Tag Archives: born again

March 24, 2012 · 7:47 pm

Metaphorically Speaking of the Kingdom

Television has popularized and made common the concepts surrounding evidentiary law. In fact in their opening argument lawyers often mention that the evidence presented in court might not be as clear as they are used to seeing on television. Shows like Law and Order, CSI, NCIS, Bones, JAG and the like have done a lot to make common the understanding about the presentation and collection of evidence.  It is this is common understanding that makes evidentiary law such a great metaphor.

 All that is required for a metaphor to work is a common understanding and the ability to draw upon the relationships between the subject and the metaphor. Jesus the Master taught about spiritual things using farming as metaphor. Since there was a common understanding about farming Jesus was able to relate with His audience. When speaking about spiritual things my personal favorite metaphor would be to use the concepts surrounding quantum physics. However that would have a limited audience and would require a lot more explanation to make sure that the audience also understands the analogy that is being used.

John 3:12
If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

 Jesus the master indicated this problem of communicating spiritual truth when talking to a spiritual teacher of His time in chapter three of the book of John. He uses the analogy of being born and he uses the metaphor of the wind. Neither of these worked because the teacher had no understanding of the process of birth nor of the operation of wind. Therefore we must choose a metaphor that folks can relate to or we will fail to bring understanding.

 For many years American television has programed shows like Adam 12 and Dragnet which have impacted our culture and have provided many fictional scenarios of the relationship between justice and evidence. So if we want understanding to have cultural impact we should also draw upon analogies with things that have relative impact on our culture. Therefore this is another reason why I believe the Lord has led me to use such and analogy. In December 2011 I was awaken from a dream with an overwhelmingly strong desire to write about my favorite subject, The kingdom of God (KoG) and use the tenants of evidentiary law as an analogy.

 Believe me when I tell you I am not trying to show off my ability to gather and understand information. As a person who works in the occupation of software development, law is a subject that is way out of my league. Thank God for the internet and the spiritual truth that states, that in the last days knowledge shall increase. This understanding about evidence not only common for me but it is common and culturally apart of us in the western world.

The KoG is invisible and therefore evidence is something we as representatives of the Kingdom must provide to people who are not awake to its existence. This spiritual evidence that we provided is also given to help change a person’s mind. In our case we are trying to establish the mind of Christ as the new mindset in order to break the bondages and blindness of the old carnal mindset. Evidence of the Kingdom is also used to establish authority and like a signet ring it will prove that the delegation of that authority is authentic.

You, I and all members of the human race have been made joint heirs of God’s Kingdom because of the obedience of Jesus the Christ. For those of us who are awake to this fact now carry the responsibility to awaken those that are still asleep to the truth. Can you imagine having infinite power, wealth, resources and health and not knowing it?

 Galatians 4:1-3
Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, 2 but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. 3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.

 So I offer the entirety of this blog as evidence of a conscious that is able to see the truth of our Father’s spiritual Kingdom. We relate with our senses in a world that has a structure organized to keep us blind to the reality of the kingdom. To live in the realized truth of our Fathers Kingdom means we are free from the hold of the structures and bondages of the visible world.

 The tenants of evidentiary law is a great metaphor because they are intangible and the effect on our life, if we have the knowledge and skill in the use them, can be the difference between remaining innocent and living free in this world or spending our life serving a sentence in the bondage of a penal intuition.

 In the same way if we know and understand how to use spiritual evidence it can provide freedom from this world bondages and make available the benefits of the Kingdom for ourselves and others. It is the goal of this blog to provide the evidence that will empower us to be active citizens in the KoG. The Christian new birth experience will awaken the reality of the KoG. However when Kingdom evidence, is presented a heavenly consciousness becomes available and the realization of our unity with the Kingdom inside of us is revealed.   

 Matthew 6:24
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

 We have been made free but we only realize the freedom when we are conscious of the spiritual presence within and when we choose not to rely on the power and might of humans and  the external world. Dual citizenships are presented to us, and we must choose which Kingdom we will declare allegiance. Scripture says it is impossible to serve two kingdoms and spiritual evidence makes visible the spiritual Kingdom.

