Fruit

Fruit is produced by heart abundance. Life flows from the heart. It is possible to judge a life based on its actions. We should not be surprised to see wicked things flow from a life. When the condition of men is described in Scripture as “none is righteous”, “no one seeks for God”, and “no one does any good”, is it any wonder that evil flows from every person’s life.

The writers of Scriptures do engage in hyperbole. There are people who do seek for God. There are people who do good. But there is a life of struggle, especially among those who follow Jesus. The Spirit is in their hearts. The power to do good is there, even as the corrupted nature of man to do evil is there. Until perfected with the coming of the Kingdom, we will continue to see a struggle.

We see good in those who do not follow Jesus. They do not have the Spirit, who can power their lives for good. But they do have the image of God. Part of God’s image in us are the “fuels” of the heart. A human being is created with a need (or several needs) that when they are filled powers their living, like gasoline for an automobile. To power our hearts, we need a supply to fulfill these needs.

One of these fuels is love. Human beings not only need to receive love, human beings need to give love. And humans give love to one another largely by doing good. To function as a healthy person, one needs to do good as an expression of love. We need to produce fruit.

Love Your Enemies

Jesus said “love your enemies”, because he wants us to be like God. It is very natural for people to love other like themselves, or others who show love to them. It is not natural, or easy, to give love to people who ignore us, who hate us or who we do not know. It is God-like to love those kinds of people. God is kind to the ungrateful and evil alike.

Vocation

God has created us as new creatures. More, we are given a place in his Kingdom, and a vocation to carry out for that Kingdom. We embrace that vocation and move into correct alignment with the Kingdom.

A vocation is a God-given drive and passion to impact the world, to establish God’s rule over the world.

To live out our vocation, we need to know ourselves and the tasks God wants us to complete. The Scripture calls us to know ourselves and to know the grace God gives us to use. Our vocation is fundamental to our Kingdom identity. Our vocation is the primary interface if our partnership with the Spirit in the Kingdom.

Blessed are the Poor

Jesus said that the “poor” are blessed. This is not how we look at things. People look at the poor as being at the bottom. Jesus treats the "poor" here as if they were on the top. What is he referring to? If a person is “poor” he is conscious of his need. He may also be conscious of a path to seek relief.

If the person seeks relief by seeking God, He will find God and become part of His Kingdom. He will move into a while new life, supplied by the promises and directions of God.

The person who is truly poor lives in fear. He has no contentment. He cannot live as God wants, because he cannot give as God wants. (And do not just imagine dollar signs. “Give” means more than that.)

God wants to do more in your life than you can possibly conceive of. If we could receive something of God’s plans and potential, and lived to fulfill a fraction, we would flip the world upside-down.

We are God’s channels to pour out his purposes into the world. He reveals plans, steps, actions and words for us to complete, pursue or deliver. We do not see his kingdom worked out, because we do not believe his promises.

For the most part, the church of today focuses almost entirely on their own. The main question asked is, how can we meet the needs of our membership?

Jesus’ focus seemed to rest among people who had no relationship with God. He did not focus on the Sadducees, who were the traditional caretakers of Judaism. He did not focus on the Pharisees, who were the purists and fundamentalists of Judaism.

The Pharisees had tremendous discipline. Discipline is a good thing. But their discipline required a person having sufficient means to keep it. And what of those who did not were not in a position to maintain Pharisaic practices? They had tried, failed and gave up. Or they were not in a position to learn the requirements and practices.

Jesus’ invitation to people had to be simple so everyone could follow it. Jesus had to remove barriers so sinners, apostates and failures could feel free to move in God’s direction.

Real Authority

There is a story about Jesus giving a lecture at someone’s house. Several men bring a paralyzed friend to Jesus. It is too crowded to get the man – on a stretcher – to Jesus, so they take the extraordinary option of removing part of the roof and lowering the man down to Jesus. Imagine someone wants to see you. Instead of knocking on the door, or ringing the bell, they rip part of your house down, so they can get in. They seem to have stopped thinking. They must have seen this as the only way to help their friend. And it was the only time, now or never. Jesus may never come this way again.

