This may shock you, but here can be no deep, true, pure, spirituality without absolutes. Absolutes give us the boundaries of spirituality and keep us from innocently transitioning to pseudo spirituality in our desperation to know what spirituality really is. To not have absolutes of any kind will always results in lawlessness, a loss of unity, and eventually anarchy. There can be little if any personal direction and social unity without absolutes.

CONSCEQUENCES
When we begin to explore the world of absolutes, we begin to see that for each absolute there is a consequence. If there is no consequence, there is no absolute. What we face at the moment may be an option, but options do not carry the same kind of consequences that absolutes carry. The consequences to an absolute may be beneficial (a blessing) or harmful (a curse) to the individual depending on whether they violated or adhered to the absolute.

GOD’S ABSOLUTE OF LOVE
“For God so “loved” … He sent His Son.” Absolutes are about love not punishment. What Jesus did in taking the form of man, freely giving his life for man, raising from the dead, as well as taking the keys to death, hell, and the grave was not only miraculous, but monumental. In essence Jesus, if you believe what He did, returned man’s right standing with God. If one does not believe in His light, then one continues to be not only subject to the darker powers of this world, but also becomes a pawn of the darkest power. Sadly, perhaps unknowingly they have made this darkest power their god (notice lower case “g”).

In other words, Jesus re-established the absolute of God’s love ruling the world. This rule is called the “Kingdom of Heaven.” Here, as His Kingdom comes and His will is done, the benefits of the Kingdom are not only seen, but experienced. You see, without God’s absolutes the Kingdom of God does not rule and the benefits of the Kingdom do not come.

THE HEART NOT THE HEAD
Absolutes have their greatest benefit when they are held in the heart and not in the head. With the Law of the Old Testament, absolutes were held in the head. Periodically the One, True, Pure, Holy Spirit would visit individuals, and most of the time that Spirit of God mostly visited the prophets, priest, and kings. But, remember with the advent of the infilling or ingesting of the One, True, Pure, Holy Spirit, it is now possible for God’s Spirit and His absolutes to be within, to be written on Hearts of flesh. [If you are new to this blog, you may want to check prior postings for explanations of this ingesting of the Spirit)

Most who believe they are spiritual will have to overcome their tendency to resist this line of thinking and stop running from absolutes in order to enter into the deeper spiritual life. You will need a little time to do this, so…..

Part II will come in tomorrow’s post. It may rock your soul, but your spirit will rejoice. Again, you will need a little time to digest this post before the next post will take root – be sure to read it. Yes, I mean tomorrow’s posting – smile.

Blessings,

John Paul

Okay, this posting stirred the pot! Please keep in mind that all manner of people read this blog, not just Christians. So when I write, I write to reach both communities - believers and nonbelievers. We even have several witches who read it. So do not let a religious nature over react to something I have not written. For example, please tell me one place I mentioned the laws of God in my last post - I do not think you will find the reference. However, I will inject here that even the non Christian would be hard pressed to prove that the ten commandments are not absolutes.

So here are a few non-law absolutes as examples.

ABSOLUTES OF GOD
* God is not mocked. Whatever you do in True, Pure Spirit will come back to reward you in some fashion. Whatever you carnally, selfishly do will also come back to you in some fashion.

* Whatever you focus on you make room for in your life.

* Whatever you fear you empower over your life.

* Faith and fear, at their root, are the same thing - they both believe something that hasn’t happened is going to happen.

* As a man thinks in his heart so is he.

YOU AND ABSOLUTES
So what are some absolutes you have found? Please keep your answers to less than 40 words per absolute or we will not post them. There are some long winded writers out there in blog land.

Blessings,
John Paul

Absolutes certainly are a touchy issue aren’t they? Before we can understand that there are absolutes we need to live by, we need to understand that there is a God who is absolute and not confused by issues of right or wrong, precious or vile, clean or unclean, Holy or profane. He alone is absolute and all that proceeds from Him, His ways, are absolute and perfect.

It is what He believes is absolute that we are to be concerned about. Those absolutes determine the well being of all of Creation, not just mankind. Absolutes hold the creation together in a state of well-being. Without absolutes the atom has no structure, molecules do not form, and cells disintegrate. The One God has made absolutes to permeate the essential nature of creation including how mankind relates to each other and to Him. The reality is that the choices mankind makes, as stewards or overseers of this Earth, has impact on this Earth, and the Earth has impact on all of Creation. Thus the ripple effect of not keeping the absolutes of God means we lose that which God created us to have – a vibrant life in Him.

