Meditations: Apart From Me You Can Do Nothing

4"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. ~ John 15

This is huge. In all Scripture, Jesus gives us a watershed moment here.

Abiding is dwelling, being at our very core. 'Abiding in Jesus and Jesus in you' is a co-dwelling, a mutual dwelling, a communion whereby we are transformed.

The staggering wonder of abiding in vine is that we enter into a divine mystery, the unfolding of eternal life within us.

Without me you can do nothing ~ Selah

Let the thunder struck of these words sink into your heart and spirit.

Jesus didn't give us a belief system, a creed to supersede the law.

Let me say it again. Jesus didn't give us a set of beliefs, a creedal performance system.

Jesus gave himself, that we might receive himself and live a new life in him and him in us.

Hear it again, Apart from me, you can do NOTHING.

You can't do it on your own. Jesus knows you can't. He wants you to rest in him so that the flow of eternal life will move you, grow you, as a vine grows fruit.

He wants you to enter your rest in him, so that you can work out of that rest, to work out eternal life in our common everyday life.

Some Cool Thoughts on Contemplation

Contemplation is a Being practice.
It is the practice of our spirit.
It's our spiritual practice of dwelling in the spirit.

Our self-help is soul work.
All self-help work is an 'outside in' practice.
It's formation work, temporal work, and it's never ending.
And as we let up, it begins the long slow degrade.

Spiritual work however, is transformative, it's eternal, it never degrades.
All spiritual work is 'inside out' work.
We work it out into our lives, we integrate the transformation God is doing within us.
We liken it to a garden in our heart, growing the Tree of Life (Jesus), or a stream of living water flowing through us, or abiding in the vine. But it always begins in our spirit and it always begins with God.

What Is Chi?

The basic definition of Chi is spirit. As we are a triune: Spirit, Soul and Body, spirit is the essence of who we are.

As I was doing Tai Chi this morning, I felt the practice lifting me out of depression into my spirit. Centering myself in my spirit is another way to say it.

Any practice that puts you in the flow is spirit practice. When you feel in the flow, you're experiencing your spirit.

Now here's the scoop: When you're centered in your spirit, it's one small step to center yourself into God. We bring our heart into the equation and enter in.

We do spirit practices so that we can live out of our spirit and transform our soul.

Our western faith is centered in 'outside in' practices that conform us, rather than 'inside out' practices that transform us through the power of God.

As to Eastern Practices

Now, as to Eastern practices like Meditation, Tai Chi or Yoga, when we strip them of their religious connotations, they are mere body practices that help us to practice our spirit.

Now Get This: In and of themselves, they are morally neutral practices. It's the spirit we bring to the practice (our spirit) that determines the direction we go in.

They are vehicles like driving a car. We determine our destination.

As to Spirituality

As to the spirituality of Believers, we'll all get there eventually. Through grace, we'll all abandon our clever head games when we've had enough of the endless labyrinth of our own soul. But don't let it be on your death bed. It's better to start the spiritual journey now.

The cool thing about this is: Suffering.

Through forgiveness, as we surrender and let go into God, our suffering is transformed into a deep compassion and mercy...bathing ourselves and others. Nothing is wasted.   

    

Awake My Heart and Sing

Religion clothes the reality of God's presence with beautiful veils of adornment. We worship them in adoration. We hold the collective memories of God's presence in shadows rather than substance. They are wonderful and can lead us into God, but memories and echoes are no substitute for being with God. Our danger lies when they become the substitute for God's presence, or the only approved way to God.

Come out into the clear light of day and worship the Living God. Discover again Jesus who will never leave you, never forsake you. When we are faithless, He is faithful. We are the ones who wander. Lay your burdens down again. Turn and behold Him who is grace, and truth and the love of God. Leave your past for the present. For Presence is always found in the eternal present.

Oh Awake my heart and sing...

The Three Stages of Christian Life for Teachers and Mentors

The Three R's/ Three modalities of Christian life 

There are three stages of teaching or mentoring our life in Jesus that cross all theological and church lines.

