It's me, mike hillebrecht

There is a day, no, a moment in a day, when out of the blue, it hits you right in the gut: you’re saved by grace. You’ve heard it more times than you can count, even claimed it ‘til you’re blue in the face; yet now, it means something tangible, something of value, something worth telling others about – but not like the little boy who cried “wolf” which, now, all of your previous attempts seem like. Sudden the revealed truth casts a bright, broad light on beliefs you held and championed which now don’t seem to fit within the realm real grace occupies.

For a while you get by playing the role you always had around fellow believers and friends. However, there is a gnawing inside of you, a clawing like nails on a chalkboard which wells up whenever your past belief system is expressed by someone else in your faith community and you see the dissonance. You begin to hold back in conversations, allowing others to express their beliefs of themselves, their lifestyle and their version of god simply because it now seems…appropriate.

You find yourself spending moments thinking about things which include rather than exclude. Your viewing habits shift as you find it difficult to entertain all the hatred and contempt which flows every minute of every hour on and in all forms of media. Even who and what you listen to is affected by this change. Allegiances you staunchly supported melt away because you understand how they arose to keep the “other” out.

Suddenly, people matter. Sure, they might have meant something to you before, but only in the context of how they added to how you viewed yourself and your success. Now, though, they matter simply because they have nothing to add to or take away from you. Their lives matter independently of race creed, color, religion, sexual orientation or gender preference. They’re people in a larger scheme, larger then you or they realize, yet all a part of a whole, a being of one. You recognize faintly at the beginning how no one comprehends this sense of being one, but you’re compelled to experience it with them even from a distance.

Now that people have taken a place in your life, systems, processes, regulations and the institutions which utilize them become abhorrent, simply because they artificially control the people who now have value. Law-abiding unexpectedly means freedom suppression. Pomp and ceremony to the status quo become vignettes to a ruling class structure which no longer appeals to your sacred duty to uphold but rather tires your sensibilities and causes you to wince like a sour note played during a child recital.

Questions now rule since the day grace uncovered you and you’re comfortable with that. Where answers drove you onward and upward, the awareness that all you need, all you seek, all you desire already encompasses you has soothed the angst of unknowing. Wisdom and truth no longer tickle your intellectual palate as much they massage the sense of peace which dwells richly inside of you.

Grace is not a life style but a life lived regardless of your style. It is a process, not a movement. It grows and develops within you naturally without any artificial contrivances designed to excite the emotions or stimulate a sense of duty and honor. Grace levels the playing field of lives, all lives, pre-believers, believers and post-believers alike.

Sense and sensibilities from your pre-grace life heroically got you to this point so don’t get so fired up to discard them as being antiquated. Look at them as the life support system you needed to survive into grace. Others still are hooked up to these systems so don’t be so eager to pull their plug unless you’re ready and prepared to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for a very, very long period of time.

There are many below and fewer above you; however, you occupy a unique space in this time. Grace at a level never experienced before about the globe is poised to overtake humanity and it won’t happen because a human-inspired doctrine of it is universally accepted. This is a divine appointment recorded on an eternal calendar.
You are being crafted into the ambassador grace will be displayed through. It is a position you have always been destined to live so allow it grow on you. Grace tends to do that, like yeast in dough; like the kingdom you’re from.

On the heels on my last post on duality, I feel compelled to jam this level or stage thing down the throats of a few tight-lipped, high-collared individuals who thumb their ever up-turned noses at the notion they might be pigeon holed into a category beneath their well-manicured image. But then why should I deal with this matter without the evidence already staring them in the face?

Heb 6:1-3 Wherefore let us cease to speak of the first principles of Christ, and press on unto perfection; not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, (2) of the teaching of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. (3) And this will we do, if God permit.

Forgive me for a moment while I collect the facts found in this passage. This is written first and foremost to the Hebrew people, a group who was dealing with their entrenched beliefs and about how what God had done through Christ in their lifetime affected those beliefs. It declares the apparent need to stop talking about the first principles of Christ. Now obviously this leads me to ask if there are first principles, would that not also imply a second, third, fourth, to the nth principle too? It would appear so from all indications found in verse 3.