WIPING OUT ABSOLUTES
Once we wipe absolutes off of our moral or True, Pure, Spiritual grid it will not be long until the path we have chosen removes any possibility there is a God who is absolute and perfect. We are then left to our own devices, which has always proven to be degenerative to society or mankind. God’s perfection as the only Uncreated, Self-existent One, and therefore the only Deity makes Him more than just a “higher life form.” If He were simply a higher life form, we eventually could evolve to His level and become like Him. This lie has been propagated from the beginning of man and has always resulted in a loss of life and True, Pure, Spirituality – communion/connection with God.

ABSOLUTES OF GOD
In light of this, it is not the absolutes of humans, but the absolutes of God we must be concerned with. Like God, those absolutes do not change. They exist to aid mankind in living an abundant life free from darkness and to advance the Kingdom of God here on Earth as it is in Heaven. They reveal the ways of God and help us know Him.

When I hear individuals express their concerns with absolutes, it is usually because they do not want to adhere to them. When their objections are boiled down to the core essentials, their objections are usually for one or two reasons. Either, they are trying to see how much they can live by their own rules without God rejecting them, or they have a closer relationship to others than to God and in so doing care more for the thinking of others than the thinking or ways of God.

TWO PATTERNS
If they are trying to live by their own rules, then attached to those rules will be their own principles, values, and moral code. Since we tend to love darkness rather than light, that means our rules may look good, but that good is temporary and a facade that leads to greater darkness and personal deterioration not only in our life, but in those lives we touch. That personal code becomes a spiritual placebo and will always be errant, and ego centristic in nature. Thus, the distance between God and those with their own rules grows all the while they think they are deeply spiritual and in right standing with God – and at some point God alone decides - they are not.

If they have a closer relationship to others and care more for the thinking of others (including their own thinking) than the thinking or ways of God then they will never know God. This line of thinking promotes the creation over the Creator, leads to continued deterioration and eventually reprobate or totally degenerate thinking. Those who hold this line of thought cannot accept the absolutes of God because the natural mind cannot understand the matters of the Creator who is True, Pure, Spirit. These matters are revealed Spirit to spirit. That which is created will never acquire all the answers that the Uncreated has never not known.

Blessings,
John Paul

When I wrote that God would release “moral champions, who refute cultural moral relativism, and call sin – sin,” I did not mean that these champions would practice “old time religion” and hammer others with their beliefs. Nor would they speak from “self imposed religious loftiness.” Instead I was following the train of thought established earlier in the blog that refuted condemnation and spoke of loving those who do not know True, Pure Spirituality – or its beginning form often called salvation (see Romans 5:10).

We need not demand others to be perfect, but we do need to follow the one who lived a perfect life. We are to follow the one who was friends with sinners and yet did not compromise His belief structure. The one who clearly believed in absolutes and did not see absolutes as merely opinions formed by the belief set of the religious community (denomination) one was raised in. If He did, Jesus would not have called the leaders of the day, “white-washed sepulchers.” He would have instead tried to understand they had a right to their view and he had a right to His. Oh hog wash!

Jesus had a clear set of absolutes, and those absolutes were foundational to the building of the Kingdom. Yet, He without partiality applied them to broken people without condemnation. He called sin – sin in a way that attracted the broken rather than repelling them. Jesus did not hammer those who did not know Him - He loved them. He did not condemn, He convicted. He did not think in terms of situational ethics, but in terms of heavenly mandates.

To Jesus sin was not relative to the moment, it was absolute and it was destroying that which God had created.

I believe the Postmodern church has compromised Christian belief structures and lost track of Kingdom absolutes. In doing so, there is the danger of adopting the view of God as having no absolutes. Which is then followed by the belief there is no God, because there are no absolutes. Or if there is a God he is merely a “higher life form” to which we can attain.

Moral relativism says there is nothing wrong with homosexuality – it is relative to the individual. Then, I ask, how about incest – is it wrong or is it relative to the individual as well? What about murder – is it also relative to the individual? The list could go on and on. Society and the world will collapse without the absolutes of the Kingdom.

