The prosperity gospel is “right.” But, it is totally wrong in the “riches” this message proposes we receive. One moment of His Presence is beyond the value of all the material goods i have ever received. To lose my own life and partake in His; to die that i no longer abide alone – that i might finally become fruitful in the Kingdom of G_d… This, this dying of my flesh and the overtaking of His very Spirit in me and through me is of more value than all the gold in this universe.
~ Makala Barnabas Doulos
Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there will My servant be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.
~ Jesus, King of The Universe, in John 12
Oh beloved, it is true. There is within us the deep capacity for judgement. We look at others, and are instantly willing to see the failures within them. We rant against their selfishness and pride. We look at how they fall short and we attempt to stand on the mound of their failures as a way of lifting us up.
But Oh, as we wade into their mess and try to show how much higher we are than them, we find that we do not come out on top. Instead, we find that our hearts nearly blend with the offense. We fit right in to who we perceive them to be.
We thought we were different, but when we really look, we cannot even begin to differentiate. We are just like those who we judged. We have, in fact, not really even seen the other. We have, instead, simply seen a projection of ourselves projected off the outside of the other. We see only a caricature of them and ourselves in some sort of distorted 3D.
When we come to realize this, the pain of who we really are begins to bubble up into our consciousness. We thought we had all of our needs met. We have food and clothing. We have a place to stay. We have a means of income. We have some friends, and are blessed by the Love of a great G_d and a beautiful spouse. We have even come to be esteemed by a few that have seen the growth and service our life provides.
It is not enough. It is not nearly enough.
All of this. All of these needs being met, are but the foundation for the next step we have to take. We have to – and this fool of a writer can barely type this – abandon all of this to make it to the real life of a person who begins to actually Live as Designed by his Maker.
And the abandonment of all of what we have is really a sort of death. It is spiritually a transtemporal death with Christ at the cross. It is a dying also to our own desires in this life. And these, we can almost begin to understand in our surrender to the Truth of The Gospel.
It goes deeper than this though.
This death includes the very center of who we were. This death is the death of the ME that both demanded my own way and also still demands that others must align with my expectations and paradigms in order to be accepted by me. And this, this death is painful beyond nearly anything we have ever experienced.
It is the only way though.
Finally, only with The Master Surgeon’s knife cutting to divide between spirit and soul -and down through the very intentions of our inner man – we come to a crisis. There is one last cut to be made. And even He will not make it without our consent.
“Son. May I?”
“Oh Father. That one is going to hurt.”
“Only for a moment child. Then, only beauty and strength and joy and a whole new place of Life.”
“Yes Father.”
And He cuts. Oh G_D! Ouch! Ohhhh, that hurts… And we thought we would recover. But we don’t. All of who we were pours out through the anastomosis in our spirit created by that cut. There is nothing left of who we were.
It is finally enough.
Suddenly, in the place of that cut, comes Life. It is Life bigger than can, or could have ever, fit within us before. Because before, there was a giant piece of machinery acting as some sort of courtroom sitting in judgement of those around us. And now, it is gone.
We look out, and suddenly there is nothing of us to project onto others any more. There is only His Light shining through us. There is only Love for the people in front of us. And we can finally see them. They are luminous and beautiful and hurting.
Can we see it? Now, instead of wanting people under us, we simply want to serve them and help them see the Light with which we now see them. And this is the place where we become who we are meant to be. We are to be Christ – nearly literally – to them, that they might see Him and also be freed from the same horrible machinery of judgement churning within them.
So, are you feeling like all of your needs are met, but that you still are not satisfied? Perhaps now is the night to throw all of this away and take on last step. Tonight is your night beloved. Time to let Him make one last cut – deep down in your inner man.
See you on the other side. It will be wonderful for both of us to be able to see each other as we really are.