 Therefore spiritual evidence, Kingdom evidence empowers all who view it to choose it. The choice is between the comfortable world we know; the world of sight, sound, smell, taste and hearing. The other choice is a world of spiritual perception and knowledge of overwhelming love and acceptance. One choice is bondage to this world and the other is freedom to be one with God our Father, one choice is familiar the other requires exploration and personal transformation. One choice puts us on a path that is wide and the other leads to a journey on narrow path. So as active members we present evidence to a jury of our peers for each person to make their own choice.

 Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

 

Please comment and share:

  1. What was the evidence that set you on the spiritual path?
  2. What evidence empowers and keeps at the task of spiritual transformation into the image of Christ?

 

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March 3, 2012 · 10:30 pm

Living in Liberating Innocence

In keeping with our mission we are using evidentiary law and its tenants as a metaphor concerning the proof needed to reveal the activity of the Kingdom of God (KoG). So let’s take a look at another very powerful type of evidence. Exculpatory evidence removes guilt from a defendant and if the trial is just, innocence will be again restored for the defendant. If there is a presumption of innocence, in our American system of justice (our part of the material world), why is the concept of exculpatory evidence a part of evidentiary law?  That leads to the next question, at what point is guilt applied?  If the answer is that guilt is only applied after a just conviction by trial, then why did not the exculpatory evidence protect the innocent during first trial? If you are following my logic, why, if innocence is presumed and when person is truly innocent, would we ever need the legal tenant called exculpatory evidence?

 These are not trick questions but ones that I am using to highlight the difference between the KoG and the kingdom if this world. In God’s invisible and spiritual Kingdom there is a transparency and knowledge that is not available to the senses of people who only live by the revelation of the material realm. Our heavenly Father makes available three qualities by His Spirit to all of us who know the truth and live in the KoG. God is Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent. These all-qualities mean that everything is already in the Kingdom because what else is there besides all?  So the judicial system of the KoG is far superior to that of mankind’s judicial systems, be they religious or secular. So now I hope you are catching on to the fact that God alone is the Justice of the eternal Supreme Court and He will determine innocence.

 Colossians 1:16
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

 Hebrews 11:3
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

 Genesis 1:1
[ The History of Creation ] In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

 All members of the KoG have been given the ultimate evidence which is the blood of Christ for our sin. Sin separates and forgiveness establishes a relationship to a position of innocence. The bible tells us that “Love covers a multitude of sin” and that “perfect love cast out all fear”. So without a consciousness of our heavenly Father’s love we cannot believe He has forgiven us. Therefore if there is any reasonable doubt concerning Gods forgiveness we will hide in fear from God who in truth loves us. Not having an understanding of this truth is a condition that bible calls the “carnal mind”. It believes that things are separate from God, some things are good and some things are evil (the original sin).

 Even those who believe they are doing kingdom work and have assumed the responsibility to deliver the good news of innocence, in my experience sometimes view personal relationships from this carnal mind point of view. For example, how many times have we had the salvation message preached to us as if it did not work the first, or the last time that we made the commitment? If you are like me we help our children make the commitment, but every time they, in our judgment, fail to measure up we ask them or guilt them into providing more compelling evidence that their eternal salvation is still intact. In reality when most of us look in the mirror, judging ourselves again and again, we try to balance our good actions against the justifications of our bad actions. In other words if a jury of our peers was convened, even if we ourselves were on said jury, most of us would still need a preponderance exculpatory evidence to win a favorable verdict.

 If there is one common benefit every human looks for as a reason to become a member of God’s Kingdom it is the freedom from guilt. We know this on the inside to be true, but from the carnal conscience the KoG is for a distant time in the future. The objective of most religions is to gain enough right standing prior to our final breath to enter into the kingdom. Jesus the Master said “that the Kingdom is at hand”, meaning it is already present in time. But today one of the tag lines in a popular song at the top of the charts is “I do not want to go to heaven if I can’t get in.”

 For those who have experienced a Protestant Christian conversion, you know that the entire focus of the “born again” experience is all about the forgiveness of sin. The process is traditionally revealed something like this. As a member of the world God, has this other organization call the church and if you confess all your sins you are free to enter. The promise that “the old has passed away and all things are made new” is very compelling. Even more compelling is the threat that eternal separation from God is inescapable if you fail to join or maintain church membership. But once you have joined, the keepers of the membership gate continue to require fresh and compelling evidence of your ability to repent and produce faith evidence in order to be considered a member in good standing with your eternal salvation intact.

