In my last post, I delved into a lot
of different subjects. Although firstly
aimed at myself, that particular article was really more of a release for me in
dealing with some rather troubling circumstances. This is no pity party, I assure you. Sympathy isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but
I’ve found that empathy is much more powerful and healing. But if any of you readers are the praying
type (or meditators, vibe-ers, etc.) pray for peace. This isn’t necessarily just for me, although
I have a plentitude of peace, I could always use more, but more importantly, I
think we must develop an understanding that when we pray, we are actually
focusing on an intentional release that will consume a realm or jurisdiction
that attempts to confuse a person or group of people and bind them in a state
of manipulation or subjugation. The
realm or jurisdiction of peace altogether consumes anything lower than
itself. That being said, prayer itself
is more than just a verbal declaration, or something we say before we sit down
to eat, or on Sunday morning in front of the congregation on Sunday, or to call
upon God during troubled times. All of
these practices are good, but if we relegate prayer in any sense of its
substance to something that is marked by occasion, we have missed the
point. I would even argue that through
this framework we have submitted to being adjucated to a realm of warfare. To expand the notion of prayer, and to engage
with it in the realm from whence it comes (eternity, peace, a realm altogether
sovereign over war), this engagement is more of a recognition of the presence
of God at all times and in all places, which inevitably will have a myriad of
facets and manifestations. This is why
the Apostle Paul can give a command such as “Pray without ceasing” (I Thes.
5:17). All that being said...the broad
nature of my last post issued a rather lively response from readers, requesting
that I delve a bit deeper into some of the subject matter. For once, feeling lead in the same direction,
I will make my best attempts here to oblige. So let’s get to it!
What
is war? Certainly it can be termed many
different ways, but my basic summary of it last week, and what I will be using
as my framework for this post is: “War
in its truest sense then, is nothing more than a deceptive attempt to control
spiritual atmosphere and thus convince individuals that their lives have no
value apart from the ruling group or regime.”
Let me break this down a little bit.
In order to understand this a bit more clearly, we must understand
that a struggle for any type of control, or the desire to control or be in
control, ultimately originates from a position of lack. That is to say that a person, entity, spirit,
etc...does not feel like he/she/it has enough of something and thus engages
reality from this position. The
conversation usually goes on in the “head” of an individual and sounds
something like this: “I don’t have
enough of X, therefore I must do something to obtain more of X. Since I don’t have enough, something must be controlling
me, and since this is what it is like for me, I must engage others the same
way. I’ll control them as long as we all
have enough. But my needs come first.” This position of lack comes directly from a
feeling of shame, or that of something that is being held against a
person. In fact shame, guilt, and debt
all have the same root. Think about that
the next time a creditor gives you a call about a bill you allegedly owe
them. But as you see, the problem here is
quite simple to solve isn’t it? You take
away the lack and there is no problem.
If there is no need to gain more of anything then there is no
jurisdiction for control to be put on display.Why is there lack in the first
place? Sit and think about it. At the end of the day where did the water,
electricity, food, shelter and any other materials come from? That’s right, they came from the earth and
all of it, every ounce of it is free.
Just because some big corporation stockpiles the resources and stakes
claims on land, and makes people pay for use, does not negate the fact that all
of it inevitably is free. If this stuff
is free, then why do we feel the pressure of lack, or potential poverty? Why do we feel that ache in our gut when money
is tight and we get that bill in the mail?
Because something has been set against us, some aspect of control. So in our act of payment, we feel we are
taking control as well. But that ache
still longs in our gut, and then we get the same bill in the mail next month, and
the control we think we’ve exercised seems to be growing less and less
powerful. That is because the thing that
has been set against us has convinced us that we owe something. The whole thing thus spins upon an axis of
guilt and dishonour, and your ability or inability to provide payment
(atonement via the work of your own hands), and is completely unconcerned with
circumstances or the condition of who you are as a person. Dishonour=inability to pay, which this system
deems you an indigent scoundrel of a person.
Once again all of this is based upon your ability or inability to pay
for something that in reality is absolutely free.