I do believe that if we lived a life that demonstrated the love and the power of the Kingdom, we would not have to trumpet against sin. We would also not back down when confronted with statements that were unbiblical or anti-Christ either. We would explain the truth of Jesus whom we follow and do that with deep felt love.

Is there anyone who is righteous enough to become a moral champion? The apostles were, leaders of the early church were. Moral champions are not perfect, they simply follow Him who is perfect. They admit their failures and live a humble and transparent life. Are they rare today? – yes, they are almost nonexistent, but that does not mean that God cannot mature them and raise them up. True, Pure, Morality is the fruit of True, Pure, Spirituality.

If no one lives a True, Pure, Spiritual life, who will be a witness to God’s existence? Our life should be that. Jesus said we are to be witnesses when the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon us. So how then do we do that?

Moral relativism causes there to be little or no distinction between those who know the One, True, God and those who do not. No wonder the world sees the church as irrelevant.
Blessings,
John Paul

It has taken some time, but Oprah has quietly risen over the years to a place of prominence, partly because she is committed to helping others, partly because she feels she was born to do this, and partly because she is deeply interested in spiritual matters. Her commitment, financially, visually, and socially has struck a chord in the hearts of many who deep down inside know there is more to life than logic driven solutions. To them it is clear there is invisible matter and life out there and it is superior to the visible life we pay so much attention to. The problem lies in the question, “What invisible world are we talking about – dark or light?”

Rather than ramble on about all the things that we read, hear, and see that endorse the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, I would like to focus on what can be done. Perhaps it will be no shock to you that I feel we should do nothing to boycott, or speak against Oprah or any other new Age guru or pundit. I believe our greatest gift to mankind is to live a spiritual life that demonstrates who God is and that there is only one way to know Him. If we would seriously do that we would change the atmosphere here on Earth and there would be a clear difference between those who know the One True God and those who do not.

There is not a dearth of God in the Earth, there is a dearth of deeply spiritual people who know God, live the life that evidences His presence within them, and display His Names to all they meet. Would the world be different in ten years if those who claimed to be Christians would radiate and demonstrate the presence of God in all they do? Nothing would change over night, but it would change faster than we can imagine. Why can’t we do this and more?

Why can’t we create a culture of Christ likeness, with love, power, and benevolence at the core of that culture? Why can’t we live a life that makes the solutions given by the likes of Tolle, Dyer, Walsh, Williamson, Brown, and others seem trite in the light of God’s presence. The counterfeit is only valuable when the original is absent. Yes, the world is feeding on imitations because we have not offered them the truth.

The problem is that it is easy to love the New Age message, because one does not have to live differently – simply stay on the Tree you are on and you can change yourself – you are god, you have that power. At least that is what the Tree of the Knowledge wants you to believe. But, to live a True, Pure, Spiritual life one has to change or be transformed.

In this age of moral relativism, the lines of right and wrong are becoming more and more blurred. It is believed that as long as we do not hurt anyone, we can do what we want. We have bought the lie that we are to live the good life, to be happy. But, in this day and age, happiness is thought be defined as pleasure and satisfaction – with no suffering or sacrifice. This thinking permeates the world and even the church. Yes, there are exceptions, but few when compared to the whole. The problem is that this is the life God asks those who want to live a True, Pure, Spiritual life to lead. We have to think more of others than our self. This does not mean we have to live in poverty, neither does it mean we get to keep all the money we make, nor all the things we have. The True, Pure, Spiritual life is a giving life – that is an undiscussed, and often undisclosed secret to the Life God asks us to live.

I suspect God is going to raise up men and women who take clear spiritual stands and become moral champions, who refute cultural moral relativism, and call sin – sin. Those who live a life as close to God as they can and not as close to the edge as they can get away with and still make it in the doors of heaven before they close.

What might those champions do to society and what would society look like as they arise in the land? What could be done if every personality did what God had gifted them to do? Would towns and cities change? What kind of backlash would they receive – if any and who from?

These are questions I am now asking myself. What am I to do with the talents and gifts God has given me in the last half of my life? How about you?

Blessings,
John Paul

I am struck by the comments you have offered to my two questions, “Why is this type of program so popular?” and “What do you believe should be done about this.” I am struck by the depth of thought you have put into your responses, and I am struck by their wonderful and yet profound simplicity. To sum up your answers:

“Why is this type of program so popular?” Because people are hungry for spiritual knowledge that can be easily obtained.