It also seems to appear that the first principles of Christ involve instruction on the subjects of repentance, faith, baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrections and eternal judgement. I’ve been in church services for quite a few years now and even seen my fair share of sermons on the tv; but not once have I heard anything OTHER THAN this. Meaning: No one appears to know what the second, third, fourth or nth principles are. IF you don’t know, well, then you don’t know how to teach them.

I find it interesting that this writer can list six steps in what could be described as a level or stage of coming into the knowledge of Christ. However, due to the time in which he was writing, there is the understanding that God somehow can determine when a new level is to be presented to the reader.

What if one or more of these levels already occurred in God’s timing and no one could recognize it simply because it had never been seen before? What if God had permitted a multitude of unveilings designed to lead us onto perfection but our dogmatic insistence that if it wasn’t in the bible it wasn’t God kept us…no, constrained us from living up to the character of Christ?

500 years ago, a great protest arose against the church. The 95 theses that Martin Luther nailed to the door of the Wittenberg cathedral fractured the only known church of the world into the denominational fox-hole of a mess we have today. While all claim to be the true path to Christ, none will risk moving beyond the first principle. Honestly, what do they have to lose as congregants leave the first principle on their own in search of…well anything that doesn’t resemble “church” as they’ve known it.

If you are a pastor or teacher in a local fellowship, I challenge you to ask this hard question to yourself. “What are the remaining principles of Christ I don’t know and can’t teach to others?” James says if you lack wisdom ask for it. But be prepared! The answer will challenge everything you’ve built around the little kingdom of first principles thinking that you’ve somehow already arrived.

If you’re just a pew warmer, take the same challenge. It is about time that the body of Christ put a flame to the feet of those who claim to lead us. The best way to do that is to demand an answer to the same question. If you go to church on Sunday and the minister starts talking about repentance, faith, baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrections or eternal judgement, ask them when they are going to begin on the second principle of Christ. But be prepared! Churches don’t cater to people who want to grow up in Christ, no matter how much they say they do. They want you to obey and follow the rules that they’ve created to maintain order within their little kingdom. You, however, come from a much greater kingdom, one which reside within you. Ask and you shall receive. It just might not arrive from the source you’re expecting it to come from.

Now I realize that there might be some of you who think that what I’m proposing is rebellious in nature. You’re right. Sometimes the only way to get a mule out of the rut it has created is to keep kicking it good and hard in the ass. If the shoes fits, one must also be prepared to feel it.

Be forewarned: I’m not done with this level thing yet. As a matter of fact, I’m just warming up.

Jam 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Church is filled with unstable congregants. It doesn’t help that those congregants are taught and lead by unstable pastors and teachers – it is merely a by-product of being unstable. Most of these fine folks will pin the culprit on eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, this passage from the book of James is dealing with the very subject of knowledge, godly wisdom, and church folk just plain miss the point that surrounds them and makes them so unstable. The times, they are a changing.

Evolution. There I said it and a bolt of lightning hasn’t crashed down upon me from the heavenly smiter. Believers of all shades have taken Darwin to task for his employment of this term in relating it to human/animal relationships while ignoring the simple fact that humans have evolved, advanced, and grown up over the course of humanity’s reign on this planet.

IF you have a strong objection to this claim of mine, then might I suggest that your ignorance is amplified in this area simply by the very fact that you are reading this, a talent that has only been available to the mass of humanity for the last 150 years. But wait, consider that you’re also reading this on a device that 50 years ago didn’t exist. Evolution seems to be all round you yet ignorance of its foothold testifies to your instability.

I’m certain that many of you reading this will be unfamiliar with the works of James Fowler. He conducted a huge study which he published in a book entitled, The Stages of Faith. The book documents the growth of a person’s faith through six different levels or stages. It follows upon the work of other human developmental professionals such as Piaget, Maslow, Graves and Loevinger, each of whom spent their lives studying and documenting the growth of human nature from birth to death.

Fowler’s study pinpoints how each of us believer’s transverse the spiritual journey and what are the various indicators, or markers, of where we’re at, similarly to a map with points of interest clearly designated along the route. What is apparent in reading his work is that many, if not most, have never even made it half way through the stages, a phenomenon which is corroborated by the studies of every human developmental professional in their particular area of interest. Yes, it seems we humans, each of us on this journey called life, are constantly evolving into the next stage of growth – possibly.

Allow me to expand that thought for a moment. Let me introduce you to a form of these stages of growth through the use of the following terms, which while not specifically drawn from Fowler’s work, are a composite drawn from multiple studies and represents a workable model for this brief introduction.