Then why all of the shortages, why are things so “expensive”
why are there so many people starving and dying? Certainly this is a much longer answer that
would fill millions of pages of discussion, but the short answer is war. The very moment when something is being held
over or against a person, the realm in which war exists becomes operative. The physical acts of war are manifestations
of processes enacted long ago against and within the mind of mankind. The thought life of humanity is the access
point at which contradiction may be implanted.
Man to the core of his being (a divine creature made in the image and
likeness of God), is good. But Man can
believe otherwise about himself, and thus believing ill of himself, easily
views the rest of his peers in the same light.
When man believes he is bad, he must do something to remove the bad, or
try to cover up (atone) for the evil deeds he believes he has committed. Man forgets where the bad came from, where
the idea that he was bad originated.
This was not something that was with him at creation, this idea of debt,
separation, dishonour and the need for atonement or covering was not something
that originated within himself. No, it
was whispered to him from something other than himself.
Let’s go back to the creation narrative for a little more
insight. In Genesis 1:25, we see that
God has created everything according to its kind and has spoken to the
substance from which everything was made in order to bring things to life. (For more detail on this check out Andre
Rabe’s book, Imagine). In 1:26 God speaks to himself and says “Let
Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness: let them have dominion...”, point being, that
God spoke to the substance of Himself to create mankind, whereas with the fish
he created the water, then spoke to the water, etc. So Man is created in the image and likeness
of God and from the very substance of the Creator Himself, and then man is granted
dominion. Man is given license and
creative power to rule the earth, but since he knows nothing of lack, nothing
of contradiction, nothing of competition, poverty, shame, he knows nothing of
good or evil, his ability to rule and reign upon the earth, to have dominion or
to domicile, is derived from a place of presence rather than a place of process
that says he must do X,Y and Z in order to have A,B, and C. In this place, Man simply is.
In Genesis 3, the narrative takes on a different tone. Throughout the first two chapters we see a
creation unfolding followed by the establishment of Adam as Man. In Chapter 2, Adam and God are directly
communicating and any other words offered are Adam’s naming and his declaration
of Woman. What I’m trying to draw out
here, is that there is an uninterrupted communication between man and God, and
that we see nothing else coming in and attempting to influence Mankind. But at the beginning of Chapter 3, the
narrative gives sharp detail to a particular beast of the field, the
serpent. Then we see that the serpent
(something outside of man) speaks to Eve.
This is the first time in the history of creation that it is recorded
that something other than God himself is speaking to Man. The first words out of the serpent’s mouth
are laced with deception when it speaks, “ Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not
eat of every tree of the garden?’” While
technically , this is true, the spirit behind it is completely different than
when God speaks in 2:16-17, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” The serpent’s use of language twists the
intention of God and makes the assertion appear as an accusation through
focusing the intention of the statement on the negative. The way that the serpent words its question
is presumptuous. The serpent can only
operate out of a presumption because the serpent does not have FIRSTHAND
knowledge of what God spoke to Adam. The
presumption twists God’s original affirmative statement, and makes God’s word
appear as if multiple trees and most of the garden has been withheld from man,
rather than just one.
The serpent’s accusation now attempts to hold something against
man. What Man failed to realize in this
moment, was that Man was still in the power position. An accusation operates much like a
contract. There is an offeror, in this
case, the serpent, and there is an acceptor, in this case, Eve. In any contract, the acceptor is the one who
holds all the power. If the acceptor
does not agree to the contract, then BOOM, the whole thing is null and void and
has no jurisdiction. An accusation works
the exact same way. The accusation is
made, the offeror hoping that jurisdiction will be granted by the acceptor
based upon agreement to the accusation.
To reject an accusation is simply to not agree with it, or to take it
further, to agree with what God says about you.
But here, in the unfolding of Creation, Mankind agrees with the
accusation which is something that exists entirely outside of himself thus
granting jurisdiction to something that God originally gave Man dominion over. Man is now ruled by that which he is supposed to rule over.
