The Unliveable

"Predestination means that you were eternally found in Jesus before you were ever lost in Adam." This statement was made by Ken Blue. How profound how inspiring how challenging. Now for some thoughts I read.

What have you been told is the secret to the Christian life? Pray and read your Bible? Go to church? Witness? Speak in tongues? Tithe?

Let me go on record. I do not believe anything on that list even comes close to the issue of how to live the Christian life. All have one inherent flaw. The fatal flaw? Every item on the aforementioned list assumes that it is possible to live the Christian life. Can you live the Christian life? The answer is no, a resounding NO! You cannot live the Christian life.

That list takes for granted you can live the Christian life. Also note that you are the center of every item on that list. Call it "you-centeredness." You out there living the Christian life. You cannot live the Christian life. Jesus Christ could not live the Christian life. None of us can live the Christian life! If Jesus Christ cannot live the Christian life, what makes you think that you can? You can give up trying to live the Christian life! We can all testify what a colossal failure we have been at trying to live the Christian life.

God the Father lives the Christian life. "How does God the Father live the Christian life?" He doesn't. He is the Christian life. He is the highest life. God the Father is the wellspring, the source, the first motion, and the fountainhead of the Christian life.

The Father indwelt His Son here on this earth for thirty-three years. The Father lived the Christian life inside Jesus Christ. It was the Father's life, and the Father's life alone, which lived the Christian life inside your Lord. It is the Father's life, and the Father's life alone, that ever lives the Christian life. It is the Father's life, and Father's life alone, which will live the Christian life in you. Embrace a formula or a list in order to "live the Christian life," and you are doomed to frustration.

But on the day you quit trying to live the Christian life ...then you will finally give Him the freeway to live out in you what is so easy and so simple and so organic for Him to do. Hopefully, you just got set free from a long list of do's and don'ts (the "do's" you can't do, and the "don'ts" you always do). Why so shocked; stop and think about it. You never were any good at living the Christian life. Admit it.

The gospel is not the news that we can receive an absent Jesus into our lives. The gospel is the shocking news that Jesus has received us into his.

These are not my thoughts but certainly worth thinking on.

Mind Meld

"The Glory of God is a man fully alive” Irenaeus 202AD. What a thought what a picture what a hope. Being fully alive creates in me all sorts of pictures! No fear of man, vibrant in faith, passionately loving and living with expectant faith and hope. What a life that would be and I feel it’s one God wants His children to have. But unfortunately we have been tuned to respond differently in our world. Advertising and marketing has opened the door for its self and the people they work for to make people reliant rather than alive. This made me think of a movie I watched recently. It starred Clint Eastwood and was called "Grand Torino", it was such a brilliant movie (albeit some poor acting) the themes in it were brilliant. But a line resonated in my head with such clarity about people, life and in general the world, and particularly this thought that I am now penning. The main character Walt Kowalsky was asked by one of his neighbours what he does; his reply was "I fix a thing; that’s what I do." Our modern world, and indeed the church wants us all to adopt the stance of Eastwood's character. I fix things. The expectation in the church is for people to be fixed and that is all well and good. But our biggest problem is that we alone cannot fix anyone. Jesus is the wounded healer and handing our life over to him is the only answer. But for many this act of surrender is seemingly impossible. Most require the Pastor or the counselor to FIX them. But we cannot! We sure can and should help but nappy changing is not our primary goal. It’s letting people realise who they already are filled with.

You see I happen to believe that if Christ came that we might have life and have it to the fullest, so then discovering the life of being fully alive is far better than wanting to be fixed. Rolling over like a passive dog hoping to be patted is a far cry from the dream God has for you and I. So expecting others to change us through any means is not the Gospel. Yes given we may need help along the way and a little bit of fine tuning, but if it’s all about fixing then there is never the finding of the truly alive person that needs to be released. But rather you end up with a propped up person who continually requires propping at every turn of life. Life is indeed a brilliant gift that is full of Gold but we have to find the Gold, within ourselves and within others around us. One of the true problems of the Church is that there has been an image formed in most peoples’ minds and hearts about what a Christian should look like and we have conformity. But the problem with this is that the intrinsic beauty that lies within us as individuals is never found. It is squashed under a mask of conformity. This then hinders any chance of us becoming truly alive.

