Archive for the ‘Trinity’ Category
Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh And Blood, Part 4B
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Church, Gospel, Humor, Love, Perichoresis, Relationships, Sermons, Spiritual Warfare, The Dance and Dream of the Trinity, The Plan of Adoption, Trinity | Tags: Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Gospel, Hope, Incarnation, Jesus, Perichoresis, Relationships, Spiritual Warfare, trials, Trinity
Comments (1) 12.09.30 Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh And Blood, Part 4B (Eph 6.10-20) – TAH
“God has assumed all responsibility for evil in Jesus Christ….There is no need for us to demand that God take responsibility. He has done so.”, writes Rev. Dr. Gary Deddo. I AGREE!!! Therefore, a better definition of Spiritual Warfare is “God the Father, Son and Spirit of Love and Grace coming into creation in the Son Jesus to adopt, reconcile and save it BEFORE it even got lost! It is God’s passionate and proactive Love and determination that all of His creatures know and experience Him as Jesus does, forever!” Wow! This means that our fight with evil is REALLY a “Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner” situation – with evil being “Wile E. Coyote”, and all of creation being the “Road Runner” in Jesus! HaHa! Think of the Confident Craftiness and Glory that must lie behind God’s command for dust (Us!) to stand before evil in the Power of the Lord’s Might!
Final: “Counseling With Others in the Good News of Jesus!”, pt.3
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Evangelism, Gospel, Love, Perichoresis, Relationships, The Dance and Dream of the Trinity, The Plan of Adoption, Trinity | Tags: Christian Living, Evangelism, Faith, Gospel, Jesus, overcoming evil, Perichoresis, Relationships, Trinity
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As we again celebrate Jesus and His first and second coming’s this Advent season, I close this series of articles on my recent counseling session with a friend [Sentences have been restructured to grant anonymity and add clarity]. The last question to me was, interestingly:
3.) “Also, one of the other questions is: what are the future consequences for this evil behavior after the glorious coming of Jesus?”
My response was:
“The answer to this question is that it remains to be seen, but because of Jesus and their Inclusion into His Love and Life they will only know and experience more of the Relational and Loving God Who holds them! For one who decides to go “against the grain” of this goodness (in insanity!), they will obviously know greatly the painful experience that comes from trying to escape the grip of a Relational and Loving God Who will never let them go! HaHa! The scriptures use a variety of expressions to describe the fate of those who resist the Truth (Jesus!), including “death”, “hell”, “the grave”, “fire”, “darkness”, “blindness”, “weeping” and “gnashing of teeth”, etc.) The point of all of these allusions, to me and many others, is that these diverse images are vivid and memorable ways of picturing that it is NOT good to reject and embrace the only Reality there is – your adoption into the Life and Love of the Father, Son and Spirit, in the Person of Jesus Christ! It can only be insane and necessarily painful!
As my friend Mike Feazell once said, those who reject Jesus Christ won’t be allowed to mess up the Wedding Supper of the Lamb and “spoil the party”. However, because of Who Jesus has Revealed God to be, we can be sure that (like the Father outside the house with the self-righteous son at the end of the Story of the Prodigal God in Luke 15), our Father will always be with His children, even in their self-righteous insanity! Even as the Father in that story continues to plead that His son come inside the house, our Father will be pleading that every son and daughter of His “come in” and enjoy and “party hearty” with the family, inside the house that is already theirs (Luke 15:11-12!) HaHa!
Those who resist God at the Second Coming of Jesus (if any REALLY do resist – because just as we can’t prove people won’t resist Jesus, we also can’t prove they will resist Him! Haha!), will only be rebelling AS sons and daughters who are included in God’s family by grace, not as those trying to become sons and daughters and get included on their own terms! You already experience a similar relational experience if you have children and, if not with children, with your pets! They rebel as YOURS already! HaHa!
