girls, the gold and the glory. The smart girls can usually see right through you, the gold is easily lost unless you make it your wicked slave master and the fame only opens the doorway to controversy. When people identify with the girls, the gold and the glory they invite destructive fears into their lives…. fears that often bring death to their door step early.

On a recent visit to my father’s house in CA my cat started doing something weird. As I was working at a desk I heard a clawing noise behind me. When I turned around I was surprised to find my cat sucking on a fuzzy purple robe and doing this marching motion with only his front paws. When I first saw this behavior I laughed because I knew right away it was a harmless disorder some cats have called kneading. My cat did this kneading for around 30 minutes straight and then curled up in a ball to take his routine nap. The next morning I noticed my cat kneading again, pawing and sucking this fuzzy purple robe for around 30 minutes each morning for 9 days straight.

As I have grown spiritually over the years I learned many new things. I have learned that ones psychological state effects how they see God and each other. I have learned that animals are complex creatures with personalities and they feel emotions. When I was a Christian I had a tendency to over-simplify everything in order to feel a sense of control. I looked at animals as disposable entertainment because we were taught that animals didn’t have souls. I was taught as a Christian to compartmentalize everything into it’s appropriate category. As I grew spiritually I realized that the tree of knowledge created this compartmentalizing and categorizing disorder a tradition carried on by religion. I have learned over the years exactly what Jesus meant when He said do not judge in Mat 7:1-2. I have learned that duality is a crime to spirituality.

Some people believe a cat’s kneading behavior is a developmental issue caused early on when a cat is a kitten. I suspect that when a kitten has either nursed too long or not long enough the psychological impact causes this weird behavior. As I watched my cat’s weirdness each morning I began to wonder about the weirdness in myself caused by the things in my past. I wondered about the wounds that were left unhealed far too long or development that may have been stunted by a well meaning nurturer. I love my cat in spite of his weirdness to the degree that I consider him a member of the family. In fact I love my cat more because of his weirdness because his weirdness makes me feel more connected with him. Why does human weirdness have to divide people as it often does? The simple reason I could connect with my kneading cat is the fact that I am connected to my own weirdness. Jesus said before you attempt to remove the speck in your brother’s eye first remove the plank in your own. Our familiarity with our own flaws is what helps us to see more clearly for the purpose of loving people in the purest form possible.

So there you have it…. a lesson on weirdness and how it connects with a beautiful side of loving each other. If you understand weirdness you can love someone deeper, but if you refuse to understand weirdness your relationships will lack the grace and mercy that Jesus spoke about. Love thrives in understanding and dies when it is not understood or when a person refuses to understand. So much for blind faith. Understanding breeds compassion, forgiveness and grace. To be loved is to be understood, to be lonely is to be constantly misunderstood.

“As I Attract The Way, I Will Travel It” – Matthew Ward

Explanation: People who constantly attract abusive people or who constantly end up in abusive circumstances (not knowing why) are self abusers. Only a self abuser could sit in an abusive church congregation and be completely blind to the abuse taking place. This is the essence of spiritual blindness and why Jesus said first look at the log in your own eye before you point out the speck in your brothers. Self abusers struggle with the concept of mercy and grace toward both themselves and others therefore they harbor a lot of grudges. Self abusers keep long lists of people and evidence in there hearts that are a reflection of victimization. All this negative energy finds its way out in the form of abuse that is both given and taken. Some people love drama for this reason because it validates them. One result of an identity crisis is the need to create enemies for the purpose of establishing a personal identity. We create a dramatic story where we are the hero and others become the evil enemy. George W Bush did this and all it did was screw up the world and cause wars. Entire religions and movements have been established on the above principles. We feel like we need to create a group, religion or church for the purpose of identifying with or defining ourselves. People make a lot of money off of our hunger for a sense of belonging. People often get rich by simply finding a way to capitalize upon this collective identity crisis. The end result is the designer of this great scheme laughs his/her way all the way to the bank. Self abusers / the abused both abuse and attract abuse.

