That I Might Win Some

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with a man these days.  :-) His name is Paul.  I like spending time with him because we have a lot in common and we have great conversations.  He stimulates me spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and many times we don’t agree, especially when he says “this is just My opinion”.  I thank him for making that stipulation every time he does for then he liberates me to respond the same way.  :-) We have a healthy relationship now, but it was not always this way.

For a long time, even though I liked spending time with him, I hated some of the things he would say, and I would ignore him whenever he brought up certain topics, for we just did not see I-2-I neither eye-to-eye.  Hmmm.  Anyhoooo, I would just reject those conversations and move on to doing something else.  Then I experienced some deep life-changing encounters with life and the Lord Jesus Christ which broke me and the mold of my opinions and I could no longer ignore those topics I ignored before.  These encounters changed (and continue to change) my way of dealing with things (and people) that I either don’t like, or just don’t agree with, which have been enriching to say the least.

Lately the phrase “that I might win some” has been sticking to me like a fly following the food on my fork. ;-)  Thus I could not ignore it.  I took a long gander at I Corinthians 9 (you can read it for yourself of course) and this part of his discourse begins at verse 19, but the very words themselves are nestled in verse 22b “I have [in short] become all things to all men, that I might by all means (at all costs and in any and every way) save some [by winning them to faith in Jesus Christ].” Amplified Bible. Now I don’t like taking verses out of their contexts for doing so leaves them open for intentional and non-intentional misinterpretation and misapplication.  However, if you read the verses surrounding verse 22 you will see that my friend Paul is very clear about the meaning of this verse.

He is not saying that we become murderers to reach murderers, neither lawless to reach the lawless, evil to reach evil people, etc. but he’s teaching us one of the reasons why God calls and chooses His own to “suffer” in this life even though we have “everything we need” in Jesus Christ Who resides inside of us, and "in Whom we live and move and have our being"; And why some of us will be rich in this life and suffer “differently”; Why we are teleported to other continents to live among the natives ‘there’, all with Jesus Christ residing inside of us.  It is that we may “win some” for they will be able to observe our lives as we endure the same “difficulties” as they do, but holding onto Jesus Christ and being held by Jesus Christ.  Our going THROUGH difficulties and sometimes coming out on the other side victorious victims, and other times victorious victors, but always triumphant because of Jesus Christ who is able to keep us in the fire – before, during and after. 

Paul is teaching us that being a Christian does not exempt us from the difficulties of life that all people on the globe experience, but Christ is the PreservaTOR (spell check doesn’t like that word, but “preservative” is not for human designation/application, and it doesn’t mean the same thing in French.) keeping us from the inside from being annihilated by the difficulties we encounter.  “We BEcome that we may win some.”

What are you becoming?  What have you become because of all you have endured in life thus far?  Everything, and according to Romans 8:28 God means EVERYthing, has been an important ingredient of the beautiful ______ (you fill in the blank) you have become, and what you will be, for life is an evolution, not from apes and monkeys, but from the you of yesterday through the you of today, to the you of tomorrow.  Eternity.

Where were you when God created the heavens and the earth?  This is a question God asked Job when he had much to say about the tests and trials he endured up to the very skin on his body.  Where was I?  Only in the mind of God.  I had nothing to do with my parents coming together, but God did.  He saw everything, the good, the bad and the ugly.  And the impossible.  And still He continued.  God has designed for our lives to touch one another, to touch the lives of others, some we may meet face-to-face while others just through Facebook, etc.  But yet, because you were here and you cooperated with God for becoming who and what He thought of you (Jeremiah 29:11) becoming and doing in the earth, other people are being inspired to be all they can be, that which God designed for them to be.  So they may BEcome and thus win some. 

“He that winneth souls is wise” is the King James Version translation of this verse in Proverbs 11:30.  The soul is made up of the thoughts, affections, emotions, will, intentions, intellect, and intelligence and anyone who is a psychologist and psychiatrist, or a minister who counsels like a pastor, knows the challenge of trying to convince someone of thinking differently for positive change; one must use wisdom and patience to pass through all the hoops of the soul to help others “see the light”.  Heck, to see the light yourself.  LOL!!  But we all know the power of “show and tell” right?  It’s not enough to tell someone about how good the coconut cake tastes, but if you gave them a slice I’m sure you would win them over to it.  Thus the reason for what you are going through today, that you may win some.