Jesus recognizes the desperation, but he also recognizes their faith in him as the answer to their friend’s need. “If we can just get him to Jesus, his problems will be solved.”

But Jesus speaks to a different need. He says their sins are forgiven. (I have often wondered why Jesus did this. Did he realize that this was their real concern? Was he setting up the crowd to demonstrate his authority as God?) The religious experts in the crowd see all sorts of red flags go up. Since, only God can forgive sins, how can this MAN say something like this?

So, Jesus asks the question, which easier to say “your sins are forgiven” or “rise and walk”? It is easier to say “your sins are forgiven.” No one expects anything to happen. There is no physical manifestation.

But if someone says “rise and walk” to a paralytic … If people expect something to happen, and it does not, then people get angry, disappointed or do not take the person seriously any more. If people expect nothing to happen, and it does not, people dismiss the speaker as a fool, who just likes shooting his mouth off.

But something happens, you have to take another look at that person. You have to take them a whole lot more seriously. He is not just a talker. He might just know something you should know. Maybe he knows something about forgiveness I do not know. Maybe there is something about him you should know.

Jesus intended it as an obvious demonstration that he does have authority to forgive. Not like we have authority to forgive someone who offends us. I can choose to not factor an offense into how I interact with someone. He has authority to absolve from real guilt, to justify and to declare righteous.

Importance of Scripture

When Jesus began his public ministry, he started with a 40 day fast. At the end of the fast, presumably because he was weaker, Satan attacked Jesus by tempting him. Satan attacked Jesus’ credibility. Jesus responded to each temptation with “It is written” and quoted a portion of Scripture.

This underlines out need to know the Scripture. Quoting Scripture is not some magic incantation. The power of Scripture lies in its truth.

Understanding Scripture is important for a number of reasons. (1) It clarifies God’s thinking. We have spoken several times of the need for revelation and wisdom. Scripture is the cornerstone for both. In it, God lays out the parameters for revelation to fall in, as well as wisdom to guide the evaluation of revelation.

(2) It reveals the mind and heart of God. In reading the Scriptures, we can remind ourselves again and again of what God finds important and what we should find important.

(3) It guides the pathways for our own thinking. As we read, study, meditate and pray, we agree in our thinking with God. God’s thoughts become our thoughts. And our mind are slowly and thoroughly transformed.

(4) It guides our actions. We know that the insides and outsides of people are equally important. Our inner life should propel the our outer life. And it is the outer life that we were created for.

Spiritual Realm

To understand the laws of the Kingdom, we need to realize there are several building blocks.

• God’s Kingdom does not function like the world. The laws that govern it are often the reverse of what we expect. We will experience surprises and upside-down values.

• The Kingdom – indeed, the whole spiritual realm – does not exist in isolation from the physical realm. Actions in one have effects in the other. If a person’s heart-focus connects the physical and the spiritual, then thoughts, desires and attitudes have an effect. People can move through daily existence influencing the spiritual realm, and in turn, the physical realm, because of how their hearts are focused.
• People are spiritual creatures. They stand at the intersection of the physical and the spiritual, influencing both. And the Spirit of God in the hearts of Jesus’ disciples places them in the middle of his Kingdom. We need to realize that we are already living and having an influence.
• If we are living and functioning in the Kingdom, perhaps in unrealized ways, we are already living according to the laws of the Kingdom.
• The keys to unlock the laws lie in what God has said. God has already given us his promises. They reveal how God has determined he will act. We need to respond to him with the hands of faith.
• God wants us to live in agreement with the laws of the Kingdom. Since, they are often the reverse of what we expect, we need to know and understand what they are. Since, God wants us to follow them God wants us to know them. Since, God wants us to know them he will reveal them to us. If a person reads the Scriptures, he probably knows many Kingdom laws already. They may not be labeled as a Kingdom law in the person’s thinking, but they will recognize the obligation to “keep” something they have read.
• Many regard the “works” of the Kingdom in almost a mystical way. And I suppose they could be. Many Christians believe that God still speaks, but they would also think that God giving them a message for someone else, especially a total stranger, as moving into areas of weirdness. But we need to see that Kingdom “works” can also be extending kindness or hospitality. The simple act of sharing food or water can send shock waves through the spiritual realm. What matters is that the “work” agrees with the Kingdom laws, even if – and especially if – they run against the current of the world.
• We need to act in agreement with the promises. If there is a condition, we need to meet it. If we accept God’s promise, in some way, it already exists. We may need to modify our behavior to prepare a place for it. God is unlimited. Or to look at it another way, God is self-limited only. God has determined how he will act in the world. There seems to be some evidence that God has limited himself to act only in response to prayer. So, we should be inviting God to act as he has indicated he would. Or we should be thanking him for acting on our behalf, for his glory, as he promised. Or some other way. And since Satan really does not want the Kingdom taking root in the world or our hearts, maybe we should taking note of these things. Keep a journal or a recipe box with 3x5 cards.
• Some people would hear or read something like this and, because of the promises for provision, associate it with some type of prosperity gospel. (1) I am not going to be critical of someone who claims God’s promise for a new car, and then “coincidentally” receives one. (2) We need to keep the fact foremost in our thinking that God’s promises, and God keeping his promises, are not for some sort of “bless me” club. They are to promote his purposes. The ultimate purpose of God is the validation, the demonstration and the completion of his glory. The penultimate purposes of God are the salvation of men and the transformation of individuals, cities, states and cultures into something that reflects his nature. God did promise to provide for us. He did not promise we would be rich.