 Catholics offer a baptism at birth which grants free entrance into the church and for people like my earthly father they make provisions that allow the traditions and values of membership to pass to the newly converted. As a child there was something mystical and liberating about being “ok with God” from birth. But as we get older the carnal mind no longer believes the innocence of salvation and as we try to keep up with the weekly requirements for repentance there develops a burden sometimes creates a need to justify membership for eternal salvation.

 Those were my simplified explanations of how the majority of western Christians use religion to solve the relation problems with God. However, Jesus the master operating as the Christ died for all men and became the only true exculpatory evidence any of us children of Adam will ever need. If membership in the KoG represents freedom from sin and its associated guilt, then proof of membership is everything.  So the truth of Kingdom is, that God, through Christ, has made us innocent and provided “once for all”; that is for all of mankind and for all time both, temporal and eternal, an irrevocable membership. For those who have awakened to the truth concerning this spiritual Kingdom the burden of proof has forever been removed and the presumption of innocence provides freedom of relationship with God that will never be surpassed.

 In old Jewish tradition when a man and a woman want to change their relationship status to married, representatives from each family, usually the fathers of the bride and groom negotiate the terms of this marriage. Traditionally at a family dinner the father of the groom would offer a contract with a dowry and then push his wine goblet across the table to signify an offer. The father of the bride would either accept or continue the negotiation by sliding the cup back and forth until an agreement was reached. Once accepted you had a marriage and the cup was accepted. The groom and his father return to his father’s home and the groom would build a room on the house and the bride would use the dowry to prepare for the marriage.

 Hebrews 6:13
[ God’s Infallible Purpose in Christ ] For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,

In the Garden of Gethsemane, through scripture we witness this negation taking place. Jesus makes the statement in Matthew 26:39 “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me”.  God has given us, the bride of Christ, Holy Spirit as a dowry payment until Jesus Christ returns from adding rooms onto His Father’s mansion. If we are awake to this truth, we can become the evidence, that the possibility has become reality today. Therefore our sales pitch if you will, should simply be, He did it for me, and now by His grace innocence has been restored for all.

2 Corinthians 3:17
Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

 As we consciously make the Kingdom available to all that we meet, we are doing our Father’s will. We are providing powerful evidence and we become witnesses to the expansion of God’s Kingdom. When an ambassador leaves his kingdom as a representative he has immunity from the laws that govern the land that he is visiting and he cannot be found guilty. Some ambassadors are authorized to grant asylum to the kingdom they represent. We can be ambassadors to the KoG, if we walk in the liberty of innocence and help reconcile others to the Kingdom.

 We live in a time where the keepers of the existing state of affairs in the material world, sometimes unknowingly, erect obstacles to the entrance of the KoG to prevent people from leaving their carnal kingdoms. There is a worldly mindset that is universal in its delusion of God’s love. However Jesus has overcome the world for us and we have been made innocent and can live in the liberty of that truth. Members of God’s Kingdom who understand this have been given the power and authority to reveal the truth about our innocence so people can live free. As this truth of innocence, which is counter to the present culture, is revealed it will cause more and more people to do whatever it takes to enter the true and spiritual Kingdom of God.

 Matthew 11:12
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.

Please chime in on the topics below.

  1. Are you living and expressing Kingdom evidence such that it is making all the people around feel free enough to openly or secretly leave the material world and join in the KoG?
  2. How often does someone impose a burden of proof on you, and what exculpatory evidence do you provide, or do you just run and hide?  Be specific.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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February 25, 2012 · 7:17 pm

Chains That Bind

One of the principal concepts of evidentiary law is the Chain of Custody (CoC). This is simply the process that documents the seizure, custody and disposition of evidence. The subject of our evidence in this blog is that which establishes the fact about the Kingdom of God. If we are presenting evidence it must also be authentic. The chain of custody helps to establish the validity of our evidence.