The challenge for me has been that which I saw myself as, according to the models around me, and also my understanding and interpretation of what I “heard” and “saw” in my heart and imagination that I would be, and do – does not fit the original thoughts of God for me.  I’m just being honest.  Thus life has been a series of evolutions (going around in circles and cycles, but never being the same after each rotation) for the winning of my soul to the picture of God’s thoughts for my life.  Wonder Woman does it best for me. :-) My SHEro.  She finds an inconspicuous place and looks left and right to make sure no one can see her, and then she turns and turns and turns until she becomes the powerful woman she was born to be when on that “island” of women, before she took her first flight in that invisible plane to the land of uncivilized men.  LOL!!  And so God has brought me to a “remote” place like John’s Isle of Patmos where I turn, and turn, and turn (He turns me on the Potter’s wheel) until I become the one God has created me to be.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Life is a series of evolutions and revolutions from beginning to end.  Sometimes you have to revolt against sin, sometimes against the satan, sometimes against the pull of others, and sometimes against yourself.  But that’s fodder for another meal. :-)

  

I was created to “BEcome that I might win some” – to become what God designed for me to become.  Life is about discovering why the Lord created us and then cooperating with Him daily for the fulfillment of our purpose on earth; An adventure, a neverending story.  Many times we will have to cry out “uncle!” to the Lord depending on what He has created us to be and do, and whom He has created us to win and where, because many of us were not born where we will bloom, prosper, operate and die; for we do not belong to ourselves.  My friend Paul said it twice, and it was more than just his opinion:  “You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own].  So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body.” I Corinthians 6:20.  And 7:23 “You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for by Christ]; then do not yield yourselves up to become [in your own estimation] slaves to men (including yourself) [but consider yourselves slaves to Christ].  Amplified Bible.  (Parentheses mine.)

I added “including yourself” to this second verse because I was a slave to my own purposes, desires, understanding, and will for myself.  I was a slave to my own emotions and dreams for my life, and I drove myself to pursue them as fast as I could because I knew how short life is, and can be.  I thanked God for breath and such, but I had a lot to do, in His name of course, yet I thought it was all on me.  I did not mind helping others along the way, and sometimes I lived to do just that, but I did not realize that I was created to BEcome what HE designed me to be for HIS glory, and thus it was up to Him, not me, HOW I would BEcome, WHERE, and WHO I would “win”.  But the first soul that I needed to win was my own.  I am not my own but I’ve been bought with a price, to make a positive difference in and for somebody else’s life.  But the first soul I must win, before this all ends, is my own.  

Peace.

Lover, Lord and King

Jesus is my Lover, the Lover of My soul.  The One Who loves Me best and loves me most.  He is the standard of a lover for Me.

Jesus is my Lord – the Governor of My life and soul.  He puts everything in order like an agent, manager, accountant, secretary – He pays attention to the details of My everyday life – internally and externally.

Jesus is my King – the One Who rules over Me.  “His banner over me is love” and my enemies see this banner and know under Whose regime I live.  Not only am I subjected (a subject) and submitted (a servant) to and unto Him, I am protected by Him and His soldiers – the prayers of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and the ministering spirits called “angels”.

His Word and His Spirit also stand guard over Me, and from within me, surrounding Me as with a shield.  I am married to this King and I desire to more and more learn what it is like to live under His Lordship, and to be engulfed by Him as My Lover.

I am Hephzibah.  (Isaiah 62:4-6)

Peace.

Congestion

When we wake up in the mornings, even if we don’t have a cold, we experience minimal congestion in the sinuses and chest area, especially in geographical regions where the climates change drastically from hot to cold and the seasons like to play with our minds.  When we begin drinking water and hot fluids, this stuff we call mucus and/or phlegm beings to break up, become diluted and flows more easily from the body through our coughing, swallowing, or blowing the nose.  In times of extreme colds and flu season, the mucus build-up may be so great that it becomes a film over the eyes.  When one suffers from a “head cold” the congestion can fill all of the cavities in the head causing stopped-up ears, nose and watery eyes (and dry eyes) as the eyes do their job of trying to wash this stuff away.  The doctor will take his light and look into your eyes, throat, nose, and ears to see how badly the cavities (caves, holes) are filled.  You probably talk with a nasal sound and thus everyone can see that you are suffering from congestion.

Things just are not flowing and moving as they normally do and should.  Something has happened along the way to slow things down, and now even you have been slowed down to a snail’s pace in your daily life and affairs.  All you want to do is lie down and be still, but your Megamind bids you to get up and get out, and get on with life, otherwise nothing will work without you.  WRONG!  Life will go on, with or without you, but how you deal with the congestion before you (without you) will decide how and whose life goes on – with or without you. J

Most illnesses and diseases in the body and soul are reactions to some kind of outside “substance” or stimulus.  For every kind of information we receive into ourselves through our five senses and our sixth sense – the mind – the body has a response and/or reaction to.  The body must process everything we do or don’t do whether positive or negative, short termed or sustained and part of its response is to release chemicals from certain organs which travel in the blood to and through all of the other organs.  Picture in your megamind (just love this word and the movie too) a highway with many exits and entrances.  Traffic is coming on and off all day long at fast and slow speeds. Vehicles with poorly maintained engines and such, giving off pollutants into the vehicles behind them.  Cough!  Yuck.

On weekdays when everyone is going to work at the same time is usually when traffic jams (not jelly) occur, and because of impatient drivers (whether they’re on time or not) accidents happen stopping the movement of traffic altogether.  You know when your six year old comes into your bedroom talking funny, he says “I’m stopped up mummy.  I can’t breathe through my nose.”  You then get the picture of a traffic jam.  (Jam has pieces of fruit and more sugar than jelly so you can see why we call them traffic “JAMS” and not traffic “Jelly” J)  Now might not be the best time for a meal.  You can eat after you finish reading this blog.  LOL  Anyhoooo, nothing’s moving.  Until this traffic jam is cleared up.  But how in the world can an already crowded freeway (I won’t mess with that one) be cleared when every vehicle on the road is a part of the problem?