Spiritual Realm

There are laws that govern the physical universe. Gravity is one such law. It involves all matter. There is a constant; there are observable relationships.

There are laws that govern the spiritual universe. Reaping\sowing is an example of this kind of law. Focusing the heart (as in prayer, meditation and chanting) to connect the spiritual and the physical is another.

There are laws that govern God’s Kingdom. One of the first laws is that faith accesses God’s promises. Faith is the pair of hands held out to receive what God gives. Faith is confidence that God has the power, resources and desire to fulfill his promises.

Another law of the Kingdom is that the best attitude of heart focus is love. It is heart-focus that reaches into the spiritual realm. Prayer is a way to focus our hearts. We can prayer with hate or anger in our hearts. If we do, we can still succeed in connecting with the spiritual realm. Love has a motivation that invokes results that agree with God’s purposes more. That’s one reason why worship is an important factor in following Jesus. Worship should be an expression of love.

Spiritual War

There is a spiritual war. We need to be prepared to fight the devil. It is his servants that will trip us, confuse us and knock us over if they can. It is his servants who want us to be miserable, discouraged and focused on all that is bad. If we are focused on the bad, we are not ready to serve.

• We must understand the truth and have it ready.
• We must stand in our position of favor, having been reconciled, living at peace with God and his family.
• We must be ready to take action. We have peace with God. We do not have to fear moving to serve, to encourage, to share. God has already forgiven us for all we have done. Will he be angry if we step out to act in love?
• We must hold onto God’s promises. Satan will work to distort God’s word in our hearts. We will remember God’s word, but Satan will say it is all a lie. We must remember to believe God, because he does not lie.
• We must keep God’s words and promises in our thinking and acting. It is the Truth that brings Satan down.
• We must be given to prayer. Pray for people to stand, to obey God, nd for the gospel break through barriers.

It's the Heart that Matters

If you are a follower of Jesus, it does not matter whether your bank account looks like Bill Gate’s or the national debt. God does not evaluate your life by whether you drive a jaguar or a 10 year-old Chevy Malibu. Nor whether your wardrobe is on the razor’s edge of fashion or you are hopelessly out of date. God is not pleased with you based on the number of piercings and tattoos you have, or the lack thereof. God evaluates a person’s life based on an entirely different set of criteria, involving the condition of your heart.

People are all born with heart-poverty. Sin robs us. Yet, some people recognize that poverty and inherit the Kingdom. They seek for God, recognize the Spirit’s work and mature as they interact with the Spirit, scriptures and other people. They give a sound, but humble evaluation of themselves, realizing they are not perfect, but neither are they second-rate.

Others dwell in that poverty. They may go to church, but they never find God. They never see God work, though he ignites fireworks and blasts sirens and air horns right in front of them. They never mature. The Scripture is just words. They are consumed with what they don’t have and how to get it.

