What really is reality. Verily?
John 18:27 reads, "For this reason was I born, to witness to the truth".
"What is truth?", Pilate asked. He had asked Jesus so many question in an apparently genuine attempt to locate this unusual man's true identity. He was in some odd way mysified by this Galilean that stood before him. His wife had dreamt about this prisoner only the night before.
Imagine that?
What was it that so infuriated the Jewish religious leaders, whom at best, Pilate had to tolerate. This Governor was no fool. For, to have even survived in this hotbed culture, reputed to be the hardest to govern in the whole of the Roman empire at the time, (in other words, THE SHORT-STRAW), only highlights this man's natural leadership abilities.
Yet this guy brought before him, dripping with blood, and scarred beyond human recognition, somehow intrigued him.
His first question, "Are you The King of The Jews?", was probably not asked in search of a simple "yes or no", but to blatantly taunt the religious leaders in the corner of his eye. Surprised by the wisdom of the accused's response, he begins to pursue answers on a different level.
He then reminds Jesus that he is being asked to make judgments over Him as "His own subjects" (allegedly), have delivered or rejected Him and given him up for judgement. Jesus then makes one of my favourite statements of all time that somehow helps us to understand that TRUTH just cannot be contained in this world, and this is where most of humanity is left dreadfully short-circuited as their thinking, and therefore their ability to grasp hold of what TRUTH or reality is actually made up of, is not and cannot be merely terrestial.
"My Kingdom is not of this world", says the accused.
This statement is not speaking of location, but of it's basic or intrinsic nature. Jesus was not saying that His Kingdom was not for the earth, but that it was not from it, ie, it didn't begin, and won't end here.
This clearly shows us that His Kingdom cannot be limited by, or contained within this world, both in terms of geography, subjects or VALUES. You see, a Kingdom only really needs 3 things....a King, a subject, and a basis of these two relating to one another.
Jesus tells Pilate, and any other genuine seeker willing to listen, that we need to widen our perspective to realities beyond our present understanding. tTruth is in some way limited by our ability (authority) to perceive, receive or understand it. It has much to do with the quality of the receiving SOIL.
Words may need to be re-defined, and the horizons of our understanding re-focused IF we want to have any real chance of grasping the baseline of all human questioning. And true leadership.
It seems to me that Jesus' words to His friends in earlier in John chapter 8 highlight the fact that TRUTH (or a seed), in itself, does not make us free (produce the harvest/desired effect). There has to be a receiving and a "holding or grasping" of that seed, otherwise, it remains alone and produces nothing. What an amazing parallel there though.
That God would invest His Seed into the soil of humanity knowing that some would reject Him, or be unable to receive Him as He is, and that those who are enabled to receive Him would become "participators in the divine nature" by that very enabling. And that Seed has to die (BE CONSUMED) within us to be enabled to produce LIFE. So, The Father has invested His Son as a seed to come and be planted, but the harvest is truly expressed when we, as individuals, receive Him into the right environment, and that most often means not on our own terms!
Back to the mainstage. Jesus tells Pilate (using The Message) "Because I am King, I was born and entered the world so that I could witness to the truth".
From the lips of the creator Himself, we get a mere snapshot of the reason for everything, especially the ability to have or use authority. Jesus continues,
"Everyone who cares for the truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice".
Herein lies the answer, the genuine answer to any issue regarding reality. Reality is not something that is, or exists in any random fashion. Reality is a person. Truth is a person. His name has been revealed as Jesus once and for all time. When the angels first announced the news to the shepherds in Bethelehem, the whole of creation (that which has come forth from the lips of reality) echoed His name..."Jesus".
So, we cannot ask, as Pilate did, what is truth, but it is more accurate to ask, "Who is truth, or in whom is truth embodied?" You see, you cannot trap JESUS CHRIST in a body......you cannot locate His rule to a planet (another kind of body), as Pilate was told, but His Kingdom can be found here, and indeed, in my body, anywhere where He is Lord and King, anywhere that will respond to His authority, as this can only truly stem from the Author.