“What do you believe should be done about this.” We must live a life that radiates what we believe, with power and love from Heaven.

I would like to take this blog and the next couple blogs, if I might, to make a few comments as well.

Wisdom is found when there is a question or the need for a solution. There are three ways wisdom is found; the first is through education. Here in these institutions of intelligence quotients and scientific methods we find repeatable solutions that when applied to questions seem to have an air of wisdom, but if the solution seems illogical as did Solomon’s solution - divide the baby in half - the institutions crack under the scrutiny of an unperceived higher logic.

The second, is wisdom that is gained from experience. This wisdom is very slow to gain and most of the time it is very painful as well. These experiences produce a deep wisdom, a wisdom that transcends logic and yet retains the structure of logic in that it is intellectually plausible and potentially repeatable. Thus acceptable to most.

The third kind of wisdom, is a form of revelation and it is given directly from the Throne of God. This is the wisdom James was referring to when he penned, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given unto him.” This wisdom is both absorbed by reading God’s word and instantaneous the moment it is needed. It is the reason why we are not to think what we should say when we stand before Kings - the Holy Spirit will tell us what to say. It is the wisdom of Solomon in instantly knowing human nature and the love of a mother for her child. It comes from the Creator who knows all things and has all wisdom - and He loves to give it to mankind.

If there is wisdom to be found in the teaching of many of the New Age Guru’s, etc. it is a wisdom from the first two levels of wisdom and it teaches, as one of you aptly wrote, “self absorbed” introspection that says we are the answer to our problems - I can fix me. But, to a spiritually hungry world who is bored with the status-quo, any food is good food.

The church has not done itself a favor by discouraging anyone who has deeper spiritual leanings. Far to many are outside the walls of the church because ill-informed leaders handled spiritual encounters and spiritual questions the wrong way. I am not against the church, it is just that it is far too easily content with spiritual milk.

Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and almost all the prophets lived in times much like these. There was a huge ground swell of interest in the “metaphysical” and a host of magicians, clairvoyants, mediums, and the like to fill that interest. And like today, there were few to combat the counterfeit with the real thing. So, God gave enigmas that required True, Pure, Spirituality to understand or interpret them. That did not happen over night. Neither did it happen inside the walls of the church (Temple/synagogue). It occurred much more often outside than inside the house of God. Not that it should happen this way, but it did. I believe the Lord is about to do the same again.

Yes, people understand there needs to be a change and that change needs to be spiritual. So why is church attendance dwindling? Shouldn’t the church buildings be packed? Why aren’t there great spiritual leaders rising out of the ranks of the church? Yes, there are leaders rising, but I mean of the True, Pure, supernatual kind. Perhaps, because to many churches specialize in sermons and not in power. Perhaps the church has lost sight of the fact it is to be the “change agent” on this Earth. Perhaps it is because we are more consumed with programs and fads than power and the “Divineum Mysterium.”

I am afraid that the church, in trying to gain respectability, has adopted more of the worldly, naturalistic, and rationalistic approach to the spirit world than the world itself has. I do believe this will change.

More in my next blog.

Blessings,

John Paul

I have been flu ridden for several days. Combine that with commitments to travel to conferences and you have a recipe for fatigue not to mention bed time. Well, enough of me. Let’s get on to Oprah.

Oprah is rapidly taking on a more prominent profile of being a spiritual leader, which would not only include her funding the girls school in Africa, but now the show the “Big Giver.” Almost simultaneously, she is launching a ten week web seminar with author, Eckhart Tolle. Over 700,000 have signed up for this broadcast. So my questions to you are this, “Why is this type of program so popular?” And “What do you believe should be done about this?”

I’ll look forward to you comments.

Blessings,

John Paul

I enjoy your stuff, though the one thing that I have trouble swallowing is this statement: “Regardless of our religious conviction, our spirit, soul, and body war against each other.”