New Life New Conduct

We have chosen to follow Jesus. But that decision leads to other decisions every day. As we learn to live like Jesus, we are confronted with a multitude of habits, actions and choices which are not obedient to Christ. We must learn to refuse the urging of those choices. We must develop new patterns of thinking. We must make new decisions that result in a new lifestyle.

We choose to speak truth, because we have a new unity with other Jesus followers. Lies divide. A divided body cannot survive. Anger also divides. Do not let anger control a situation. Repair the relationship, so Satan will not have room to work. God’s nature is giving and generous. So, put yourself in a position to be generous.

Do not speak in a way that tears. Speak to encourage, build and bless.

The Spirit of God is given as a seal and pledge of continued relationship with God. The Spirit is our link into God, the body and new life. Actions that practice the flesh and disunity grieve Him. Actions that practice new life please Him. Things like kindness, forgiveness, compassion and patience.

Not Just the Pastor

God gave grace to each one. And He gave leaders to train God’s people so God’s people can serve. God’s people serve and the body is built. Growth is a result of service.

Does growth result from receiving service? Or does growth result from giving service?)

The leaders prepare. The people serve. Growth happens. It creates a spiraling upward situation. It spirals up until we achieve unity. We build confidence in Jesus in each other, until we can all walk on water. We open the eyes of each other, until we can all see Jesus clearly in HD. We mold the character of each other, transform the thinking of each other until we all become Jesus clones, until Jesus’ DNA becomes our DNA.

Then, our lives with be founded on the rock. Circumstances will not control us. Fads and glitz will not captivate us. People will not persuade us to follow deceptions, distractions us with pretty toys or bright lights.

We will focus on truth as scripture reveals it, as the Holy spirit highlights it and as Jesus live it. And we will speak that truth in love.

God’s desire: Every part of the body of Christ matures. Every part of the body builds into every other part. Every part of the body remains connected and supported by every other of the body. And every part of the body actively pursues the completion of his role. This building, connection, supporting and pursuing is plaint by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, when He took up residence there.

Transformation

God created a community among men. The community was created to show God’s nature to the world, to live in a love relationship with God and to rule the world. God gave control of the world to man, intending that man, in cooperation with God, would create an environment of increasing beauty, harmony and bounty.

When Adam sinned, the world fell under the control of Satan. Increasing misery, pain and destruction were the result.

However, God’s purpose has not changed. He continues to invites men to form a community with Him as a partner. He continues to promote the creation of beauty, harmony and bounty in the world. So, we are His partners in winning back rule of the world, and establishing God’s rule … one place at a time.

People tend to view God’s work in an either\or context. Either establish God’s Kingdom through a spiritual transformation, or through a physical transformation. But, in reality, they cannot be separated.

Spiritual transformation has priority for a couple of reason. (1) It affects the eternity of people. One of the problems with a number of business practices today revolves around the fact that businesses too often focus on the bottom line for the short term. And business practices (and attitudes) have crept into the church.

(2) Spiritual transformation has priority because it forms the foundation for physical transformation. The essence of spiritual transformation is a renewal of the human heart. When a person perceives truth about Jesus, and it affects them, they can choose to alter their allegiance from themselves, their company, their country, their tribe, their group to Jesus. This change of paradigm is so powerful that it can only be compared to living a new life. (Spiritual realities are also activated. So, it is more than a mental change. But the change in thinking is extremely powerful.) It is this re-ordering of values, purpose and allegiance that lay the ground work for real physical transformation.

Physical works can move situations toward God’s ideal of the world. There are multiple factors that produce the complex phenomena know a poverty. It requires more than economic stimulus and jobs to overcome it. There are educational, health, political, psychological and cultural factors that contribute to and perpetuate the cycle of poverty. Building schools and hospitals correct part of it. Ensuring a fair and honest government is part of a solution. Giving people hope of a better future contributes. So, works that lead to physical transformation can lead to spiritual transformation. Acts that further the renewal of beauty, harmony and bounty of God’s creation can create an environment of openness to the good new of God’s love. But they may not.

