Redemption of Identity

Emotional Sobriety Adapted from Richard Rohr It  is  important to stop "acting out" . The steps that follow the stopping so a healthy lifestyle can be sustained is an integral part of the process. "Emotional sobriety" is part of that lifestyle. Full sobriety is not just to stop acting out, but to become a spiritually awakened person who has found some degree of detachment from your own narcissistic emotional responses. The word  emotion  comes from the Latin for movement. It's a body-based reaction that snags you quickly and urgently. The body holds shame, guilt, hurts, memories, and childhood conditioning. Emotions feel like truth. So it's very hard to "unhook" from our feelings. This is true for everyone. Emotions in and of themselves have no moral value; they are neither good nor bad. They are just sirens alerting us of something we should pay attention to. If we learn to  listen  to them instead of always  obeying  them, they c...

I live the perfect life when I fully embrace each moment as I fully embrace Triune as he is, not as I imagine him or want him to be. When I've imagined him to be anything other than who he says he is I've created a concept that has an appearance of the divine with no substance. My feeble heart gravitates to the concept which will always be an image within my heart's comfort zone. I then worship a feeble construct devoid of love, power, and life. This construct draws life from me as I submit to it's shadow life. Live the shadow life long enough and each moment becomes dire and fraught with worry. God's voice seems silenced as the construct has no voice but the one I've imagined. Each moment becomes mired in the wet clay of my own imaginations. To embrace each moment would be to move deeper into the mire. Even in the most dire of circumstances there is still the image of the One I carry. There is a plumbline of hope that, once looked at, will expose the con...

I live the perfect life when I fully embrace each moment as I fully embrace Triune as he is, not as I imagine him or want him to be. When I've imagined him to be anything other than who he says he is I've created a concept that has an appearance of the divine with no substance. My feeble heart gravitates to the concept which will always be an image created within my heart's comfort zone. I then worship a feeble construct devoid of love, power, and life. This construct draws life from me as I submit to it's shadow life. Live the shadow life long enough and each moment becomes dire and fraught with worry. God's voice seems silenced as the construct has no voice but the one I've imagined. Each moment becomes mired in the wet clay of my own imaginations. To embrace each moment would be to move deeper into the mire. Even in the most dire of circumstances there is still the image of the One I carry. There is a plumbline of hope that, once looked at, will ex...

The Shift of Full Sonship 2 Peter 1.4 NIV “ His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. “ God's divine power. I see Power that is intentionally redemptive. Divine most times is literally translated as Triune, acknowledging Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the very nature of God as a three corded rope with unparalleled strength. Divine power is seen in Jesus answer to question of what is the greatest commandment. “ love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself” A command or commandment is a verbal expression of a power's intent. Jesus answer to the teachers of the law, who asked him what the greatest commandment is, showed the intent of the authority he carried as a mature heir of the Kingdom. This is what I expect my followers to be an then to do.... When Jesus came of age and was baptized by John the Forerunner the Holy Spirit took physical form and c...

2 Timothy 2:15 (ERV) Do your best to be the kind of person God will accept, and give yourself to him. Be a worker who has no reason to be ashamed of his work, one who applies the true teaching in the right way. Meditating on the Word is about studying the Word by taking in the word until I understand it, until I know it's intent. It must start with intrinsic understanding-what is being said? What truth is being revealed within these words? What is essential within this that I am studying? This is a humble process for me. I lay down my tendency to interpret based on egocentric truisms. I then reflect on the Word so I see myself in perspective to it- I must come to the humble-of-heart place where I am determined to hear what it has to say, not what I want it to say. How deeply do I allow truth into my life?  With intrinsic understanding I may then see it, experience it, in extrinsic ways. When talking with friends, their feedback will reflect perspective back to me. Life s...

Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.  ... Psalm 22.4 David, priest/king, opens up to me one of the greatest way to learn. David sees himself as an apprentice to the Lord. In our post-modern world apprenticeship has a different experience. We speak of mentoring, but apprenticeship is so much more.  In the world of our forefathers a young person would learn a trade or business from a known master. A master craftsman with a far reaching reputation was the type of person a parent would seek out to apprentice a child full of promise.  Samuel had that type of apprenticeship with Eli.  Before the industrial revolution apprenticeship was the primary way the secrets of the masters were passed down to succeeding generations.  An apprentice would be taken into the household and share in the life of the master as one of his own. His parents would trust the ma...

“The Lord brought me forth as the first of His works, before His deeds of old; I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began. When there were no oceans, I was given birth, when there were no springs abounding with water, before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth....” Don't Google this before you answer this question, Who is this that the Lord brought forth before the creation of the world? For me, My world of faith has always begun in Genesis. I have studied the scriptures knowing that “In the beginning God created the heavens and earth....” And in John's gospel, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God...” I have also understood that Triune God has always been and always will be because Triune is eternal. As an eternal living entity Triune has no beginning or end. So here in Proverbs (Ok, I narrowed your search down to Proverbs) there is one who speaks and says “I a...

The whir of the wind machines is clearly heard around me as I wake this morning to stroll with Papagod. In the recent few years more fields around us have been planted with citrus trees. Trees that are harmed by freezing temperatures. As I gaze out of my window into our own garden I see our orange tree brightly lit with Christmas lights. Our tree is protected from the cold by the silent, but bright glowing, of clear Christmas lights. For the few nights of the year it drops slightly below freezing these lights provide just enough warmth to protect the leaves and fruit from damaging frost. What a gentle reminder as I start my day that it is the warmth of Christ and the glow of His light that protects me from the few harsh climates that can surround me. Just like the orange tree, the ripened fruit in my life will still be there to give life and the leaves that cover my life to produce future crops and future growth are also being protected. An orange tree is alive but has no awareness o...