The other issue that arises from conformity is that the people outside of the Church view us as image bearers of God. What we look like to them is representative of how people will see God. Jesus showed the world that God was overwhelmingly in love with us and desired to give us good things, and that in many respects we should be falling over ourselves to get to him. But on the contrary we are busy cutting out masks to conform to what we think we should be. We never come truly alive, primarily because we are far too busy filling a package that seems to be the stereotypical Christian rather than living the dream of true freedom.

I love this quote from Lou Engle "God had a dream and He wrapped your body around it"

Rom 8:19 In fact, all creation is eagerly waiting for God to show who his children are.

The word here for eagerly waiting is translated as being "intense anticipation: - earnest expectation" Waiting for the reality of those who will allow themselves to dream that the God of the Universe may have a greater dream for them than what they have allowed themselves to believe, with the confines of our finite minds. There has to be a time in every believers life where they begin to think "There has to be more to life than what I am experiencing now, there has to be more to God than I know, now" It is at this critical point in our lives where we can go one of two ways and I encourage you to take the first way. And that way is one of dreaming and allowing your head to be free in possibility thinking that there is more and God wants to give more. But at this moment we can choose to go back to old coping mechanisms, the second way, rather than pulling them down and allowing freedom to come.

Let me encourage you to seek greater depth and a closer walk with the oft forgotten third member of the Trinity the Holy Spirit and watch the door way of Glory open. But it will not happen while we ask to be fixed; rather it occurs when we allow dreaming to happen. And to take by faith the words of Christ, "I have come to give life and life abundantly.

I'm Pastor Rob and they are some of my thoughts

A quick thought for you...

What consumes your thoughts? What is the thing that lies at the fore front of your mind on most days? We are told as a man thinks in his heart so is he. What is your main thought that dominates your soul? My mind used to be so filled with fear and doubt about most things in life, but thankfully I have allowed and worked with God to be rescued from that debilitating process to a large degree. (We all have our moments!) In essence the Christian life is one of going from Glory to Glory BUT! While we vacillate between what God says of us and what we allow our minds to dictate to us we fail to make a choice and life over runs us. We were saved to be the head and not the tail, but many of us refuse to take on that role, we find it easier (read safer) to stay in the roles that life has dictated to us.

Can you imagine the call of God on the Apostle Paul’s life and he refuses due to the fact of his previous way of living. “Oh no that cannot be me sorry Lord I am a miserable man that has killed Christians and made life hell. All the mistakes I have made Oh my goodness I cannot, I will not, I should not, etc etc etc..” No instead Paul makes the decision to accept and live the word that God had for him. He too like you and me had a choice to accept and live in the call or to move in his own understanding again and again. Where would that have left us? My thoughts are we would have been reading the Georgine doctrines rather than the Pauline as God would have had to find another.

Having so many choices in our lives is a blessing but at the same time it’s a curse. Because we have so many choices we have options and if there is a hint of pain with an option that would lead to change, we refuse to make that choice. And yet making that choice is the one thing that will lead to life and a fulfilled lifestyle. The Kingdom is about God and His ambassadors, and ambassadors are meant to be representatives of the King. An ambassador in many ways is the King in that place he lives. Can you imagine the picture people in the society get of the supposed King! He is afraid, schizophrenic, sad, co dependant, controlling and you fill in the other adjectives.