The cure: Jesus basically said have no enemies when He said love both friend and enemy the same. We know we are cured when we first learn to identify and live inside our own mess which results in us being more tolerant and understand of other peoples messes. Eliminating the need to create or join groups, religions, movements and all sorts of false solutions all for the purpose of putting our identity crisis at ease. This whole idea is a paradox of the sorts. The above truth is so powerful it could get me crucified like it did someone else I know.

We live in an abusive world that is often totally blind to this vicious cycle….

There is a running theme in many of the parables Jesus taught that makes the simple statement… “show up”. Show up for the wedding feast, show up to work, show up at home after a long journey that takes you to a place feeding pigs and even eating the pig food. Show up to the challenge of taking your talents and making them multiply. Show up to eat, to drink, to visit the imprisoned, to care for the sick and needy, to free the captives (so they are free to show up too). Show up at the very kingdom of God that is both amongst us and within us. Show up to gather with two or more in Christ’s name and He will show up.

Jesus welcomed everyone to show up thieves, prostitutes, races of people that were previously rejected by the Jews, tax collectors (basically politicians). When Jesus called out to “the world”…. He meant it and when He used the word “all”…. He meant it. Jesus was more concerned with the obsticals that prevented people from showing up (the religious leaders) then He was concerned with trying to determine which individuals had the potential to show up. Jesus simply says “come” follow me and He says to everyone regardless of race, class, sexual gender or religion.

God gave me a dream one night 5 years ago that showed the institutional church trying to place God’s living water behind a dam (making it stale and bitter water, rotten like manna not eaten the same day) and I heard God’s voice say open the floodgates so I can build up my church. My life began to change and I met Darin Hufford author of “The Misunderstood God” a year later. Today I know a lot of people who have heard God speak this same message to their hearts. Things are changing faster then you realize because the present economy is challenging the institution and revealing their wickedness. GOD HIMSELF is building an army and people are being freed from slavery…. and all the while the hearts of the religious leaders grow harder and more calloused.

Today I want you to think about the word “presence”. What keeps you from being present? The ultimate form of presence in someones life is true love. What keeps you from loving with no strings attached? What keeps you from “showing up”?

All the illusions I constructed my identity from became held in the ego’s death grip as my eyes were opened to the great contradiction known as my life. Now at this point I could either create a reason to continue believing lies (denial) or I could take a huge leap of faith by nailing my former self with all it’s grandiose ambitions to the cross. To repent means to change course. Two roads become visible the wide road and the narrow road. When I look back on my life it becomes painfully evident that I have been on the road of destruction and now I either admit it or carry on pretending that the pain does not exist. However sin is killing me… I can feel it as the stress hormones course through my veins and my heart races out of control. My relationships either end quickly or are a complete joke. Life has become a destructive pursuit of that very first high… a high that may never return again. To change course now would require starting over, relearning everything all over again, my whole mind would have to be rebuilt and my heart would have to be renewed… I would literally have to be born again.

There has been collective spiritual growth through the centuries; yet most refuse to learn from the history of slobbering babies who could not get along with God or each other. Today the institutional church baths in ego when they demonize other spiritual belief systems and choose to give precedence to political & military powers over love. The old testament is an accurate history book about God’s bride Israel getting it wrong over and over again. Those who refuse to question Israels actions risk repeating the same mistakes. If genocide is wrong today it was wrong yesterday too. If slavery is wrong today it was wrong yesterday too. If sexism is wrong today it was wrong yesterday too. If racism is wrong today it was wrong yesterday too. If we fail to learn from history we will be doomed to repeat it both collectively and individually. The opposite of love is fear and ego is a form of fear. God is love, satan is ego.