I use the three R's, like reading, writing and arithmetic to make it easily accessible. Our living spiritual framework usually centers in these three area's: Revival, Renewal, and Restoration.

These are not closed systems or steps we attain, they are spiritual lifestyles of our life in God.

Revival

Revival is our coming alive to God in all its aspects...coming to Jesus, awakening to the Body of Christ, the Presence of God, and the Scriptures jump off the page.

This is the stage of our foundational teaching and mentoring.

As we move 'higher up and further in' as C.S Lewis puts it, we will cycle through this stage throughout our Christian life. The problem arises when we remain here. We become stagnant and life becomes a stage where we perform.

Mentoring To The Trade: The Tradesman

Institutionally, this is usually the realm of the evangelist, the teacher, and the preacher.

Again, Revival is where we come alive to God, 'just as I am'. This is where we awaken and accept Jesus as our Lord, and this is a process as well as an event. This is where we seriously enter our journey of faith.

Now here's the downside: 

We can be taught to the test, mentored the rules instead of awakening us to more.

We can be led to become good Church people, good labors for the church system.

With every good intention, we can be 'guilted' into staying in revival mode. That happens when it's all our mentors know. We are encouraged to live lives of perpetual revival, running from fire to fire.

As it's usually taught and mentored, revival becomes an outside-in approach and it's usually steeped in the Responsibility of Man ie holiness.

Spiritually, To stay here is to live on the margins of the spiritual life God has provided for us to live out of in Jesus. Let's jump into more of God into more of you and me.

How Contemplation Fights Legalism

Contemplation is one of the best way's I've found that fights legalism. It does this by bringing the focus of our experience into knowing and abiding in Jesus in the present moment.  Here, instead of a goal to be obtained, our abundant life becomes a joy to be relished.

By removing attainment out of the equation, spiritual pride is nullified, and surrender becomes our modus operandi.

Through Jesus death and resurrection, God has in essence removed the human element out of the process and what's left for us is to work out what God has worked within us. 

On Prayer, Presence and Abiding

We tend to confuse the issue of prayer when we narrow it down to merely speaking words. The concept behind phrases like, "I'll consider it prayerfully," denotes the deeper meaning of prayer.

This is why many of us who are moving into a whole life, a Jesus life rather than a 'church life,' use terms like meditation and contemplation, to denote the deeper aspects of prayer.

God wants to love us more than anything else. The deepest and most intimate form of love is our co-dwelling presence with him.

Christ is in us and we are in him, but are we aware of it? Where is the awareness of our presence focused? Is our presence asleep as our old self, as our old broken fallen man 'runs the show'?

These are things we learn through meditation and contemplation.

My goal, and I'm intentional about it, is to come into the living abiding presence of God.

Now if I have to start all over a thousand times a day, that's O.K. It's a journey, this spiritual life, not getting it down perfect. It's not a performance. I leave the perfection up to God. I have little experience in just how perfect, perfect can be.

My goal is to bring this broken mess of a man into the presence of God. And that takes the grace, mercy and forgiveness of God through Jesus.

Now Jesus tells us to 'abide in the vine', and that takes presence.

Where is your presence dwelling right now? It can be sorting through your past, or caught up in your future. Some of it may be dealing with your past, worrying about your future, and be here at the same time. But until you bring 'the light', or focus of your awareness right here into this moment, until your awareness is fully here, you aren't ready to pray, much less to 'enter in'. You're working out of a fractured self until you gather yourself up and just be present. This is the beginning of wholeness.

This is what our daily spiritual practice is all about. To wake us up and plug us in. Make it simple or make it complex. This is my goal, my awaken awareness of presence. How else could we enter into God's presence? while part of us is somewhere else? How else could we walk or live in the Holy Spirit? It's spiritual life, abundant life, eternal life we're dealing with here. Let's avail ourselves of God's gift.