Again, the best that we can do now in our participation with Jesus is express to others what we believe about Jesus – Who He is and what He has made of All Humanity in Himself – and proclaim it boldly, regardless of the outcome or their being unconvinced! Believers are simply witness bearers and NOT apologist trying to scientifically “prove” the Truth! As theologian Karl Barth once stated “Belief cannot argue with unbelief, it can only preach to it.” Because faith is about the faith of Christ and placing our faith in His faith on our behalf, it is NOT about proof! Proof is never proof to someone who does not have faith in the proof as proof! HaHaHa.”
Finally, to you our readers, I add that we must always leave room for the greatest vision and hope of all in the Light of Jesus Christ, by Whom we now ask and have all our questions answered – for He is the Beginning and End and God’s FINAL ANSWER to His dealings with creation. In Jesus, we have nothing less than the Word and Son of God made flesh, and the One in, and through, and by, and for Whom all things are created and sustained. In Him – in His very Being God as God as Man and Creature – and supported by the scriptures and ancient tradition of the Church, is the FACT (in Faith!) that evil, death, hell and the grave have been utterly conquered and overcome in all of creation! This must mean something significant for the good of all – NOT by force, but by Love – and there is a difference, though the result is still ALL! HaHa!
For your interest, one of the great modern reads, in my opinion, on proper thinking in the Light of Jesus Christ about the Providence of God the Father, Son and Spirit and His interaction with creation and evil in Christ can be found HERE.
I also recommend this book as a great start on the subject!
You can find the earlier two posts in this series here and here .
Timothy J. Brassell
Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh And Blood, Part 4A
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Gospel, Perichoresis, Relationships, Sermons, Spiritual Warfare, The Dance and Dream of the Trinity, The Plan of Adoption, Trinity | Tags: Christian Living, Church, Gospel, Jesus, Perichoresis, Relationships, Spiritual Warfare, Trinity
Leave a comment 12.09.30 Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh And Blood, Part 4A (Eph 6.10-20) – TAH
Those who embrace Jesus and the Relational God revealed in Him are the present form of Christ’s body on earth. Therefore, along with Jesus, we bear the brunt of demonic attacks as we take part with Life in Him! Pastors are particularly vulnerable to attack and need your prayer! However, by directing us all to pray and stand in the power of the Lord’s might, Paul is taking seriously that we already have complete victory in the Might of the Lord! Hear how we can experience trouble but not distress, perplexity but not despair, persecution but not being forsaken, and being cast down but not be destroyed!
Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh And Blood, Part 3
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Church, Gospel, Love, Perichoresis, Prayer, Relationships, Sermons, Spiritual Warfare, The Plan of Adoption, Trinity | Tags: Christian Living, Church, Gospel, Jesus, Love, Perichoresis, Prayer, Relationships, Spiritual Warfare, Trinitarian Theology, Trinity
Leave a comment 12.09.23 Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh And Blood, Part 3 (Eph 6.10-20) – TAH
What if, in the Light of God the Trinity, spiritual warfare is actually God’s passionate Love and determination that all of His creatures know and experience Him as Jesus does? That would ultimately make spiritual warfare Good News since it is initiated by the Relational God Who IS good, acting personally and unceasingly to share His Love and Life with All creation! But in come the Doubter’s questions: Is God REALLY Good?, Can God really be trusted to be and do good?, Doesn’t God really have two minds about us all? And by the way, where is the hell we all know and love? From this message get a better definition of spiritual warfare and the REAL attacks going on!
Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh and Blood, Part 2 (Ephesians 6.10-20)
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Church, Gospel, Perichoresis, Relationships, Sermons, Spiritual Warfare, The Plan of Adoption, Trinity, Uncategorized | Tags: Christian Living, Church, evil, Incarnation, Jesus, Perichoresis, Relationships, Spiritual Warfare, St. Athanasius, trials, Trinity
Leave a comment 12.09.16 Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh And Blood (Eph 6.10-20) – TAH
What if Spiritual Warfare has more to do with Who God the Father, Son and Spirit is as Love and Reconciliation, than who and what evil is as hate and division? What if we looked at spiritual warfare through God’s “Love Glasses”?; might we not then see personal evil (and its accompanying sin and disease) more as a sickness to be healed and not as a”roach” to be exterminated? You are encouraged in this series to embrace the Relational God revealed in Jesus and let Him be not only Central but Sovereign as you consider every topic in the Light of Him, including who and what the Church is as it participates uniquely with Christ!