1) Archaic – the beginning stage; think of a newborn child
2) Magic – Toddlers
3) Mythic – Seven to ten-year old’s
4) Modern – Teenagers
5) Post-Modern – College Age
6) Integral – Adult

You can see here that I’ve associated certain age groups with the various titles, however, do not get attached to this because I’m only using this as a means to demonstrate the natural progression we’ve already encountered in these titles. Also, I hope that you can recognize that generalization of this nature cannot fully address the complexity which each of these stages might reveal. Furthermore, while I use six stages, human developmental professionals might have more or less levels which they claim we work through. Remember, this is an introduction, not an analysis of which is more beneficial.

So many Levels

Where do think you are in these levels? Initially, most of you might say that you’re at level 6, an adult. If age were the only criteria, then yes, this would be an appropriate answer. However, I know of a number of adults who continually act like toddlers, as I’m certain you do also. So, the first item to recognize here is that we are all at various stages in our life. Stages show up in our emotional development, our basic intelligence, our relational development, our body health development, verbal intelligence, and many other places which we grow into every single day. To say you are at level 6 in every area of your life is denying the realities which we all face every day.

Recall, I stated that Fowler’s work demonstrates how most of us aren’t even halfway up the stages of faith he categorized. This would put many of us at a level 3, maybe just moving into level 4. Simply stated, your faith level is mythic, moving into modern. Honestly, how do you feel right now? Not as big a spiritual champion as you thought, right? Don’t fret, you’re still evolving.

Ok, so let’s take a moment to look across the broad sweep of humanity and see what the landscape looks like through our level names. Today, most people would agree that humanity has reached the 5th level known as post-modern. Granted, not everyone is there, but by and large, a huge segment has reached this stage. It is demonstrated in how we conduct ourselves in schools, businesses, and governments across the globe. Regrettably, it is not the picture of our interactions in the church and herein lays the basis for the instability I’ve been trying to show you.

Many of us believe in documents which were written when humanity was at level 2 moving into level 3. Consider how most of the “civilized” parts of the planet never even reached the opening parts of level 4 until about 500 years ago. Even level 6 didn’t come onto the scene until around the 1960’s! So, while society has grown into these higher levels, the church has stunted its growth to level 3. Yes, intentionally kept itself at a seven to ten-year old.

Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to get people “in the world” to relate to your fascination in the bible or church? Do you feel you have to hide your Christianity at work or school because of the ridicule it might cause you to suffer? How would you feel today if a ten-year old told you that knew how to live life to its fullest despite what you might think is right? Do you ever wonder why so many teenagers who were brought up in the church, leave after they graduate high school?

Six days a week, believers function quite proficiently in the level 5 environment of school, business, government, and even social media. However, one day a week, sometime two, they eagerly enter an environment founded and static at level 3. All the teaching offered is designed to promote the nature of a level 3. The interaction of the church community culture is based on a level 3 paradigm which promotes excluding anyone who is not like us, just like every group of ten-year old’s do. At the end of the day, back into the reality of a level 5 milieu level 3 believers return, unstable in all their ways.

Do you want to be relevant to the world? Do you believe that your belief is more valid than someone “in the world?” Do you believe… Grow up! Seriously, grow up. Your instability, founded on a level 3 doctrine, has as much relevance as a flat-world believer does to an astronaut. Someone, obviously, knows better.

Duality is not knowing right from wrong, or good from evil. It’s about living a lie just to say you’re a believer. Yes, a lie which requires you to deny that you’re living in a world which has long since passed the level of your belief into a realm which the writers of the bible could only imagine in prophecy.

It’s time to evolve your belief to align with the Truth which transcends time and hasn’t intentionally constrained itself to a flat-world paradigm. The universe lays before us only if we don’t keep people from moving towards the edge of what belief looks like. “Greater works than these…” can only be done by people who accept that levels need to be ascended beyond the small steps of man, and into the giant leaps of the kind of man Christ calls us to be.

Silence.

 
Uncomfortable, isn’t it? We are inundated by noise. From the moment we come into this world, we are forced to contribute to the cacophony of humanity while being encouraged to also be quiet. Quite a paradox.

Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you. This is the golden rule described by Jesus and promoted by grandmothers across the span of history.