As Christians who are indwelled by the King whom we represent, and His image is stamped into our DNA, and He has even promised not to leave us but to fill us if only we will embrace who He is in us. We don’t even have to make a new image up the blue print is already over laid and the file downloaded, but we have to open it via belief. In preference we (and all too often) move away from the image and prefer the false image that we have been so used to living in. We wear a mask, and are scared to take it off because how will I cope if I make the choice to live differently? Can I really trust the blue print? What if it fails me? This then stops us walking through the doorway that leads to faith that leads to growth that leads to rest and that is the goal of the kingdom to cease from our works (read standards) and embrace His, which is provided free of charge and clear of debt.

Let me encourage you today to take the mask off, if even for a moment each day and practice living in who you really are, and not in the false belief of what you have been told you are. To walk through that door of faith and trust the one who called and saved you in the first place, in the total belief that He has made you able to be His ambassador and His friend.

Those are my thoughts, Pastor Rob

Rob Cunningham | Senior Minister |

The Promise Centre | Post: PO Box 435 | Wagga Wagga NSW 2650 |

Street: 48 Vestey Street | Wagga Wagga NSW 2650 |
Ph: +61 2 6921 5021 | Fax: +61 2 6921 5121 |

Email: robc@thepromisecentre.com.au |
Web: www.thepromisecentre.com.au |

“To be all we already are in Christ and to help others see this truth….”

Its Been a While

Sorry but I have been away for a while and just lately life has been a little hectic, I was thinking about writing my next thought and I got this in the mail. I hope you like it. It spoke clearly and loudly to me...

When we first meet Jesus, we never carry cynicism, contempt or indifference in our spirits. Simply gratitude, passion, and joy over this new relationship we have with an amazing God!

So, why then are millions of Christians bitter, mocking, skeptical, bewildered, derisive, uncaring, disheartened, hopeless?

As absurd as it sounds, many never even give themselves a chance to choose a second road, the road of Trusting God, after having first selected the path of Pleasing God. You see, not all make it back to the fork in the road after leaving the Room of Good Intentions.

Scattered along nearly the entire Pleasing God path back towards the fork, you’ll find them. Some sit alone, tucked away, almost out of sight. Some collect in twos and threes. Some spend the rest of their journey here. The Room of Intentions broke and jaded their hearts; disillusioned them, robbed them of hope. It made them so sick they’re nearly anesthetized to believing it can or will ever be different. Man-made religion has beaten them down. Horribly, many of them are the most passionate, gifted and dedicated servants of God.

This wounding expresses itself in many forms. Some are cynical and smug. It’s a cover. They’re self-protecting from vulnerability. They’re still articulate and insightful—they just usually now speak from the edges of the arena. They’re still bleeding from having risked love and vulnerability in a Room of Good Intentions community that didn’t know what to do with it. Some are bitter—lashing out at anything with more structure than an agreed upon meeting time. Some create straw men, globalizing their enemies into generalized categories, where they can ridicule them more easily.

When they do get together they spend much of the time rehearsing their wounds. They talk about what they don’t like. Their banner here is mistrust of any authority. They brag about being free from the bondage of religion. They say this often in the same breath they rehearse their wounded identity. They can no longer remember the innocence of trust. They’ve seen too much.

For a season what they are doing can be right and deeply corrective. They see from the vantage point of having little left to lose. But after awhile it makes them sick in bitter unforgiveness. And there are now very few surrounding them who can help guide them to forgiveness.

No one matures in bitterness.
No one gets free in isolation.
No one heals in rehearsing the testimonies of bad religion.
No one gets to love or be loved well in self-protection.

Self-protection is one of the great oxymorons. We’re the only person in the world we don’t have the potential to protect. And once we hide from trusting God and others with us, we just get more inflamed, more self-justified, more calloused, more rehearsed in repeating our blame.

They are accurate about their pain. Their wounds are real. So real, they can’t make it back by themselves to the fork in the road. Few destinies are more beautiful than the ones given to those who set out from the Room of Grace to go find them.

If you have experienced the Room of Grace and all its stunning, panoramic, life-giving surroundings, perhaps you are one of those to rescue and stand with those still outside. But be careful the idea is not to join them but redirect them.