The Waiting Father
Filed under: By Craig Kuhlman, Gospel, Love, Perichoresis, Relationships, Trinity, Uncategorized | Tags: Doubt, Fear, Guilt, Home, hopeful universalism, Luke 15:11-32, security, Separation, Shame, Sin, The Waiting Father, unconditional acceptance, union
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Luke 15: 11-32, for me, is one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture describing our Father’s love for all humanity. It provides each one of us the foundation to stand before our Creator with no fear, no shame, no guilt, and no doubt.
A number of years ago my family and I were flying home from a vacation trip. I entered into a rare moment of deep meditation, lost in my own thoughts. A vision flooded my mind when my mom and I were waiting in the parking lot for my dad. It had been years since I thought about those trips to pick him up from work to take him home. I remembered very clearly, how, as a young boy, I would wait for the doors of the RCA plant to open at the 4 p.m. bell. I eagerly waited to see my dad in the crowd, on his way “home.” I remembered the joy of seeing him. Although it brought a smile to my face, I didn’t know why I was recalling this, until I felt God’s presence speak to me. In that moment, it became clear. I heard God say to me, “that’s how I feel toward you. I get the same joy of seeing you just like you did in seeing your dad come through those doors.” I immediately broke into tears with an awkward hope no one was looking. It became a very touching memory and metaphor of the Love our Father has in seeing and waiting for all of humanity, all of his children, “coming through the doors of life on their way home.” He always smiles with joy at seeing you and me, just as I did, when I saw my dad.
Commentators have called the Parable of the Prodigal Son, many things. The one I love the most is, “The Waiting Father.”
Breaking into the story, when the son requested his inheritance, his father had an amazing reaction. There was no imposition of fear, or shame, or guilt, or doubt. There was no anger, or punishment. He simply gave him what he asked for and let him leave on a trip leading to a life less than zero. The son gathered what he had, left home, and “headed for Hollywood.”
Verse 17 begins with a beautiful line, “When he (the son) came to his senses…” Because of God’s love for His creation He sent His Son to unite us forever and included us (and the entire cosmos) in Union with Him. When Jesus died on the cross, he said, “It is finished.” Our Union in Him is accomplished forever, and is irrevocable. For any one human being to cease to exist, Jesus would have to cease to exist. It is an accomplished fact. Unfortunately, most of humanity is included without a clue, until we come to our senses, believe, and come home. When we do, we find a Waiting Father. A Father who doesn’t wait for a moment, or a few years, or just in this lifetime (as some Christian friends may tell us) but one who will be waiting for eternity, as long as it takes.
In verse 20 we find that Waiting Father (waiting for his son to come home)…”but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him.” The son had worked up a repentance speech to make his way back home into the family just as a hired servant, but his dad didn’t allow him to finish his speech. He restored him to full fellowship in the family as if he never left. His dad didn’t allow sin to separate him from his son. He had been his son, and the relationship with his son had never changed. He had always been his son. But when the son came to his senses and came home, the son’s relationship and fellowship changed toward his Father. His Father never moved, never changed his love for his son, and remained…waiting. For us, just as with the son, it is always our move, because Jesus made the first move toward us when he brought us home.
Just as I would wait with anticipation for my dad, our heavenly Dad waits with anticipation for us. Our loving father waits, and waits, and waits, and will forever wait until all humanity comes to its senses, and comes “home.” While He is waiting, He never loses His sense of joy and feeling toward us, despite what we may think. When humanity comes through those doors, comes home, one by one, our dad will be standing there with open arms.
