The heights we could reach

It's been nearly two (I nearly wrote too...which is wrong) months. Far too (that's correct) long for me to fill you in with anything worth knowing. They've been filled with a variety of different episodes that have no relevance to anyone but myself. Nevertheless, the most important chapter happens today, when, after much deliberation, I decided to return to this page and start writing again. I thought I had left it too long to give any continuation, perhaps I could write a signing off post, and leave it to the ether that is 'the abandoned blogs of the interweb'. But something has been stirring me and the words of Jacob Murphy (of Toronto, Canada)  - read Governance - made me push the boat out, stop lounging about watching my screen refresh to see if someone else has written to me through facebook.com, or the old fashioned email, or even more old fashioned phone call, and put the thoughts that have been brewing into legible words on some foreign IP for anyone to critique and make fun of.

Perhaps I was afraid of the amount of people on facebook who will receive this on their news feed, or that living with people who read it make it a little worse...I prefer the unfamiliarity of anonymous comments, if I'm honest. It's bad enough putting a face to these words, without someone imagining what it would be like for me to read them aloud. Maybe one day I will. But not today.

It starts from about 4 months ago, when I started seeking intimacy with that God so many define as far off, and found it was so much easier than those 'good works' people talk of, or disciplining oneself, or ridding the personal world of anything electronic. It's as easy as acting out what you need. You need intimacy with Yahweh. Fact. So I found secluded spots and chatted with God. Simple. It wasn't the usual one-way prayers that so many of us have consciously, or sub-consciously, experienced, but a 2 way dialogue with the living WORD. What happened? He challenged me. When God doesn't speak you can create your own faith. When you start to get to know the voice of God it becomes harder to form a lifestyle that's comfortable. It's easier to trip, or give in to that temptation you know you constantly struggle with, and if He asks you to get rid of something and you don't, He doesn't move on to other things. He sticks with it until you've done what He (and you) knows will be most beneficial.

Then I heard a song. 'Fools Turn into Gold' by that Jason Upton fella. It's a simple song about the need to enter the furnace for the gold to be purified. To God we are more precious than gold, and He wants us to be pure, as His children. I could have got that from the other song 'Refiners Fire' but that's irrelevant.

Don't worry, I'm getting to the point. Right now, in fact.

What on earth is this furnace? God asks us to trust Him, and walk right into the fire; right into a blazing heat that would kill any normal man. Daniel's friends went into a furnace so hot the soldiers died because of the heat, but they remained unharmed, in fact, Jesus joined them. What is the difference in approaching the fire now? If you are a child of God, it's simple. Your identity is not longer with the world. The sinful ways of social structure, and cultures, aren't part of your identity anymore. Your identity, my identity is in Christ. And Christ is God's only Son, who died in my place, so that I could live. He rose to prove it.

Where Revelation talks about the world being destroyed, it's sinful practices crushed, and the rulers being subdued, that is something that a child of God has nothing to worry about. That sinful nature, that habit of continually doing wrong, giving into temptation, is destroyed; put to death; crucified with Jesus. You may pray, every so often, for Jesus to just come back, right now; 'I can't deal with it any more'. It's a good prayer to pray, but it's not something you need to pray. The suffering going on, or the sin you know you always do, or the place you always see in sin, doesn't end, but you, child of God, Son, Daughter of God, have overcome. You overcame the temptations, the sufferings, because of the blood of the Lamb. You overcame them. Those persecutors.

Today is the day I have to stand up and associate myself with these words and claim, I am a son of God. He loves me, and knows me. I am confident He will say that He knows me on the last day. Can you say the same?

Whatever is happening in my heart is something of a preparation. This next year will break me. Great and terrible things will happen to me, and I am confident in that refiners fire. That furnace which purifies my heart, will strengthen me, push me forward to take the next step, and, only by the work God does in me, not by my own strength (in fact, I boast in those weaknesses I have), I will reach the top of the mountain. I will get there by the steps I take, and I know, that if He had lifted my up, I would only topple by the winds. At time we need lifting, but in the end, we must get there ourself, not by our own strength, but by the power of Christ, which is perfected by our weakness. Join me; rather; join Him. Join Christ. I implore you.