Kingdom's Keys Fellowship
Where God's Kingdom Meets Man's Heart.
Pentecost 59 Looking in the Rear-View Mirror
Pentecost 59 Looking in the Rear-View Mirror
“This only have I found:
God made mankind upright,
but men have gone in search of many schemes." Ecc.7:29
Albeit a fact that it was my aloneness that drove the engine of my conformity I also needed a community I could trust and that accepted me for who I was and not what I was expected to be. In those anxiety-filled years of adolescence I know now that I was led by the Spirit to enter that gothic structure far removed in sight and distance from my neighborhood. I would not have sought it on my own nor would I have thought it necessary. The need for friends to replace my Carolina buddies again drew me outside and I was asked to join the Boy Scouts, which I did, by whom I can’t remember. It met in a church as well. All of this was just a start on a much longer road on which I felt the pull to fit in but at the same time another pull that would find my life absorbed in the institutional church, its conformity, its call for acceptance and obedience and its leaders accepting me into its ranks. Along the way to that more involved stronghold I was locked into a world of survival hitchhiking from place to place, working odd jobs, learning the discipline the world demanded. It was another kind of education, another excursion entering the courts of the world and its false promises. All along the way I had a cover over me I would later understand as grace.
There is an old German saying, “We get too old young and too late smart.” Wisdom is found in two forms, God’s and man’s, the Spirit and the world’s. Each has its courts. But first, let’s look at the world’s wisdom and the courts it calls us into. The courts of the world are empowered by evil spirits that captivate the moment, look for immediate attention and seek only what gratifies the present. There is a distinct difference between evil spirits and the Holy Spirit. Evil spirits encourage the elevation of the alone self to act like it is a god. What results is you are on your own, vulnerable to any and all spirits outside of God. The result is the spirit of fear takes over and you are always looking over your shoulder to protect yourself against the unseen forces that motivate others (behold Genesis 3). This keeps you on edge wherever you go. You become a slave to the moment, to the attitudes and opinions of others, to the fears of what might be if you don’t fit in. The courts of the world offer you a false sense of belonging and control. Be it a teen-age gang or a corporate identity the end is still unresolved aloneness.
Using the world’s wisdom and entering its courts consumes our concentration to the degree that the techniques of adaptability galvanize and become strongholds. What we call peer pressure is simply spiritual forces arrayed to attack at every level at any age where a weakness exists in the individual heart. That is where strongholds find their foundation. All of us have ‘Achilles’ heels’ in some area or areas. We draw conclusions outside of God and His Word thinking we can control those areas. We then hold on to those conclusions and strongholds are formed. Strongholds are the schemes we develop apart from God to adapt to the world. But the more we conform to what we conclude will satisfy conformity, the more alone we feel (The old saying that if you want to know what you really, really believe, review your check stubs or your monthly statements and the unsettledness it causes. Ever feel alone while reading them?). It grates against our individuality to know that we are being controlled by many things over which we have no power. The more alone we feel the more we look for something or someone to overcome it.
How self-observant Paul was when he concluded that the good he wanted to do was impossible and the evil he didn’t want to do he found himself doing. How true it was when he identified what he suffered from, the spiritual disease of sin. How right God was when He saw Adam in the Garden and informed us, “It is not good for the man to be alone (Gen.2:18).” How clear it became to me I needed a spiritual relationship that put my aloneness and my fear in spiritual perspective. Thank you Lord that your Holy Spirit showed me I was never alone, never without protection and never without God.
Another translation of Ecc.7:29 says, “God made man simple but man complicated it.”
Next, the Holy Spirit unravels the complications…….stay tuned
“This only have I found:
God made mankind upright,
but men have gone in search of many schemes." Ecc.7:29
Albeit a fact that it was my aloneness that drove the engine of my conformity I also needed a community I could trust and that accepted me for who I was and not what I was expected to be. In those anxiety-filled years of adolescence I know now that I was led by the Spirit to enter that gothic structure far removed in sight and distance from my neighborhood. I would not have sought it on my own nor would I have thought it necessary. The need for friends to replace my Carolina buddies again drew me outside and I was asked to join the Boy Scouts, which I did, by whom I can’t remember. It met in a church as well. All of this was just a start on a much longer road on which I felt the pull to fit in but at the same time another pull that would find my life absorbed in the institutional church, its conformity, its call for acceptance and obedience and its leaders accepting me into its ranks. Along the way to that more involved stronghold I was locked into a world of survival hitchhiking from place to place, working odd jobs, learning the discipline the world demanded. It was another kind of education, another excursion entering the courts of the world and its false promises. All along the way I had a cover over me I would later understand as grace.
There is an old German saying, “We get too old young and too late smart.” Wisdom is found in two forms, God’s and man’s, the Spirit and the world’s. Each has its courts. But first, let’s look at the world’s wisdom and the courts it calls us into. The courts of the world are empowered by evil spirits that captivate the moment, look for immediate attention and seek only what gratifies the present. There is a distinct difference between evil spirits and the Holy Spirit. Evil spirits encourage the elevation of the alone self to act like it is a god. What results is you are on your own, vulnerable to any and all spirits outside of God. The result is the spirit of fear takes over and you are always looking over your shoulder to protect yourself against the unseen forces that motivate others (behold Genesis 3). This keeps you on edge wherever you go. You become a slave to the moment, to the attitudes and opinions of others, to the fears of what might be if you don’t fit in. The courts of the world offer you a false sense of belonging and control. Be it a teen-age gang or a corporate identity the end is still unresolved aloneness.
Using the world’s wisdom and entering its courts consumes our concentration to the degree that the techniques of adaptability galvanize and become strongholds. What we call peer pressure is simply spiritual forces arrayed to attack at every level at any age where a weakness exists in the individual heart. That is where strongholds find their foundation. All of us have ‘Achilles’ heels’ in some area or areas. We draw conclusions outside of God and His Word thinking we can control those areas. We then hold on to those conclusions and strongholds are formed. Strongholds are the schemes we develop apart from God to adapt to the world. But the more we conform to what we conclude will satisfy conformity, the more alone we feel (The old saying that if you want to know what you really, really believe, review your check stubs or your monthly statements and the unsettledness it causes. Ever feel alone while reading them?). It grates against our individuality to know that we are being controlled by many things over which we have no power. The more alone we feel the more we look for something or someone to overcome it.
How self-observant Paul was when he concluded that the good he wanted to do was impossible and the evil he didn’t want to do he found himself doing. How true it was when he identified what he suffered from, the spiritual disease of sin. How right God was when He saw Adam in the Garden and informed us, “It is not good for the man to be alone (Gen.2:18).” How clear it became to me I needed a spiritual relationship that put my aloneness and my fear in spiritual perspective. Thank you Lord that your Holy Spirit showed me I was never alone, never without protection and never without God.
Another translation of Ecc.7:29 says, “God made man simple but man complicated it.”
Next, the Holy Spirit unravels the complications…….stay tuned
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