• In the beginning, God who is Spirit walked with man every day. I believe we can safely believe God also talked to them, taught them, and loved them during this time. Man had an “everlasting” body, and as long as he ate of the Tree of Life or of the Spirit he would live forever. So the spirit of man followed the One, True, Spirit, - God.
• Just prior to the Fall, Satan tempted Chavvah (Woman) by using the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil). This tree is the Tree of the Soul. Soul is comprised of the Mind, will, and emotions. Knowledge is found in the Mind and that is where the battle begins. That is why we are commanded to love the One, True, Spirit, - God with all our Mind or thought processes.
• This depicts the battle/war or temptations that still rage within ourselves. Satan desires for us to serve the Soul, and God desires for us to serve the Spirit. Satan, himself fell through pride, or thinking and he wants us to have the same end as he will have. In other words, Satan wants to take as many with him as he can through getting them to embrace the same error.
• Our physical body is caught in the middle. The body is to serve and carry out the desires of either the soul or the spirit - depending on which one rules us. So it is tossed both ways as we fight or give into temptation. This is what the Apostle Paul was talking about when he described times when he did what he knew he should not do, and did not do that which he knew to do.
• So it makes little difference whether we are Baptist, Assembly of God, Vineyard, Lutheran, etc. We all will go through the battle(s), to overcome and reach the future that God created us to have.
• Those who do not follow the One, True, Pure, Spirit – God still fight this but in different proportions. The soul or god of this world rather than the spirit is leading them. Their battle is against the “wooing” or love of the Holy Spirit of the living God. His love is an incredible attractant and His Spirit is brilliant in how He loves those who do not yet know Him. But man still tries to love darkness rather than light.

Even Jesus battled His soul. As His crucifixion drew near, He said his soul troubled Him and wanted Him to stop the crucifixion process that was about to transpire. So we find it has been this way from the very beginning, and is still rages within us today. Even after we have walked with God a long time, Satan does not give up.

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So many people who haven’t received Christ as their savior are on a mission to seek the truth. How can they end up so far from the truth. Why does the Lord allow them to end up so far off the course in their seeking?

To fully answer this would take a book, but if you will allow me, I’ll give an over simplistic answer that will cover 90% of the problems.

• Cause #1: Bitterness is an acidic pill to swallow. We become bitter when we feel justified in light of the pain someone causes us. God asks us to forgive those individuals as He has forgiven us. So many feel justified in not forgiving and do not want to follow a belief system that requires them to forgive. To the degree we forgive - we are forgiven. The Bible tells us our prayers are hindered because of unforgiveness.
• Cause #2: Ambition causes us to want all things for our benefit rather than for the benefit of others. And certainly not for the Glory of God. Ambition is a form of selfishness and pride. If God will not give us what we want, then we will find what we want through our other sources.
• Cause #3: Cultural indoctrination is very hard to overcome. Many are taught errant thinking about God from their childhood. Many of those continue to look for Him in “all the wrong places.” For example, if one has been taught that God is all things (pantheism) then it is difficult to convince someone that God made all things, but all things are not God. In essence they do not know where to look for the fulfillment they desperately need.
• Cause #4: Doctrinal programming is also hard to over come, especially when it teaches that if you join the church you are spiritual and “saved.” This line of thinking causes disappointment when a deep relationship with God is not formed with “brick and mortar or a denomination.” My experience is that the majority of those in the New Age are there because they found “brick and mortar or a denomination” less than fulfilling. They were never taught that there is a personal, and intimate relationship that can be found in God, not in an object or belief system. It is no surprise then that they feel closer to trees and fowl than to the church that they were taught is God.
• Cause #5: Ecstatic needs, or the overt dependency on supernatural experiences, as a sign of true spirituality is a driving force. From the previous sentence you can surmise that I believe that this need to experience the “other world” can be over done. Add to that the reality that the church as a whole is steeped in the philosophy of naturalism and relativism – thus driving those with a belief that spiritual experiences are real and for today elsewhere. Therefore they look for spiritual answers wherever they can be found and soon you have a perfect script for deception. The church or Body of Christ should be the first place one looks to know True Spirituality and the deeper things of God.

Regardless of errant thinking or errant searching, a great truth is this, “If one is really seeking for the One, True, Spirit, - God – He will be found.” God will not give up on them if they do not give up on finding Him – and they will find He has been near them and waiting all the time.

Blessings,
John Paul

I totally agree with what you are saying about being plugged into the Source but where does the Body fit in? Maybe I don’t understand how it all works but aren’t we supposed to have an “Interdependence” on each other also?