Silence is golden. Another issue grandma kept reinforcing amidst the squeals of a horde of children.

What if silence is the golden rule? Consider how if you never said the things that cause anger, grief, shame and humiliation to someone else, they would have no cause to do it to you. What if instead of finding fault in others we kept silent and thereby didn’t have to suffer the slings and arrows of reciprocity ourselves? Not possible?

Let’s take a moment to travel back in time. Before the entire creation event, the creative spoken word or big bang. Before there was a Word. Now that will confound many of you religious folks simply because you’ve always thought that the beginning was the Word. However, before any spoken word is the thought of the words which will convey the thought. Thoughts are found in silence. You and I have always been a thought born in silence and expressed in the Word. We were in the thought of the Word before the foundation of creation, silently abiding, silently communing, silently loving the love. Don’t you remember?

Many – no, most – don’t. Why would we?

Silence. We abhor it. It causes us to face the noise of our discontent. Now some may feel that they aren’t discontent, dissatisfied or unhappy, however that is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about being disconnected from the kingdom of grace, grace which has always resided and is expressed in the art of being silent. Be still, be quiet, be silent and know…

Consider how much you speak. What is the purpose? Is it often delivered to support your ego, your opinion, your belief, your rights and will? Do your words paint the décor of your life, construct the frame of perspective, tear down and demolish the nether world imposed by others upon you? Do you need words to affirm the illusions of your world and the activities you employ to keep it revolving? How would any of this be accomplished in silence?

How would you remember your original creation without words? How has silence…
 

Grace is free…

This gift has been given to all. You can’t think of a person who hasn’t been given this lavish display of love. It comes to us when we least expect it, at birth, and is inherent with us throughout our entire life cycle whether we know it not. The rewards it brings and offers are beyond all comprehension, boggling the minds of young and old alike through all the ages. For all its complexity and generosity, grace is vastly underestimated by entirely everyone. Yes, even me too.

Mark Twain is credited with saying that youth is wasted on the young. I would agree. I might even venture to apply this same principle to the matter of grace: Grace is wasted on those who need grace. Just as young people have no clue what the greatness of being young is about when 90% of your life is being old, those who need grace – which is all of us – have no clue of the greatness it offerings throughout the 90% of our life when we’re not even aware of it. How can this be? How is it that something so grand, something simply given to us can be so misunderstood that it’s misapplied? In my opinion, as humble as it is, youth, or maturity is at the heart of this matter.

How many of you attending a church service, sitting week in and week out, year after year, have heard proclaimed from the pulpit, “God is doing a new thing!” and wondered just what this “new thing” looks like? Have you ever considered that a new thing, all new things, never seem to be given the opportunity to reach maturity before they are eclipsed by another, younger sibling? Is it possible that “new things” are wasted on the young, previous “new thing” proclaimed last month, last spring, or last year? Have you ever considered that a people saturated in the “new thing” never mature into the things of God instead they are bottle fed on the milk of the word of the Christ? (Heb 6:1-2) How come no one ever talks about the “old thing” of the last epoch except as a means to show how the “new thing” is so much better? Have you ever considered that you’re an old “new thing” to the new “new thing” everyone is talking about?

Grace is free, but maturity has a price.

When you were born, your parents understood that you would never remain in diapers. Growth creates changes in all aspects of our nature and character. Often that growth forces us to sacrifice something which has a current value and esteem in our perception to attain the next level or stage of maturity. A nipple is sacrificed for a bottle, which is sacrificed for a thumb, which is sacrificed for a blanket, which is sacrificed for…on and on up the stages until today we have put off the childish things to press forward toward…screech!

People grow naturally in many ways, spirituality is not one of them. You’re taken as child dropped into a nursery at a local church, and excepted to grow in the Lord which, regrettably only means you know what the Christmas/Easter story kinda means, throw in an ark and maybe a lion’s den or giant for good measure. These myths follow you into adulthood where finger painting is replaced by pew sitting and bible reading. By all appearances, you have grown up. However, a quick survey of any congregation across the western church will demonstrate that there are people who have spent 20, 30, even 40 years pew sitting in spiritual diapers.

Why? Spiritual maturity is a personal act of responsibility. It cost you to grow. Grace is free, maturity has a price. The “new thing” is free, maturing that “thing” costs you your life. Preachers don’t want to tell you this for primarily two reasons; 1) People don’t like to commit to something where they can’t see instant results; 2) The growth of a “thing” also requires the maturing of the person who pronounced its arrival.