Today we live in a world of mobile media that is socially networked and people work very hard to stand above the noise to gain our attention. For example in the Christian evangelical religion of which I am most familiar, claims of revival are used to generate momentum and established religious authority to validate ministry. Historically there have been many charlatans throughout the centuries that have tried to manipulate the devotions of people for various reasons, all claiming to have authentic evidence that proves they have access and authority to God’s spiritual Kingdom.

So how do we respond to those claims of evidence that are being presented? More importantly how can we be sure that the evidence we have gathered will reveal the spiritual world that the son/daughters of God have been granted access. If we allow ourselves to get into a hype battle with the material world then we cheapen the spiritual integrity of our relationship with our heavenly Father.

A chain has the purpose of binding things together.  In this case we are binding the truth of spiritual reality to our brothers and sisters who have become dull or are asleep to the spiritual truth. Depending on the degree of separation between two objects the type of chain or evidence must vary. Also if the pull on our minds by material objects then we must forge an effective chain to establish a spiritual relationship. What separates most in the material world from spiritual truth is a lack of conciseness and understanding of the reality concerning the spiritual realm.

Our material world is full of icons, symbols, and events that should connect the conscience of mankind  to the spiritual kingdom. Sadly, most of the evidence has to do with religion or the replica of spiritual reality in this material world. So when the church bell rings, when the Imam calls people to prayer, when people wear religious clothing and hair styles, or even if the news speaks of the events surrounding a holy war, the minds of mankind are not quickened, nor is their thinking transformed and focused on the spiritual. This is because chains of religious evidence can only arouse a connection to a material reality.

Likewise in a judicial court the purpose of evidencein custody is to tie the juror’s back to a moment in time, to establish a fact surrounding an event. Spiritual evidence is eternal and free from the bonds of time. So what is the truth behind our evidence? Simply put, it is the fact that God is one with mankind individually and that each individual can choose to live in that reality of spiritual oneness with their heavenly Father. Material reality and the events that happen in the temporal realm are real but unless we understand the relationships between the material and spiritual worlds we can miss the cause and effect of these relationships.

Here is a little biblical history or evidence that ties these two worlds together. Adam our earthly Father before his consciousness changed was able to demonstrate the oneness of the spiritual and the material worlds as a human being in flesh. His relationship was such that he and eve walked with God. However when their conscious changed they hid from God, who asked who told you were naked? From that moment I submit to you as biblical evidence that man was no longer had a consciousness of being one with God. But that was not nor is it the point of view of our Eternal Father. The bible calls this new mindset of Adam the “knowledge of good and evil”. That was the moment when mankind separated God from itself and everything.

Some 4000 year after Adam and Eve walked out of the garden, Jesus Christ of Nazareth came to reestablish the spiritual reality that men and women individually can renew their minds to the understanding that they are one with God. The bible calls Jesus the last Adam and the bible calls this new mindset the “mind of Christ”. With this consciousness Jesus was able to demonstrate the unity and authority available when mankind becomes conscious of a relationship with their spiritual Father. Jesus was famous for saying “If you see me you see the Father.”  From the human point of view He was convicted and crucified for blasphemy when He stated that He was equal or one with God. The truth of spiritual reality is that when we are one in the spirit we are also one in the natural. But from an earthly point of view the equation does not compute.

John 17:22-23 (NKJV)  And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

So what matters with evidence, be it biblical testimony, spiritual evidence, or material evidence, is what is chained to the evidence and what fact is the evidence trying establish. Jurors examine evidence and its authentication to judge facts. Anyone can make claims concerning the spiritual realm but can we prove those claims to jurors who are materialistic in their training and understanding? Can we forge a chain of reasonable strength for a jury of our peers so they can say that the evidence speaks for itself?

As we live and gather evidence we must remain mindful of the facts concerning the spiritual reality we are establishing. The religious among us have their agenda for which they present their evidence. But we who are spiritual must be faithful to our mission. We live in a world in which all people are trained to live only by their natural senses and we are tempted every day to return to the state of sleep. But by the grace of God we have become awaken to the truth of the spiritual realm.

Gal 6:1(NKJV) Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.

  1. What is your affiliated organization trying to reveal?
  2. What evidence do you use to establish facts or authority?

 

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