• Yes, we are to be interdependent on each other, but we are not to make others our source. They are to be an aid to us, counsel to us, inspiration to us, and help to us. If we allow others to be our source, then we have made them our God. Conversely, if we allow ourselves to become the source of all things for others, we have taken God’s role and made ourselves God.
• God does use others to meet our needs, but aid is temporal and not day in and day out or permanent. Meeting the needs of the moment for someone is not the same as making someone need us. The result of allowing others to make us their source is that they take on a Victim Mentality.

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Are there really stages in our spiritual walk?

• Yep there are, and in most of them we feel less than spiritual until we advance to the next level of spirituality. It is here, from this vantage point that we can look back to see the progress and the process of our growth pattern. I wish the spiritual life was so simple that we need not be concerned at all. But, to most of us it is not. A positive is that it is the very act of being concerned that insures we doing well and we will make it.
  • You see, to be concerned about our life in God means we do not take His presence lightly nor make His “light” within our lives a trite matter. To be concerned proves we value His light. God loves that we value or treasure His presence. To value Him insures He will not only give us more of His Spirit, but He will also insure that we will keep growing, and maturing to the next level of True, Pure, Spirituality. This is seeking Him with all our heart and we are guaranteed to find Him when we do so.

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You have stated that our relationship with God can ebb and flow, why would God do that?

• Yes, our relationship with God ebbs and flows. There are times when we have done nothing wrong, but He seems far away. One illustration for this is actually found in the sanitary laws of Scripture. Scripture tells us that during the womans time of monthly purification, the husband is to not be intimate with her. This is not because she has done anything wrong, but during this time she is actually being prepared for fruitfulness or ovulation.
  • Paul alludes to this law when he talks about how husbands and wives are to intimately respond to each other (Ephesians 5) and how that even in mentioning these matters he speaks not concerning husbands and wives but, it is a picture of Christ and the Church and when applied that means how Christ relates in intimacy with you.
  • Sometimes it is not that we have committed any sin, or that we have omitted anything we should have done. Sometimes the Lord withdraws from us to prepare us for intimacy, ovulation, or fruitfulness.
  • As the woman in the Song of Solomon, we hear our love at the door and we delay responding. When we do go to the door and open the latch He is gone. Here, we begin to long for Him so much we go on a search for Him.
  • Here we find a secret, “In the lack of His presence we yearn for His presence.”

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I thought you always had spiritual experiences. I was surprised to hear you describe your stage one and two.

• Spiritual experiences do not make one mature. Jeremiah was called before he was born, but there was no maturity there. Samuel was given a national prophecy when he was five or six years old, but he was not mature.
• Gifts or supernatural experiences are just that - gifts. They are not rewards for good behavior or maturity.
• I was struggling in stage one and two through my early twenties. During this stage I messed up a lot and really needed a lot of forgiveness. The sensitivity that I had with the gift, which I did not know I had, left me sensitive to a lot of worldly thinking. I would fall and run to the light, fall again and run to the light, over and over. I had no clue of how much The Light loved me.
  • All I knew God to be was harsh, full of judgment, waiting to punish me, and this left me with a great amount of fear of failing Him.
  • Like King David, it was the very thing I feared that came upon me. It is here that I learned that “what you fear you empower,” and “what you focus on you make room for.”
  • I never knew He loved me - and you - until I was in my 40’s. Sad, but true.
  • It is so much easier to serve God out of love rather than out of fear - I wish I would have known this when I was so much younger, like when I was 10 years old! It is His love that penetrates the veil of blindness we walk in when we fall prey to the god of this world.

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How long are the Spiritual Stages you wrote about?

• At the risk of over simplifying, each stage is as long as it takes you to overcome and master the solution to that particular stage. I stayed on some stages for years, and in other stages for months.
  • If stayed a short time in any stage I then had to repeat that stage.
  • A quick exit from any stage is more a sign of stubbornness than a sign of maturity.
• It seems the longer I stayed in a particular stage, the more lasting the result, which is hard but good in the long run.

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I am 17, am I too young to be pressing into the deep deep things of God and desire to just know the intimacy of his glory and of his presence? The answer to both of those questions I believe is no, But I don’t know why breakthrough isn’t occurring. I desire to be blasted by God and know the measure of who he is?