In this context, now mankind has entered into a
covenant/contract/agreement to have the knowledge of good and evil lord over
him rather than lording over these concepts himself, for in order to have this “knowledge”
Man himself must arrive at a decision that either he is “good” or “evil” and
all of his actions from this point on are to be judged from that
perspective. But we see very clearly,
that in Genesis 2:24, before submitting to the rule of knowledge, Adam was, “naked
but unashamed.” Later on in 3:10, Adam
attempts to hide himself from God (just as when we try to hide ourselves from
our true identity or place of origin), and he tells God that he is scared and
that he is scared because he is naked.
God asked in verse 11, “Who told you that you were naked.” See, the problem is not whether or not Adam/Man was naked. There was no problem. The issue/problem/sin/distance/contradiction
arose when Man’s perspective was changed through the making of value judgements
based upon “the knowledge of good and evil.”
Now all of the sudden Adam/Man judges himself based upon this supposed
knowledge, which comes from a paradigm that does not come from a lens of
truth. This is a realm of black and
white that makes no room for color and thus no mercy, compassion, or
creativity. Adam now finds shame in his
nakedness, because his own judgment of himself is condemning. It is here in this realm of conflict that
violence enters the picture.
Violence? Wait? I thought that started with Cain and
Abel...Nope. Since Adam/Mankind could
not cover himself, God had to cover him.
So God killed some animals to clothe Adam and Eve, and thus the blood of
these animals (and their skins, literally) were used to cover the sin of
mankind. Here the realm of violence is born, but its initial blood letting is
merely the culling of an animal here and there.
The problem is that animal flesh expires quickly, as does the garments
made from their hides. Thus more of them
must be killed to cover Man, and Man’s mind becomes callous to the shedding of
blood. Although The Law (the Ten
commandments) has yet to enter the scene, Man has already been subject to a
rule of law. An infraction of law, even
if it is a law/rule that exists in a person’s mind, must be corrected or
balanced out. This initial knowledge of
infraction, which is Adam’s belief that he was naked, and therefore was in
lack, created a debt in the mind of Man.
Once a belief in debt is established it creates a cycle of perpetual
need to be covered. Extrapolate this
belief and the struggle for resources results in the shedding of the blood of
billions.
But there is an interesting scenario that occurs in Genesis
4. God speaks to Cain and reminds
him/Mankind, that Man indeed still has authority over sin. In 4:6-7, God speaks to Cain, The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?
If you do well, will you
not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its
desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” Once again there is a lot to unpack in this
exchange, but the point I want to draw out, is that despite The Fall of Man,
despite everything that Cain’s father and mother subjected creation to, God
still offers Cain the power of dominion to rule over sin/debt and any
consciousness of it. If Cain ruled over
this according to his design (and against the example set by his father, Adam),
then peace is granted and the idea of debts/atonements, etc., loses its. But instead, Cain agrees with the lower
jurisdiction, the realm of violence where his shame and PERCEIVED failure must
be covered. In engaging this conflict,
the blood of Abel is used in Cain’s attempt to gain his own power and honour
back. The problem with this is that
Mankind has never been the provider of his own honour; therefore, Mankind can
never be the one to restore honour to himself via the work of his own
hands. Honour can only be restored from
and through the point of origin which is with God in eternity.
A perceived eternal debt can
only be discharged through the eternal worth of man being restored from his
point of origin in eternity. The
reminder of Man’s original birth (See John 1, James 1:27, Genesis 1:26-27,
Ecclesiastes 3:11) renews Man’s mind, removing his amnesia and displacing him
from this realm where war/atonement is necessary. These being only temporary remedies, no
longer make any sense from an eternal perspective.
I hope to delve into these
concepts at bit further in later posts.
We have just scratched the surface, but I pray these will spark seeds of
thought and contemplation within you.
Please leave your comments and
questions below. Or you can email me mmonk23@gmail.com.
Check out our
website www.ekstasisministries.org
. We are planning our events and projects as the Lord leads for the upcoming
fiscal year and we need your support.
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I love you,
Matt
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