Authorities on motorcycles and even police cars have to make their way through the narrow spaces between the cars and trucks and along the median.  They are “authorized” to go where common folk cannot go, and make commands which by law the regular people must follow.  They have to assess the situation and implement a solution.  Let’s go back to the nasally head for a minute.

I find that in the morning time, the more I drink water and hot tea, the better I begin to breathe, not just in my head, but in my chest as well.  This is because the fluid and heat of the fluid are authorized to go where nothing else can go, and break up that traffic jam in the head and chest.  Hmmm,  Somehow you knew that this message was not just about traffic jams and jelly in the head and on the highway.  And you’re right! J  Let’s go for a ride with the top down.

While spending some time in prayer with the Lord I felt led to keep my mouth shut so I could hear what was going on inside of my head and heart.  See, the mouth can be speaking one prayer while the head is thinking something else.  If you don’t believe me, do two things, not at the same time mind you.  First, call someone on the telephone and just talk, and see how soon or eventually you will be saying one thing but thinking another.  And depending on how close you are to the other person, you might just confess to them what’s going on with you.  Second, read Isaiah 29:13.  Here the Lord complains that His people say one thing but their hearts hide something else.  So I didn’t want to be a parrot in my prayers.  I wanted to know what was in my own heart and the way to do that was to keep my mouth closed in the presence of the Lord, and listen to the conversation between His heart and mine.

He said to me, “you notice how your sinuses and chest cleared up as you continued drinking the water.  You were washing your organs with water.  Your body is 98% water and thus water is the only fluid authorized to flow throughout the entire body to cleanse and heal, to clear things up.”  I continued listening while Holy Spirit said “the more you spend time washing in My Word – the Logos, it clears away all the gunk that causes congestion in your heart and soul which blocks you from letting my Word transform you into My ‘personality likeness’" (for we are spiritual beings made into His image, but our social skills don’t reveal the image of Christ dwelling within.  So our souls must be continually washed to clear up the internal traffic jam.).

One of the main reasons this process is necessary is so that we can fully “act” without pretense, hypocrisy, falsehood, in spirit and in truth like Jesus did when He walked the earth.  When He speaks a Rhema Word into our hearts we SEE it as He sees it with our spirit, and then we SAY it as He says it.  Next we DO it – the works we SEE Him doing, whatever they may be.  But there can be no Saying without first Seeing and there can be no seeing without first BEING and there can be no being without first YIELDING.

It’s not complicated, but what makes it difficult is what’s inside of us already – it gets in the way, clogging things up, stopping things up.  Congestion.  Not processing well all that’s coming into our “space”, or trying to process too much of the wrong stuff, or trying to process too many things at the same time.  Remember the entrances and exits on the highway – a lot of vehicles coming on trying to go in the same direction at the same time within and through a limited amount of space.

We become, and become like what (and who) we ingest spirit, soul, and body.  The good and best things received in the right doses at the best and right times can keep things flowing at a steady pace.  Of course the wrong and bad-for-us substances (in whatever forms – material or immaterial) can and will clog and stop things up, and we find ourselves sitting by the side of the road waiting for a tow truck. J  However, the GOD things received on a daily basis throughout every 24 hour period we are allowed to breathe J can and will keep things flowing and moving as they should – stopping at the red lights, driving the speed limit, keeping the safe distance between vehicles, obeying the warning signals, taking the best route which may not always be the quickest J, but will help avoid unnecessary troubles and delays.  Checking and changing the oil, using the best gasoline and keeping the tank full, checking the air level in the tires and the treads too, carburetor, antifreeze, catalytic converter, shock absorbers, etc.  I’m not talking cars here people, but our lives – spirit, soul, and body.

I have a book which I use to help me understand my dreams and visions and the author says that when you’re dreaming about a car – driving a car, more than likely you are receiving a message concerning your life.  Hmmmm.  Congestion on the highway of life.  There is help and it is called the Word (the Logos and the Rhema) of God.  The breath of God.  Jesus the Christ Himself.  But in order for it (Him) to keep you flowing and to keep things flowing within you (us) we will have to spend copious hours bathing in it (Him) and drinking it (Him):  the Water of the Word.  You wash your car and body in water, not in milk, tea, coffee, wine, or juice, for water is the only fluid qualified and authorized to cleanse everything.  When pollutants get into our eyes we don’t rinse them out with tea or juice.  The doctor irrigates our ears with . . . water.  It is the only substance authorized and qualified to wash us fully – inside and out.  “So that He (Christ Jesus) might sanctify her (His Bride, the church – you and me), having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, . . .”  Ephesians 5:26 [Parentheses mine.]  Water is our best Friend.  J

Peace.