Kingdom's Keys Fellowship
Where God's Kingdom Meets Man's Heart.
Pentecost 86 Help! I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!
Pentecost 86 Help! I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up!
“When my life was slipping away, I remembered God,
And my prayer got through to you, made it all the way to your Holy Temple.
Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds, walk away from their only true love. But I'm worshiping you, God, calling out in thanksgiving!
And I'll do what I promised I'd do! Salvation belongs to God!" (Jonah 2:8-9 The Message Bible)
Man can only think, analyze and understand so much. He is limited in every phase of his life. Hard as he may try there is no way he can overcome his limitations by his own effort. The Greek myth of Sisyphus is a legendary reminder. Sisyphus’ behavior resulted in the gods’ disfavor and he was eternally condemned to roll a stone up a hill only to find that just before he got to the top the stone would start rolling back down the hill. Sounds like the modern day ‘rat-race.’ That’s the point. Greek mythology is simply an extension of man’s view of himself. Its many gods are merely personified caricatures of human emotions, desires, dreams and ideals, getting their kicks manipulating human beings in a kind of ‘Olympic parlor game.’
Left alone man, like the Greeks and others from past civilizations, will invent something to satisfy what he can’t understand. Religion, philosophy and the occult are man’s attempts to grapple with the invisible. His mind, his emotions and his spirit eventually run into a wall he cannot climb, penetrate or erase. If he goes to others he finds that eventually even their collected efforts bring them to the same impenetrable wall. Mankind needs help from outside. As the old spiritual concludes, “It’s so high you can’t get over it, so low you can’t get under it, so wide you can’t get around it. You gotta go in by the door.” This is why God revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. We need revelation from outside and Jesus is the door for the mind, the heart and the spirit. He comes from spiritual reality, the reality out of which all things physical come.
Let’s digress for a moment. People who run an outdoor business like wilderness camping, interior fishing expeditions, mountain horseback and hiking trips, have to assure their customers of the fulfillment a trip will bring and the security they will have during the trip. But before any of these can proceed three things have to be included. First, there has to be thorough knowledge of the area to be traveled. Second, provisions needed like food, sturdy equipment, maps and emergency supplies. Third, training in skills and safety for the leaders along with preliminary trip training for all those involved.
All of us have been launched on a journey into a spiritual wilderness since birth. This is the most treacherous of all journeys yet most don’t realize they are on a spiritual journey. Not knowing anything but what we learn from others we follow their lead and find caves we can hide in. We build interior fortresses (strongholds) to protect our hearts. We make forays into the world and retreat into our caves. They are our strongholds, our self-protective strategies for recognition and acceptability. Some of them work and some don’t. Trial and error maneuvering methods help us to survive the caves of family, school and the social world. We arrive at some occupational cave to justify material survival. We find that none of them work, that all the time we have been in a spiritual wilderness within and without. But most of us don’t know that. We have to find that out and when we do we look for a leader, someone who knows what its like to live in an invisible wilderness. Someone who doesn’t have to live in a cave.
It is only Jesus who knows the terrain in the spiritual wilderness, provides the equipment and training and guarantees His ever-present leadership along the way. He invites us to leave our caves, take up our beds and walk with Him. Until we meet Jesus we have no eternal logic for the mind, eternal trust for the heart and no eternal life for the spirit. Our task is to make that known to the spiritually hungry wandering in their wilderness with its caves and fortresses.
Thinking Jesus we will inevitably think Holy Spirit, light at the end of the tunnel….
More about caves….Stay tuned…….
“When my life was slipping away, I remembered God,
And my prayer got through to you, made it all the way to your Holy Temple.
Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds, walk away from their only true love. But I'm worshiping you, God, calling out in thanksgiving!
And I'll do what I promised I'd do! Salvation belongs to God!" (Jonah 2:8-9 The Message Bible)
Man can only think, analyze and understand so much. He is limited in every phase of his life. Hard as he may try there is no way he can overcome his limitations by his own effort. The Greek myth of Sisyphus is a legendary reminder. Sisyphus’ behavior resulted in the gods’ disfavor and he was eternally condemned to roll a stone up a hill only to find that just before he got to the top the stone would start rolling back down the hill. Sounds like the modern day ‘rat-race.’ That’s the point. Greek mythology is simply an extension of man’s view of himself. Its many gods are merely personified caricatures of human emotions, desires, dreams and ideals, getting their kicks manipulating human beings in a kind of ‘Olympic parlor game.’
Left alone man, like the Greeks and others from past civilizations, will invent something to satisfy what he can’t understand. Religion, philosophy and the occult are man’s attempts to grapple with the invisible. His mind, his emotions and his spirit eventually run into a wall he cannot climb, penetrate or erase. If he goes to others he finds that eventually even their collected efforts bring them to the same impenetrable wall. Mankind needs help from outside. As the old spiritual concludes, “It’s so high you can’t get over it, so low you can’t get under it, so wide you can’t get around it. You gotta go in by the door.” This is why God revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. We need revelation from outside and Jesus is the door for the mind, the heart and the spirit. He comes from spiritual reality, the reality out of which all things physical come.
Let’s digress for a moment. People who run an outdoor business like wilderness camping, interior fishing expeditions, mountain horseback and hiking trips, have to assure their customers of the fulfillment a trip will bring and the security they will have during the trip. But before any of these can proceed three things have to be included. First, there has to be thorough knowledge of the area to be traveled. Second, provisions needed like food, sturdy equipment, maps and emergency supplies. Third, training in skills and safety for the leaders along with preliminary trip training for all those involved.
All of us have been launched on a journey into a spiritual wilderness since birth. This is the most treacherous of all journeys yet most don’t realize they are on a spiritual journey. Not knowing anything but what we learn from others we follow their lead and find caves we can hide in. We build interior fortresses (strongholds) to protect our hearts. We make forays into the world and retreat into our caves. They are our strongholds, our self-protective strategies for recognition and acceptability. Some of them work and some don’t. Trial and error maneuvering methods help us to survive the caves of family, school and the social world. We arrive at some occupational cave to justify material survival. We find that none of them work, that all the time we have been in a spiritual wilderness within and without. But most of us don’t know that. We have to find that out and when we do we look for a leader, someone who knows what its like to live in an invisible wilderness. Someone who doesn’t have to live in a cave.
It is only Jesus who knows the terrain in the spiritual wilderness, provides the equipment and training and guarantees His ever-present leadership along the way. He invites us to leave our caves, take up our beds and walk with Him. Until we meet Jesus we have no eternal logic for the mind, eternal trust for the heart and no eternal life for the spirit. Our task is to make that known to the spiritually hungry wandering in their wilderness with its caves and fortresses.
Thinking Jesus we will inevitably think Holy Spirit, light at the end of the tunnel….
More about caves….Stay tuned…….
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