I could cover a lot of territory in just these two issues but today maturity is at hand. This statement is a demonstration of what maturity does: it sacrifices the immediate desires for a long-term perspective. Presenters in a congregation look for short-term results that they can dictate and evaluate, not long-term interactions which require and foster independent thought and inquiry. Maturity in a church ultimately costs the pastor his role because mature people know where they are being led by God.

Are you longing to grow into the things of God? There is a cost, a price you will pay for a gift freely given. It may be your time or it may be your activities; it could be a relationship with a superior or a person you’ve always looked up to. Maturity arrives when your parents become your partners; and that is the last stage that is the most difficult price to transcend for all.

God cannot help anything He did not create. The person you claim you are, is your designation, your creation beyond the reach of a helping hand so close you can touch it with your tongue. Naming yourself as a “believer” is still an act of your will. Identity expressed in a word defined before the foundation of the world does not wear a title.

Do you live in Christ or does Christ live in you? Volition, is usurped where yeast is the representation of living.

The invisible man, un-seen in a multitude of television and motion pictures, is who we are in Christ. The accessories, masks, and bandages we apply to give our appearance shape and form merely are the façade we build for how we want the world to recognize us. Yet, that is not the building, or tabernacle, which God has chosen to inhabit. Paul’s claim, “…it is not I that lives, but Christ who lives in me…” portrays a structure, or edifice, permeated with the intentionality of the universe, the mundane made super-natural, “…the hope of glory.”

Many think of the term “lost” to represent something misplaced, or missing. However, and more importantly for this time, it also means “vanished.” Here one moment, gone the next. Have you lost yourself in Christ as Paul claimed? Chances are quite high that you haven’t simply because you refuse to remove the bandages.

Lazarus, the one greatly loved by Jesus, died to his self-illusions, illusions his sisters desperately clung on to. Jesus, however, demanded that the bandages of his former identity be removed to reveal the new life given to him by Jesus. Lazarus lost all to gain everything anew and his presence brought jealousy from those who were tightly wound in their false reality.

What bandage are you unable to give up? Is it the one across your nose bent out of shape from opinions about the false reality you assume to be real? Or is it the ones on your eyes that have been poked by fingers of accusation for things that don’t align with the truth of who you know you are? Or is it the tattered bandages across a mouth quick to tell rather than slow to pronounce? Or is it the pierced bandages of the ears that can no longer muffle the moans from the discontent of a soul trapped in a suit of rotting flesh, longing to be free of the constraints thrust upon it from poor, ill-informed choices and the beliefs they have spawned?

If these, and the multitude of other putrefied dressings which haphazardly cling to our body, were removed in a great and violent tearing, would we vanish? Would we be at one with the corpus of Christ who is in all and is all? Would we finally achieve the consciousness of Christ from a mind who thought it not foolishness, being equal with God, continually stripped himself of the trappings found in deity in order to cloth himself in the garb of the invisible commonality championed in humanity?

Is it possible to get lost intentionally? Can you vanish in a crowd while being the crowd? Can you disappear from sight as the field of vision embraces and welcomes your arrival? Can you be one with those on your left and right without being the middle? Can you be christ in who all things are held together without being one of the things?

Maybe, just maybe, Christ came for the lost – those who have learned to vanish into God and be seated next to him. Could we have gotten the message of grace confused with the need to be recognized in a sea of 15 minutes of notoriety? Is it time to get lost in grace, in Christ, in a death that brings a life unseen in its glorious fullness? Do you hear the voice of one calling, “Remove the bandages,” resonating in your darkness? This is not a time to wince in apprehension but recoil in faith to what has been buried. I hope to not see you soon or later…

You, me, everyone we practically know, is fractured. Not broken, segmented. We think in parts, not wholes. We act upon the fragments scattered before us without recognizing the intricate pattern to the puzzle is wholeness.

Husband, wife, partner, parent, child, adult, brother, sister, father, mother, boss, employee, waitress, cook, manager, teacher, student, pastor, clergy, prophet, nurse, counselor, friend, enemy, extrovert, introvert, artist, writer, lawyer, doctor, teller, clerk, housekeeper, gardener, chauffeur, mechanic, carpenter, handyman, electrician, plumber, believer, agnostic, on and on it goes. Segments of an identity we can’t bring ourselves to coalesce simply because the thought of being pigeon-holed frightens us.