The Angels didn't name a baby "Jesus". They named TRUTH as JESUS, as he had been around for quite a while, it seems! They merely announced the incarnation of reality.
So, what do we find in the beginning? The Word. The word was God, and He was with God (John 1). The Book of Proverbs also calls Him "Wisdom", and we find there the PERSONIFICATION OF WISDOM.
So where does reality or truth come from........where did it begin?
In WHOM have been hidden all of the mysteries and treasures of wisdom and understanding (Colossians 2:3). Where did God Almighty (Jehovah-Elohim) invest Himself, His very nature? If such things have been hidden for us, then in whom will we find them revealed if we truly seek to hunt down such treasures??
Genesis tells us that God started things......everything.......it does not seek to explain or prove the existence of something, it just names Him.
In exactly the same way, my hope is not to explain or argue the existence of reality or truth......it is there for all to see who wish to see, and there for all to disect from their own limited view of the whole (usually to back up something else they have already assumed!).
My point is simply this, to name truth and reality as Jesus.
That question has been on the lips of men since the dawn of time. From Imperial rulers of gobal influence to the simplest peasant in the smallest hamlet.........our desire to understand who we are and why we are has both haunted and tantalised created beings for almost 60 centuries, and probably always will.
So, what is truth? What is REAL?
Secular Science--man's search to LOSE God
(to locate and explain REALITY independently of the divine or empirically inexplicable)
Religion--man's search to FIND Him
(to structure and label the immeasurable and uncontainable)
Mary didn't realize it was Him in the garden, she thought He was JUST a gardener.
What an ironic oversight, or mistake. And this is the basis of all ignorance that has followed on ever since.......her inability to see beyond the natural, or to over-ride her emotions and factual, recent experience precluded her from understanding just who it was that stood before her.
I wonder how many times this has happened to me? Clark Kent springs to mind. No matter how many times you look at him, your pre-conceptions make it virtualy impossible to make the correct judgement. The Pharisees failed to see the day of their visitation because they already "knew" exactly what The Messiah would look like!
There are foils. There are obscurities. There are also deflectors. It has struck me recently just how much illness is contrived to focus one's attention to the here and now, for example. And also how much modern day life produces stress which is ultimately rooted in LIES or inaccurate distortions on reality. This is why God can legally tell us that we should not be anxious about anything. Nothing. It's only when you can see reality in His widest sense that this becomes common sense.
But, how can I train my mind to truly see (see really)? How do I overcome natural tendencies, patterns, pre-determined filters in my thinking that have been faithfully practised and repeated so often that they can almost function automatically, maybe even independently of my will?
Romans chapter 12 teaches us that it is possible to be able to discern God's Will. Paul clearly shows us that transformation occurs when we succeed in this vital human function. If we can train our minds to see and think as Jesus does, and in so doing we "follow Him", subjecting our SELF to His Will and purposes, then we will have begun a life-long practise that will one day transform the world around us.
Those who can perceive REALITY internally will inevitably transform their worlds externally. Why was Jesus so unmoved by circumstances that seemed impossible, eg, the widow at Nain, or Jairus' daughter? Simple. He did not allow any temporal situation or problem to obscure His view of eternal reality (truth). In other words, Jesus never allowed the end of his nose to block out the horizon.
He inspired Paul to write these words to Christians in Corinth some 10 or so years later,
"Therefore, we fix our eyes, not on what is visible, but on that which is invisible.
For that which is seen is temporal, but that which is unseen is eternal".
WOW!! Can you see it? Is something opening up? (2 Kings 6 may also help).
Has the penny dropped? We so often need divine revelation to open doors for us in our thinking, especially when you consider some other words that THE WORD uttered to His friends on yet another occasion.
"For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he".
The great FAITH chapter, Hebrews 11, opens up with these thoughts in a similar vein,
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see".