• You are correct, the answer is no, you are not too young - but you are inexperienced. One of the most difficult lessons we must learn as we walk on this spiritual odyssey is to “be as patient with ourselves as God is with us.”
• It is often our impatience that makes us feel we are not making progress and therefore failing God.
• Our inexperience makes us feel that if we can do more, God will respond to us. If this were true, then God would have just endorsed “justification” or spirituality by “works” and not justification by faith.
• We cannot entice God to do any more than he will do. However, we can clear the wax from our ears, and scales from our eyes. But, even that cannot be done if God does not grant us the desire to do so. If God does not grant anything, then such spiritual thoughts will never even enter our mind.
• The fact you are wanting this is an enormous plus to your future growth.
• If you do not quite you win!

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Your questions about spirituality are very good, I’ll try to answer more on the next blog.

Blessings,

John Paul

How do you communicate with God in a spiritual sense?
There are several ways to have communication with God. To get back to basics, let’s begin with just two. If you can master just these two life will be sooooooo different.

1. Start with Who He is

• The first step to communion with Him is worship by acknowledging who He is. It is the recognition of who He is that releases our spirit to commune with Him. In this moment His Spirit releases our spirit. This is why it is important that we ingest/in-filled with His Spirit. His presence in us really shortens the time between “the ask and the answer.”

• Worship - this is the basic structure of the Lord’s Prayer (MT. 6). Start with who He is. Most of us start with what we need. It is the identification of who He is that gives us confidence that He is capable of answering what we may later ask. It is the reality of who He is that separates Him from all the gods of this world – He answers they do not.

2. The need for peace

• Begging, pleading and the like are more closely related to the false prophets who did such at Elijah’s challenge to them on Mount Carmel. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Peace. His presence in you will always produce peace – yes, in the midst of down town traffic. Even Elijah found that the small voice is where God spends most of His time.

• This is why so many hear from God when they relax, or they are driving, working, or doing anything but pleading. If God answers us by our pleading, then he has just said we can earn His love. Peace before Him says we “trust” or have “faith” in Him.

Why am I continually frustrated in my desire to be spiritual?

• For those of you who have been frustrated in your search for spirituality, frustration when the One, True, Spirit – God does not answer is usually an indicator of us having an agenda that is not His. I have found, when I have had these times- and I have - that I need to back up and ask different questions such as, “Am I doing what you want,” or “Is there something I am missing or not seeing, or “Is there a question You want me to ask that I am not asking?”

• The less we are concerned about the solution – the clearer the solution becomes. Why? Because we no longer predetermine the boundaries His response to us needs to be within – we’ll accept anything He says. Sometimes the greatest peace comes when we are at the end of our rope.

Going to “hot spots”

• The greatest “hot spot” we can run to is within our own heart.

Can we communicate with other believers when we are asleep?

• The man from Macedonia did. He came to the Apostle Paul and asked him to come and help them. Why? God wants us to be interdependent on others to fulfill our purpose and call. Paul needed direction and the Macedonians needed help. None of us are Islands unto ourselves.

Are we always aware of how God flows through us or is this just a part of “being” in God?

• I have gone through a few spiritual growth stages. During the first stage I was more aware that God was not on me, because I seldom felt He was. In the second stage, I felt God only came to me during Dreams or at the altar when I was repenting - so I got re-saved every Sunday. In the third stage, I felt God’s spirit pushing me all the time. I could not get away with what I used to get away with.

• In the fourth stage, there was a major change. I walked into something infinitely spiritual or I should say, something infinitely more spiritual (the Holy Spirit) walked into me. In the fifth stage, I was aware when He was not as intense some times as He was at others. Here I learned that when the Holy Spirit lifts His intense presence it is because we are not located where He wants us to be. In the sixth stage, I learned to find where the One, True, Pure Spirit was. Here I learned to feel the weight (Kabod) of His presence or glory. I began to long for that weight of His presence.

• But, it is in this stage that I am in now, the seventh stage that I have found a deeper contentment and joy in my walk with God. Here, I feel Him in me every moment. I truly know that I live and move and have my being in Him. Being in Him, yet He enjoys being in me. This is true “being.” It is here that I have noticed the presence of God’s Spirit within me has marvelous impact on others. It is here that He radiates from me, beyond me. Here He touches others before I get to them, whether it is across the table or across the room. Yes, He will flow through your eyes, your smile, and through anything else that you will let Him have.

This is what I want you to experience. This is why I write this blog so He may become such, within each one of you.

I’ll answer more of your previous blog questions next blog.

Blessings,

John Paul