There is a life beyond the divisions we have conjured up. There is reality that doesn’t care about your perfectly manicured façade. There is a union, a one-ness, a whole-ness waiting for you to drop your multi-ness, your one-upmanship in variety.

Most, regrettably, will never aspire to lose the multiplicity to inhibit the limitless simply because they must have borders, lines of demarcation, defined roles and mores. Duality, the constant ebb and flow towards diametric agendas pushes the delineation to identity, to homeostasis within groups, tribes, cultures, societies. Duality defines the divide, emphasizes the importance and neglect of our ruptured lifecycles.

“…let them be one as we are one…”

Duality will not permit the mentality of one. It abhors the vacuum left in its wake. Mono-anything is aghast within the domain it perpetuates. It is not who you are, more than what you’ve always been and will forever be. Being, not doing. The king is fully naked, and is comfortable in that awareness, without having to put on the gambled garments of respectability to be a king.

Your life, your will, your freedom, your exclusions, your inclusion, your agenda, your motives, your aspiration, all of the multiple streams of influence you wield and exert to arrive at who you believe yourself to be, all of it not only for you but for the entire race of humanity, lies in the one truth which permeates every molecule and atom in the cosmos: You are greatly loved and there is nothing you can do to change that. This is the life beyond the divide.

The title to this might cause a number of you to flinch. Be at ease, I’m not about to talk about a mixed-grace message. I’m here to speak about the grace of “and.” To do this, I will need to set a backdrop to demonstrate how this perspective will change your understanding of grace.

Science is the bane of religion. It questions and explains the mysterious things that life demonstrates thereby taking the “God-factor” out of our everyday activities. Today, we live in an era of rational, scientific discovery, and have so since the Enlightenment epoch blossomed across the globe. Religion, regrettably, didn’t join the rest of the world in the evolution of mankind.

Yup, I used the “E” word. The science of evolution is one of those topics that religion hates to bring up, let alone believe in. Darwin created a battle wound in religion’s well-house which it regularly nurses while reaping the benefits of its efforts (see my post Grace out of time for an example). This isn’t the kind of science that I want to draw your attention towards entirely though. What I’m using in this backdrop is a rather recent discipline in the realm known as human development.

Professionals across multiple disciplines have for the last 150 years examined and catalogued numerous findings within the realm of human interactions and their reactions. From these findings, there have been a number of models developed which enable all of us to understand the commonality we all share as we grow up, mature, and ultimately pass into the realm of the great unknown. We’ve all heard and operated from bits and pieces drawn from these studies. I’ll provide a few examples.

A child is born and its entire consciousness is focused upon itself, its needs and feelings. In a word, the child is egocentric. As it advances through childhood, there comes a point where the child becomes conscious of an other, a friend. Their thoughts shift from only about themselves to about the role of the friend in their life. Ethnocentric is the consciousness both display towards each other. Eventually, the child recognizes that there are others outside of their field of vision who also play a role in the unfolding of their environment. World-centric is this form of consciousness. We have all traveled through these stages of conscious awareness. But how do people groups develop their consciousness?

Mankind since the beginning of time has formed itself around clans and then tribes. You were either a member or not. Either/or thinking predominates these communal structures simply because either you belong and hence share in the bounty of the group or you don’t and become an enemy whose intention, the group assumes, is to deprive the group of its livelihood.

From these tribes, society evolved into kingdoms and then nation-states. Outsiders were permitted to reside within the domain provided they adhere to the code of obedience defined within the realm by a king or queen. Larger and more diverse groups make it difficult to impossible for a single person to govern their acts, so institutions are created to administrate the behavior of these groups through laws and codes. Either/or thinking of belonging shifts to either/or thinking of obedience to the law of the kingdom.

I realize that this picture is rather general, however, it offers how an either/or mentality permeates our social structures. It is a subtle pattern of thought that reaches into our entire daily living. Choices; right/wrong, left/right, chocolate/vanilla, paleo/vegetarian, elephants/jackasses, haves/have nots, Patriots/please, any other team, on and on it goes. Always with the same results – exclusion. No one seems to think that this is abnormal simply because it is so ingrained, so basic to our way of living.