But how can someone raised in Western culture be expected to see something that you cannot see? How do I possibly come to visualize the invisible? Why would Jesus or Paul require that we do something so utterly illogical or non-sensical?? Check out Colossians chapter one in THE MESSAGE too (copied in at bottom).
The answers to such questions will become obvious if, like Elisha's servant (2 Kings 6), your eyes are supernaturally opened as you look. To him who seeks Jesus above all else, the intensity of our focus determines the outcome.
There is light at the end of the tunnel when the searcher understands that the purpose of any tunnel is to get to the other side. The consistent symbol for revelation throughout scripture is LIGHT, and Someone we know carries this title, and many others, as He is the only true Light, just as He was at the beginning of time when God first uttered sound into the created order......so God's Word first became Light.
We all need fresh LIGHT to see deeper into the tunnel. We all require His Word to be a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path. Let us us cry out with renewed passion, as did David in Psalm 27;
"The Lord is my light and my salvation--whom shall I fear?
And let us intensify our focus on The Way, The Truth, The Life, The Light of the world, The Word, The Invisisble One; again, with David, let this ring out in your heart,
"One thing I ask of The Lord, this is what I seek: That I may dwell in the house of
The Lord all the days of my life, TO GAZE upon the beauty of The Lord....."
This is certainly my own cry of late, and I sincerely pray that it will be yours too. The Black Country only has ONE Hope. You and I know His name. We must all journey deeper into Him to discover the nature behind His name, and the beauty that can only truly be seen by genuine Divine Revelation. You will not casually drift to other side of this tunnel.
He gets more beautiful the nearer you get, I am told. He is so utterly and undescribably awesome that created beings too wonderful (themselves) to be described spend every moment of every moment in eternity simply crying "Holy, holy is The Lord". They never stop! (Revelation 4:8).
And we will never stop finding new facets and aspects of His appearance, character and nature when we place two feet into eternity, in a never-ending treasure hunt with The One who saved us and gave Himself up for us. If that doesn'y excite you guys, get a check-up!
Don't allow Satan to keep you bound in time and space. You were designed to fly and explore beyond reason. Don't give Religion too much rope to hang onto your wings, as this will severly limit what REALITY can be in your world.
I will conclude with Paul's challenge to the Christians in first century Collose, which was very close to Laodicea. Thankfully, the guys in Collose listened to these words and put them into pratcise, yet The Church in Laodicea, who also received this letter (Colossians 4:16), probably only heard the words, as one generation later, Jesus Himself has to come to them with severe warnings about their spiritual condition.
"Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or in terms of
religious practices......These are a shadow of the things that were to come;
THE REALITY, however, is found in Christ".
I pray that The Master will not need to do this to us Black Country Church, as we have been given many wonderful WORDS and PROMISES by Jesus Himself, and we now need to pursue Him with all of our hearts and see these words become reality in our time and in our generation.
Remember, we do not chase after the words or promises as though they could be separated from Him. We relentlessly hunt Him down. They can only ever be accessed in and through Him as this is where all of God's promises find the "YES & AMEN", and as Peter wrote to his listeners in his second letter (2 Peter 1:3-4), how do we find access to the "everything" we have been given?
"Though our knowledge of Him".
This is a season to know Jesus......and to know Him more.....and in many new ways. I suspect that we will never know Him fully. What a great challenge though eh guys!
God Bless,
Tim.
I have included below some of my favourite verses from Paul's letter to Colossian Christians...taken from THE MESSAGE, which seems to lift something extra out of the text and brings it alive...may THE SPIRIT open your eyes as you conclude wit these words
Christ Holds It All Together
15-18We look at this Son
and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
18-20He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance (reality) of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less.
2-4I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery! I'm telling you this because I don't want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or "the Secret."
5I'm a long way off, true, and you may never lay eyes on me, but believe me, I'm on your side, right beside you. I am delighted to hear of the careful and orderly ways you conduct your affairs, and impressed with the solid substance of your faith in Christ.
From the Shadows to the Substance
6-7My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
8-10Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.
11-15Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
He Is Your Life
1-2 So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.
3-4Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.