~by Craig Kuhlman
Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh and Blood! Part 1
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Church, Gospel, Perichoresis, Relationships, Sermons, Spiritual Warfare, Trinity, Uncategorized | Tags: Christian Living, good news, Gospel, Jesus, Perichoresis, Relationships, Spiritual Warfare, Trinity
Leave a comment Y(our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh And Blood, Part 1 (Eph 6.10-20)
Have you ever looked at a horrible or sad situation in your life and KNEW, “Yep, the struggle is REAL!”? Pastor Timothy Brassell helps us see that the struggles we all face are personal and real – and sometimes personally evil – in the first of this 5 part series on “The Reality of Spiritual Warfare!”. This ISN’T your typical Spiritual Warfare series, but Jesus-centered insight and encouragement coming out of the heart of the Relational God that Jesus Reveals! As usual, it exalts God the Father, Son and Spirit and how He foresaw the struggles within His creation, planning from before the foundation of the world that it would experience victory over all struggles in Jesus, and know Him as the Good News right in the middle of them!
Jesus and the Naked Grape
Filed under: Bible, By Bill Winn, Christian Living, Church, Humor, Love, The Dance and Dream of the Trinity, Trinity | Tags: Bill Winn, Church, Grace, grace communion internationa, Irenaeus, Jesus, naked grape, Religion, wine
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Well a couple of months ago my wife Davina asked me to stop in at the market to pick up a few items for a spaghetti squash dish that she makes. (It’s quite good) On the list of items for the recipe was a bottle of dry white wine. So as I left my last visit for the day I stopped by one of the many grocers near our home. Working my way down the list I got the crushed red tomatoes, spaghetti squash, and the dry white wine. Well truth is I did not care if it was a dry wine or not because I found a brand of white wine called The Naked Grape. “Awesome!” I thought, “This is a two-for, I get the wine and I get to come in the house and see my wife and daughters’ reaction to the label on this bottle.” I just knew it would be fun and went on my merry way to the checkout. Well I thought my way would be merry but I had forgotten that I was wearing a T-shirt designed by my friend Lance McKinnon that says JESUS. I really had not even thought about the T-shirt until I got in the speedy check-out lane. While in the line I was just in front of a Caucasian woman in her 50’s and just behind her was an elderly African-American woman in one of those slick little shopping go-karts. As I placed the wine on the conveyor the lady just behind me stated quite loudly, “Oh, I see, a Jesus T-shirt AND a bottle of wine.” I did not know what to do except smile sheepishly when all of the sudden a graveled voice from the scooter-cart said, “Well the Bible doesn’t say drinking is a sin but judging people is!” You could have heard a pin drop. I laughed nervously, took my receipt and goods, and left as fast as I could. On the drive home a slew of questions came to mind. If Jesus had invited me to the wedding at Cana would I have been too embarrassed to go knowing that he might associate himself with wine? Why was I so embarrassed by that situation? What was the big deal about having my Jesus T-shirt on and buying a bottle of wine -and a bottle of Naked Grape to boot? Why has the Christian church that I love and have pledged my life to serve shamed us into thinking we can’t be free? Have we been duped by religiosity so much that we cannot enjoy the world and all the good things the Blessed Trinity has given us? We were not created for religion. You see, the Father, Son, and Spirit created us to share in Their life of love and fellowship. The Good Shepherd said in John 10:10 that he came so we might have life and have it fully! When Jesus said ‘life’ he could have chosen a few different words in the language of the day. He could have said the word that means biological life, he could have used the word for soul, but instead he chose the word that means ‘spiritual’ life. Jesus was referring to the life he has shared with His Father in the communion of the Holy Spirit from all eternity. It is into the very Triune life of God that we have been included. This is huge! Jesus has set us free for freedom’s sake! (Gal. 5:1) And Jesus has given us spaghetti squash, wives, husbands, children, homes, football, tennis, swimming, summer camp, music and dancing, and a whole host of blessings we could never list in one blog and yes Jesus has even given us wine! The religion under which we suffer from time to time only hurts because it runs against the grain of our inclusion in the Triune life of love, freedom, sharing, giving, laughter, joy, other-centeredness, dancing, and every other good thing we can imagine and a million more we can’t even dream. It was Irenaeus who said, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” I believe he was right! It’s past 8 PM now and I must go -there is a dram of Single Malt calling my name! Cheers!
