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Bad Boys and Mentors


How much "bad" behavior will God tolerate from me?

Will he have anything to do with me when I am in a stage of acting out?

Look at Acts 9- Saul is breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord... He was on his way to find, try, and kill Christians when Jesus-the-Christ encountered him. Saul was driven by blind passion. When my acts of selfish flesh driven passion continued unabated I had an encounter with Jesus-the-Christ. From my perspective I didn’t see the encounter I saw that I had a crisis!

This Jesus that Saul encountered, and Jesus I encounter is the Completed Christ. He has walked the way of mankind, he has felt and lived through selfish passion without succumbing to sin, he is one who's mission is complete and yet still active as he encounters mankind on the road of misplaced passion. His active mission is now to deliver this message to mankind. Each message personally wrapped up and delivered to uniquely encounter a person where they are. What is this message of encounter?

Acts 9:15 ...” this man is a chosen vessel of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and their kings, and before the sons of Israel.”  Saul, and you and I are known in the same way by the Lord- handpicked by Jesus-the-Christ to be an image bearer of God. We then bear His image (bare his image as in completely expose his countenance) to others living their cultural lifestyles and in their way of life as if there was nothing wrong with it. From their perspective there is no wrong assigned to it.

And... bear (bare) his image before others in the family of God. It’s relational ministry in the church body where iron sharpens iron.

God does not tolerate "bad" behavior. At times He addresses the person through a forceful encounter. For the person it is a crisis. Nothing looks familiar. The crisis reveals the blindness of heart that has occurred. When that happens, God has an “Ananias”, a trusted mentor, that will partner with him to bring light and sight into the forceful encounter. There are times when the chosen “Ananias” will even think, “wait, I know this person, I know his reputation!” But God reminds mentors how He has chosen this person and he will show him how much he is to “suffer”- Which can be translated as “have a life changing experience”. After this initial process starts He sends others who carry the message of true identity into the wilderness of a person's heart time and again, by grace, until an Image Bearer emerges.


God, as Papagod, started this process by speaking Saul’s true identity, He sent a mentor to reinforce and help him walk out this new-to-Saul identity and throughout his life had other men walk his life path alongside him- Barnabas and Silas are two that we know of. This is also true of my own walk from my crisis/encounter with God that began my journey to live out identity. No matter what your backstory is there’s a path like this prepared for you to “have a life changing experience” and walk into freedom. There’s also a mentor, sent into your life, to walk with you and facilitate the discovery of your true identity.
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Location: Fowler, CA 93625, USA

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