(At this very moment, check how you feel by this last statement. How does the term “abnormal” affect you? Do your senses heighten at the consideration you may be operating from this perspective and “abnormal” is not what you would think to call it? Does “abnormal” feel divisive to you?)

Consider one the startling findings within these studies: Fundamentalism. The word sends nervous shudders down the back of almost every individual. Extremist, loyalist, hard-nosed radicals who refuse to be swayed by any other belief or opinion that doesn’t align with their own. Why is this startling? Simply because it can be accurately determined in any person predicated on where they are within their developmental growth across all their various means of intelligence. In other words, fundamentalism is a stage of growth. Its consciousness is ego-centric. It is classic either/or thinking, and according to the studies, up to 70% of the world population is stalled at this stage of development!

Yes, you read that correctly. Stalled, parked, unwilling, or unable, to advance. A perpetual cavalcade of either/or egocentric realities clashing with someone else ensnared in the same hamster wheel. This is normal life?

If you’re a critic of where this is leading, you’re possibly trying to hold onto a tiny piece of turf your brain thinks you’ve captured. “Heretic” is a term you might sense well up inside of you along with the feelings of apprehension, aversion, loathing, and disgust. Perfectly normal. Your territory is being invaded by a thought counter to your survival. Your tribe is affected. Your resources are at risk. Life as you know it is under attack, not by sticks and stones, but by a word, a single word, a word that is counter to your way of thinking. Worry not. This too shall pass.

For the rest of you, the question is probably, “How do you break the cycle?” It is found in a word: And.

Too simple? Consider how often a child goes into a candy store and is given the ability to choose what delights they wish to have. Invariable, either/or makes it an ordeal. However, both/and eliminates all the angst by permitting a joyful cornucopia of sweet goodness. Some of you might disagree with this rational seeing that giving children the ability to have anything they please will lead to…

Really? Is your underwear pulled so far up over your head that you clearly can’t see the point? Fundamentally, you’re mental. Take an “or” out of your life with an “and.”

Both/and thinking is the counter measure to either/or. It is inclusive. Boundaries, divisions, schisms, classes all diminish and vanish when “and” arrives. Its effect is global in influence when people operate under it because it moves consciousness from egocentric to ethno/world-centric and this frightens fundamentalist. Any warnings or teachings against a “world order” are due to the denial of both/and thinking and the consciousness it produces.

Suppose that God, sitting in heaven, looks down on all of humanity and says, “Today, I’m going to save either Tom or Mike.” The name isn’t important, you can insert your name in one of the spots and the name of your spouse or child, or even a parent, in the other. How do you feel with this? Some denominations think that this is quite normal, since they know that they’re the one who will be saved. Is God being fair-minded in this situation? Is this the type of God your worship? (Remember we become what we worship.)

God, of course, does not operate that way. God is love. Love applies to all, not to a select few. God says, “Today, I’m going to save both Tom and Mike, and…” This is His grace at work. A simple “and” includes all of us rather than excludes with an “or.”

Everyone starts with the fundamentals in life thinking only about themselves. Only a few consciously decide to stay there. Some stay there because of a trauma which prevents them emotionally/mentally to integrate into and through this stage of life. The rest grow up and move on. The first step in growth both emotionally and spiritually is knowing how to think “both/and.” In doing so, grace invades your world at a level you’ve never experienced.

Don’t think for a moment that you’re a world changer if you have no desire to eliminate either/or thinking from your repertoire. Change doesn’t happen when your pattern is the only acceptable one everyone must follow. That statement applies to all sides! Both/and; both sides and… The third, fourth, fifth, for however many sides and factions must be included, not in a democratic fashion where majority determines the rules, but republican, where all hold equal representation from the haves to the have nots. That is the way of the kingdom of God. That is the power and grace of “and.”

So whatever conflict, stalemate, negotiation or relational trouble you’re confronting right now, stop. Everyone is correct, however, neither is using “and.” Put “and” into your life. See how grace transcends your inspiration.

Recently a group of us were reading through Brad Jersak’s book A More Christ-like God and we came upon a passage that incited an intense paradigm shift for many of us. The exact passage from the book fails me at the moment, however, the results from the dialogue still lingers in the air like sun-scorched earth welcoming the life of cool rains. So, if I might ask, according to your understanding, when do you believe Jesus was glorified: at the crucifixion; at the resurrection; or at the ascension? Think about it for a moment and maybe you might be as impacted as we were when the result is unveiled.