~ Bill Winn
Sermon: You are the Imago Dei
Filed under: By Bill Winn, Christian Living, Gospel, Perichoresis, Trinity |
Leave a comment You Are The Imago Dei by Bill Winn
You are the Image of God the Trinity! That was the Good News message brought to New Life Fellowship of Baltimore, MD. during their Great Dance weekend celebration by guest Pastor Bill Winn of Richmond Grace Fellowship in Richmond, VA.. Hear Pastor Bill proclaim that it is not who you know that counts most, but Who knows you – and God the Father, Son and Spirit KNOWS YOU! Be encouraged!
Come, Lord Jesus
Filed under: By Jonathan Stepp, Christian Living, Evangelism, Gospel, Ministry, Perichoresis, Trinity |
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A friend visited me in Nashville a few years back and after spending some time downtown he said, “You guys have a real homelessness problem here!” My reply was simple: “Actually, we have a mental healthcare problem here.”
I think it’s the same almost everywhere in America. It’s not so much that people won’t work or that there’s not enough cheap housing. The problem is that people are psychotic, neurotic, clinically depressed, schizophrenic, and have no idea how to manage the pain, rage, and sadness in which they’re drowning. Over the years they’ve learned coping mechanisms: lying, stealing, sex, alcohol and drugs to try to dull the pain and escape the insanity. Of course those things only work for a little while and when they stop working the result is estrangement from family, friends, and church, then eviction, and then homelessness.
I find that most people want to help with problems such as poverty and homelessness. People dig into their own pockets, and churches dig into their bank accounts, to help. As a society we fund numerous government programs for housing, food stamps, unemployment benefits, and a host of other ministries. Can you imagine how bad the situation would be if we as a society didn’t use wide-ranging programs to try and help? Just visit a nation without the resources and/or political will to take care of its poorest people. What you see there are children begging on the street and vast shanty-towns of desperately poor people living in cardboard shacks. American cities could easily look just like that if it weren’t for private and government programs that try to help
Here’s my point in all this: we all have our role to play in participating in Jesus’ redemption and restoration of this mess. Some of us earn big bucks so we can contribute money through taxes and donations. Some of us have been gifted to heal mental health problems. Some of us keep order in the midst of the chaos by serving in the police force. Some of us mold young minds in schools to try and break the cycle. Some of us show love to the unloved by hugging them and praying for them at church.
And we can all participate in working to revolutionize the very nature of humanity’s perception of reality. The world needs a better God-knowledge (theology) than the one it has inherited from previous generations. The world needs a knowledge of God rooted in the Trinity, in Jesus, and in humanity’s adoption into the Trinity through the flesh and blood of Jesus. This is the heart of evangelism: all of us playing our part to help make sure that in the next generation there will be even more people who know who Jesus really is and who humanity really is in him. And then there will be even more in the generation after that, and even more in the generation after that, and so on, for centuries to come, until the knowledge of the Lord fills the earth as the waters cover the sea.
I know some of you are saying “Well, that won’t happen until Christ returns.”
Can you imagine if St. Paul and the other apostles had adopted that attitude 2,000 years ago? I can hear them now: “Oh, Christ will be back in a few years, so no need to preach the good news about him or try to change the world one person at a time.” In spite of all the problems we face, the world is still a better place today than it was in the days of the apostles, and it is a better place because they set out from Jerusalem with the good news of Jesus and a dream to change the world. I don’t know when Christ will return. But I do know that the good news of humanity’s adoption in Christ is the solution to the problems we are facing. It was the solution two millennia ago, it’s the solution today, and it will be the solution even when Christ comes in glory.
So my prayer is the same as that of the first Christians: Come, Lord Jesus. May the knowledge of who you are, and who humanity is in you, come now in the lives of all those who are suffering today. May it come in the lives of my children and grand-children and great grand-children. And yes, Lord, come again in glory so that we may all know the life of the world to come. Amen.
~ Jonathan Stepp