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I have been consumed as of late, a prisoner of my own perceptions and the last hour or so where this song has played on repeat on my computer, much of my perception has been corrected...all because of the Great Exchange.
As I sat here listening to this song, these powerful words flowed out of me... A fix for your sin has already taken place. If you are waiting on God to do something, you are a couple thousands years too late. That ship has already sailed. Every voice in your life that deals with you based on your sin, failures, shortcomings and the like is a voice standing in opposition to what God is trying to do in your life. Self righteousness takes such subtle forms. We want so desperately to hold on to some fallen sense of control that will leave us just a tiny bit in control of God's opinion about us. You do not need to die to yourself... because that fallen sinful nature is not who you really are in the first place. "Dying to it" infers a struggle of some sort. You could say that you should die to your fake self but even that puts the focus back on your sin instead of on Jesus where it belongs. That's why the Bible says the mind set on the flesh is death. Even if the mind is set on dying to the flesh, it is still set on the flesh no less. We have greatly underestimated God's deep desire to be intimate with our souls. Religion has built walls around God's heart offering to only lower the drawbridge if our actions line up with what that religion says. In reality, the love and passion of God's love marched around the castles of our brokenness and those walls all fell down completely. God's Grace is an absolute scandal. A completely one-sided injustice that sees Jesus take the fall for every wrong we have ever done while we walk away not only free from paying for our own sin, but we also walk away with fresh, open access at will to everything that was and is His. He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. In Gethsemane, Jesus didn't have second thoughts about you. In fact, fellowship with you is the passion that drove Him into ultimate obedience to His own plan. That's why Hebrews says for the Joy set before Him, He endured the cross. You and I were that Joy! The person paying for your meal unexpectedly is never about the few dollars they saved you, it is instead a very small reflection of God's ultimate Grace in paying our sin debt. You had no foreknowledge it was coming, you had no control over the person paying your check without your knowledge. It humbles you and once humility arises, it begins to shrink pride to the point that spiritual eyes can begin to see things how God sees them. The Bible can only be understood properly as its author grants you His Spirits of Wisdom and Understanding. Every false doctrine is birthed from the fallen mind trying to make sense of scripture without the lenses of Jesus' Wisdom and Understanding. Jesus' free gift is so hard to accept at face value because it requires us to admit that we do not control God like we think we do. He is the author and finisher of our Faith. That leaves exactly zero room for us to manipulate salvation itself and that brings us face to face with our own self righteousness. We either surrender to His Love or we walk away from it. Salvation is a person, His name is Jesus. The more we accept His Spirit into our hearts, minds and lives, the more He reveals Himself to us personally and this revealing undoes what the bible calls strongholds in our thinking about ourselves and others. How do you forgive what cannot be undone? You allow Jesus to have deeper access to your heart, mind and life. As He gently brushes against the painful places with the skill of a surgeon, spirits of retaliation and revenge start to lose their grips. His loss became my gain... at the Great Exchange.
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 Like many today, I have created, deleted, published and shared literally tens of thousands of posts, blogs, vlogs, journal entries and social media activities.
I have been active online since the 1990s, my history includes creation and management in dozens of larger and successful chat rooms, message board communities, Facebook pages and Facebook groups and I currently have a social media reach into the thousands of individual followers over several platforms and several thousand more each month that read this, my current personal blog. I oversee a listener supported, nonprofit organization that provides 8 online Christian radio stations reaching up to 40,000 people a month from all over the world and yet I always come back to writing blogs like this with the simple challenge to try and convey my heart so with that in mind, here is the latest from me... and yes, I know it's been awhile since a blogged here so I'll try to catch you up a bit. :) Recent months have once again shown me that as a rule, people want your acceptance but not your advice. The Bible says there is a way that seems right to a person (Prov 14:12) but that way is something most do not like to have questioned or corrected, despite them often needing just that. I have learned to take great comfort in the knowledge that we all stand before the Lord and give account for ourselves.. and only for ourselves. God has repeatedly sent me to people who have not received what God had for them to receive. How refreshing to know that their refusal to receive is not something God holds me responsible for. Part of prophetic maturity is coming to understand that the role of the prophet on a personal level is to stir people up, motivate them, build them up, encourage them, to basically put a demand upon their true selves that are hidden in Christ. However, people who insist upon seeing themselves as victims will always refuse these prophetic attempts. I recently put myself on the ballot as a write in candidate for my local school board. Ultimately it was a distraction from what God was doing in my life but the prophet in me loves to address and try to fix injustices so with only two people on the ballot and three open seats, I joined with several others in tossing my hat in the ring. My goal was not win but to instead address the injustices of the evil Common Core, bring account to our local school district that gets off on tormenting parents they decide privately they don't care for, and most of all to be a voice to those who feel they didn't have one. I feel I accomplished those goals. It was wild toward the end of the race too as the Lord exposed literally dozens of wicked hearts consumed by bitterness and retaliation for the entire local community to see. It was literally a Proverbs 28:1, the wicked flee when no one pursues. When a prophet gets involved, hidden agendas are going to be laid bare. It has been that way for thousands of years and continues to be so today. Those with hidden agendas afraid of the uncovering generally try the same tactics, they attempt to attach controversy to and/or discredit the prophetic voice. They even did this with Jesus Himself (Matt 9:11 and others) accusing Him of unholy associations to others. In my case, I had several people over the last few years who had been talking to me about the schools but I needed help in separating those who were honest and those who had hidden agendas. Running this time brought fantastic clarity as to who had pure motives of loving others and who were ruled by bitterness and retaliation so for that clarity, I am very grateful. On the home business front, God is breathing fresh, new life into our efforts there. There is a saying, Joy to a teacher is finding a willful learner. I have recently found some willful learners who have taken my business advice and predictably they are seeing incredible success. I so enjoy helping others reach their personal goals, it brings great fulfillment to watch others get where they want to be. I am also being prepared in my heart to write music again. I have done 14 music projects since 2004, including writing dozens of songs and performing on each of the recordings, many recorded live. In 2015 I wrote a song called "Never Gone Before" and it was just a simple prayer that said in part... I wanna go where I have never gone before and all I know is you alone, you are the door will you take me with you, where I have never gone before That is a good summary of where I am finding myself today in late 2017. I will have more soon as I plan to blog more in teh near future. Thanks for taking the time to catch up here with me. More soon, Mark |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2022
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