First, do you know what glorified means? I thought I did, after all, I can’t tally how many times in innumerable ways through countless worship services and sermons I have “glorified” the Father and/or Jesus. The concept permeates the entire corpus of the Psalms. But do you know what it means beyond lifting up an Amen or hallelujah?

Ponder this: According to dictionary.com, glorified comes from the verb glorify, which has all the common meanings of to praise, extol and worship. However, these are done because of its primary, most basic meaning: To cause to be or treat as being more splendid, excellent, ect., than would normally be considered.

So, let me ask you again, when do you believe Jesus was glorified: at the crucifixion; at the resurrection; or at the ascension? When do you believe Jesus was more splendid or excellent than he would normally be considered: at the crucifixion; at the resurrection; or at the ascension?

If you take flour, sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla, cocoa, plus a few other items and mix them together, place them in a pan which then endures the constant heat of the oven, have you made a chocolate cake or glorified” the ingredients which comprise the new creation called a cake?

Look at this verse from what most call Jesus’ high priestly prayer.

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: (Joh 17:1)

Knowing what the word “glorify” truly represents, try this interpretation on for size:

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; cause to be, or treat as being more splendid, excellent, ect., than would normally be considered thy Son, that thy Son also may cause to be, or treat as being more splendid, excellent, ect., than would normally be considered thee:

Do you see the significance to this viewpoint? Jesus never had any over-the-top impression of who he was in the big scheme of what the trinity was completing. He recognized that he was truly quite common, possibly even less than common. How ever low you go, how ever unlikely you might be, it appears the greater the ability to glorify you possess. Isaiah claims in the suffering servant passages that the servant was non-descript in appearance; we couldn’t be impressed by how handsome he was or how majestic he might present himself. How low would the servant go to glorify God?

Beaten to a bleeding mass of non-recognizable flesh; encrusted with the spit of men; stripped naked of any shred of clothing divulging the fullest depiction of vulnerability known to humanity, while your oppressors gamble over who retains your garments; erected ceremoniously between common thieves – one who mocks the very purpose of the quivering mass set before him; taunted, mocked and jeered to save himself from the ultimate torture device employed daily throughout the Roman empire; consigned to the despair all mankind experiences in horrific situations which produces the forsaken cry for deliverance from the malevolence swirling about us; and finally forsaken by those you thought were friends.

Describe the resurrection or the ascension with the lowest debased word pictures you can concoct and they will never match the simple gospel narrative of glorification. The crucifixion, not just the cross, is the glorification of Jesus, and as Jesus claimed, the glorification of God. Think about that last part for a moment.

God is great, right? We preach it, shout it from the rafters, sing it in the highest, right? But that beaten, bloodied, sullied, discolored mass of flesh hanging between heaven and earth for six-long arduous, mouth-searing hours made a common depiction of God far more splendid, more excellent than would have ever been considered, then as well as today.

Your life might be grand right now. Things going well, no complaints. You praise God for your good fortunes, which is the right thing to do. However, and I say this with great caution, don’t think for a moment that this glorifies God. Your heights are not as glorious as your lows. I know that makes absolutely no sense and is absent of any logic. God is glorified in a body which is broken, in a mind that is clouded, in a relationship that is crashing on the shoals of egocentric harping.

Here is the lynch-pin to it all. In His eyes, it’s all grace. Nothing you or I can do to fix up our state of affairs can match the grace offered to us in our worst – the worst which glorifies the common understanding of God. Grace says, “All of you, come as you are.” We’ve been told that we need to give God our best, in seed or deed, and we can be assured He will multiply it. Consider what might happen if you just give Him your worst seed or deed. The very act of giving it to him glorifies Him, the one who can make all things work to His glory.

Now I understand that a lot of what I’ve stated herein possibly goes counter to what you’ve been told or experienced in the past. I’m certainly not proclaiming that this is the Rosetta-stone for your faith walk. This is what my studies have unveiled and continue to unfold. It is clearly a viewpoint within the spectrum of God’s nature I have not heard much on. It offers, I believe, a fresh perspective on the nature of grace which heretofore hasn’t been explored. So here is to the next leg on the journey…