Satan is ego. I am not talking about the sense of self that enables you to understand others. Let me demonstrate the characteristic of ego as the Bible in 1st Cor 13 demonstrates the characteristics of love. Ego takes a believer and reduces him to a judge sitting high and mighty with the idea that he can fix the world around him. Ego breeds a hero complex instead of love. Ego causes division amongst people as they try to fix each other instead of love each other. Ego causes believers to fail at providing others room to grow. Ego wants to brand movements of God under a particular denomination. Ego is what causes institutional churches to focus on growth at any cost as they consume money meant for the poor to build bigger buildings. Ego sends believers out to find their lives / purpose and causes them to self destruct in the process. Ego is what makes true spiritual community impossible because it creates the masks we wear when we are afraid to let people see our messy lives. Ego paints the illusion that some are better then others so that all of us aim to become something instead of just living / loving in the moment. Ego is usually behind unforgiveness and thirst for vengeance. Ego collectively causes wars amongst nations who think it is their job to fix each other. Ego leads ultimately to death as it breads hatred which is murder. Ego is a heavy burden to bare and it crushes people slowly suffocating them under it’s weight. Ego breeds idolatry causing people to reverence men more then they reverence God. Ego is shallow and superficial; it destroys families driving men and women to mid-life crisis in search of a new partner to satisfy their egos hunger. Ego is satan.

We all have appetites for something. I just got back from a business trip and spent a single night in Las Vegas a.k.a. sin city. After going to sleep in my hotel room at 10:10 PM I had a rude awakening. The drunk couple in the room next door started fighting. The argument they were having got louder and louder. For some reason I was not mad about the noise, but instead curious about the content of the argument they were having. As the argument escalated a lamp hit the wall and shattered, then the man started getting physically violent with his girl friend. It became obvious that I needed to call hotel security to intervene. The reason I feel compelled to write this article is the underlying reason many people go to Las Vegas a.k.a. sin city. This article is about the unhealthy appetites in each one of us and the painful path they often carve out in our way. In this article I will be addressing the beast within each and every one of us.

Last week I watched a documentary on methamphetamine addiction. I learned about the lengths a person will go to support their drug habit. Some people become hard workers in order to make the money necessary to support their habits. I have a very close friend who was a cocaine addict and literally became the hardest worker in his company to support this habit. I once knew a cocaine dealer who at times made up to $40,000 per week selling cocaine and he used another legitimate business as a front to launder that money. I have met many different forms of addicts, but they all have one thing in common they need money to feed the beast within.

What is the beast within?

There is a saying that goes like this “There is no rest for the wicked”. To discover our own beast within we need to look no farther then our own appetites. For some it is as easy as to follow the money and where they spend it, but for others it may require deeper analysis. Here is a good example. A man with a mid-life crisis feels as if his life has not amounted to much. A mid-life crisis is based around the following questions. Who am I after all these years? Who did I set out to be and why did I miss that mark? A married man in a mid-life crisis will long for the look that he may have once saw in his wife’s eyes. Every man knows what I mean when I mention that special look. This look a man once saw in his wife’s eyes helped form this image of himself that he once loved. As time passed in his marriage he started seeing this look less and less frequently in time even losing his own self respect. I guess a mid-life crisis or an identity crisis in general could be defined as a quest to find the person you once were or the quest to find a certain reflection of yourself you once saw in the eyes others. Other examples of identity crisis are linked to a pastor’s church shrinking or a movie stars ratings shrinking or a rock star’s fan base shrinking. The beast within is always linked to a need for affirmation, security or validation for the purpose of easing tormenting fear.

The lengths people will go to feed the beast within

Show me a successful entrepreneur and in most cases I will show you a man with a horrific beast within. Investigate the divorce rate amongst entrepreneurs and you will most likely find it is alarmingly high. Why is a man able to work endless hours and why was he even willing to sacrifice his own family to achieve success? Jesus said in Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” However make no mistake because the beast comes in many different forms and cannot be limited to money alone. Today we have different terms for this beast like obsessive compulsive behavior or addictive personality disorder, but all these represent different forms of the beast within us. Where do we spend most of our time, what lengths are we willing to go and what does that tell us about who we are? Some people are so obsessed with becoming an authority that they despise all authority. Look at successful pastors and politicians and you will often find a ferocious beast within these leaders. In conclusion, we can link all sin and the breaking of every one of the Ten Commandments to the lengths that people are willing to go to feed the beast within.