Archive for the ‘Perichoresis’ Tag
Stories Of Prayer In Acts
Grace Communion International Regional Superintendent, Greg Williams, recently visited New Life Fellowship of Baltimore, Maryland and took them through various stories of prayer in the book of Acts. These stories demonstrated how the Church can and does experience the Father, Son and Spirit in relationship through prayer and the importance and encouragement of relating with God in this way! Greg concluded the message by leading the congregation in a prayer gathered around on of its seriously sick teens, Autumn Brassell, who looks to be suffering the symptoms of Lupus.
Gospel Questions & Answers (Dr. Baxter Kruger)
Here is the Question and Answer portion following Dr. Baxter Kruger’s recent visit to New Life Fellowship of Baltimore Maryland on July 14th, 2013. If you have not seen them, please check out the free resources at http://www.thegreatdance.org or find Baxter at Grace Communion International. If you are living near the Asheville, North Carolina area, you may want to consider meeting up with Baxter at http://opentableconference.com/.
In Christ You Have Been Brought To Fullness!
Guess who came home to visit? That’s right – Dr. Baxter Kruger, director of Perichoresis Ministries, International best-selling Author of The Shack Revisited, theologian, writer, fishing lure designer, my personal mentor and world travelling partner/friend of Wm. Paul Young (author of The Shack and Crossroads!) As you can see from the pictures Baxter spent time with the old and young, sold and signed books, attended his first Orioles game and took an exercise walk with me as we discussed more deeply the things he spoke to our Church congregation on Sunday! Baxter’s goal, and ours with him at New Life, is to recover the Christ-centered, trinitarian Gospel of the ancient Church, and understand its relevance to human life today while articulating the Truth of Humanity’s Adoption in Jesus in practical and personal ways that are relevant and accessible to the average person. We think he met his goal in preaching to us! 🙂
Why Didn’t God JUST Forgive Us?!, part 4
GOTF6 – Why Didn’t God Just Forgive Us, part 4 (Rom 7.7-25) – TAH
Handout Excerpt: On the Incarnation of the Word of God
In this last message buffet (in what became a series on “Forgiveness”), we are reminded through scripture and St. Athanasius that all of humanity is so forgiven by God the Father, Son and Spirit, that in Jesus Christ He has made death to “disappear from [all of humanity] as utterly as straw from fire”. Now that is Gospel, relational powerful and practical!
Why Didn’t God JUST Forgive Us?! part 2
In this Good News Audio WE HAVE LOTS OF FUN as Pastor T and a few audience members take part in an illustration designed to answer a crucial point about the nature of God’s forgiveness toward us! You may not be able to catch the illustration fully by just hearing the audio, and we’re sorry about that, but it sure was insightful and fun in person! HaHa! 🙂
Jesus, God’s Christmas Gift To Us All
12.10.23 Jesus, God’s Christmas Gift To Us All (Luke 1.27-38) – TAH
As quoted in this Message of God’s Good News: “When announced to us, the gospel tells us that, long before we can do anything about it, even before we can know about it, ‘God has set his love upon us and chosen us in Jesus Christ to be His own.’” To see and embrace that as the Truth is to KNOW by God’s shared grace that Jesus REALLY is God’s Christmas Gift to You and All Humanity!
God Is Love And Love Is Hell…Sometimes!, Part 5B
12.10.04 God Is Love And Love Is Hell Sometimes, Part 5B (Mark 9.38-50) – TAH
In this last part of the last message of the series “The Reality of Spiritual Warfare!” Pastor Tim emphasizes a quote from his friend, Jonathan Stepp, who writes “we are all the Father’s beloved children in Christ. Therefore, whatever Jesus says about millstones and plucking out eyes has to be interpreted in the light of a loving Father. So, sometimes you hear a mom say “stop that, or I’ll snatch you bald-headed!” or some variant of that. The child knows three things: one, that his mom is very serious, two, that she is using hyperbole to get his attention, and, three, that he is his mother’s beloved child – if he were not her beloved child she wouldn’t care enough to call him on his BS….Jesus is using hyperbole to make the point: this is serious stuff because we are all included.”
God Is Love And Love Is Hell…Sometimes!, Part 5A
12.10.04 God Is Love And Love Is Hell Sometimes, Part 5A (Mark 9.38-50) – TAH
In this 1st part of the last message of the series “The Reality of Spiritual Warfare!” learn how the REAL Subject of scripture is the God Revealed in Jesus Christ, and how this Relational God gives us better light on all the topics of scripture, including Hell. This particular scripture was chosen because it is so filled with “hell talk” from Jesus and is typical about how we miss the main point! The real SHOCKER about this passage on hell is that hell is actually presented as a threat from Jesus to His own followers! NOTICE: “Jesus is speaking to believers in warning and not sinners in condemnation!”. Oops…we have some rethinking to do! 🙂
Y(Our) Struggles Aren’t Against Flesh And Blood, Part 4B
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
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
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