We often underestimate the power of God’s message. We often underestimate the density of Satan’s fog of deception. We often underestimate the power of acts of charity to disrupt someone’s world view. There is a tension between the physical and the spiritual that we need to learn to live with, to utilize and to feed off of. We need to use this tension to stimulate creativity to plant transformation in whatever soil we are currently working.

Representing God

We have been invited to live with God and to live for God. We have been invited to be His representatives, His ambassadors. There is a way we ought to live. It should represent Him in the best light. It should draw attention to Him in the most positive way.

We have accepted this invitation because of certain convictions we have come to. Convictions we think others should have. So, how do we live so people will look at us and conclude, “There goes a happy, delightful soul. I wonder how I can become like that?” Or if the person knows we are a follower of Jesus, “No that’s what a Christian is supposed to be like.”

Good Works

The Bible calls the result of a person’s life “fruit.” It is what is produced from the life of a person, like apples are produced form the life of an apple tree. If the heart is bad, it will produce bad fruit. If the heart is good, it will produce good fruit.

Water, nutrients and oxygen pass through the tree. As they pass, they absorb from the life of tree; and the life of the tree passes into the fruit. If the life that the fruit receives is bad, the fruit will be bad. If the life that the fruit receives is good, the fruit will be good.

Fruit can never be good if it grows out of a heart that is bad.

Good Works

Jesus totally pleased the Father. He exerted His power to raise Jesus, not only from the dead, but to a position of ultimate authority.

We, on the other hand, lived in agreement with the world, the flesh and the devil. We deserved wrath and condemnation. But God expressed His love by extending grace and giving us new life in Jesus. We are given a new position with Jesus.

Doing good things have nothing to do with pleasing God to gain salvation. Not that God is unconcerned with the actions people take. He has given new life. New life has the effect of producing good actions.

God's Plan

God created man to demonstrate His nature to all witnesses – spiritual and physical. God is Father, Son and Spirit. God is a community of love.

God created man to become part of His community, to rule over the world – not gut it greed, but cultivate it like a garden – and to create a community on earth that reflects God’s community in heaven.

Sin caused a change in the basic fabric of creation. Man is alienated from God, from other people, from himself and from nature. His heart and spirit are dead. And his natural tendency and focus is to himself and his needs and desires. The result is an ongoing cycle of evil.

God’s plan has not changed. God still wants men to demonstrate His nature, to become part of His community, to create a community of men, and to rule the world. And God wants these things done in a spirit of love, righteousness and holiness.

Jesus dies to remove the barriers that alienate God from men. Once the barriers are removed, God can begin a work that establishes God-centered, God-breathed rule over the world.

Revelation ... and Wisdom

It is obvious we need revelation to know God. He transcends us. We have no way to get to Him. We cannot measure Him, listen to His heart beat or flash an ink blot in from of Him. In some ways, He is totally alien from us. In some ways, we are completely alike. If we cannot get to Him, for there to be a relationship, He has to get to us.

We also need wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge of what is true and right, combined with judgment of what action to take. When we receive revelation, God speaks to us. Satan also speaks to us. And we speak to ourselves in our hearts. Out of these that speak to us, only one is completely trustworthy. One is sometimes trustworthy. One is never trustworthy. Our Father wants our good, so he will speak truly and righteously. Satan only wants our misery. And we are just limited. We are not big enough or know enough. But we need to know enough to see each word clearly, and to decide what we need to do about it. Wisdom resides with God. He gives wisdom, and trains us in wisdom, so we can discern words from Him, word from other voices, and obey Him confidently.

Conduct in Unity

We have received an invitation to become part of the family of God. And we have chosen to accept this invitation. Now, we ought to act as people who are part of that family.

We all have equal standing before God. So, we should not behave as though we stand above or below one another. We should live in humility, because we all live in need … of God and of one another. Has someone failed you? Have you failed others? We all fail. We all need help. That should strongly motivate us to be gentle, forgiving and patient with each other. Like begets like. And we are going to need someone to treat us that way.

Show love by giving room for failures and differences. Failures and differences disrupt any family. We should pursue peace and unity in all relationships.