It's me, mike hillebrecht

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…

Have you ever considered the very real possibility that we’re not in the right time zone? Maybe that’s not the right question. Have you ever considered the very real possibility that we’re not in the right era? Let me try to explain what I’m driving at.

Over the past several months I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of studying about the development of humans across history. The one thing that I’ve noticed is that certain perceptions of how the world operates tends to change within the population at critical points. The points aren’t the main issue as much as what the change ushers in in its wake.

Consider for example communication forms. For the longest span of time mankind’s primary mode of communication has been verbal. There were no writings, let alone reading of those writings, to collect and store. A man’s word was his bond. Somewhere along the line of time, someone decided to craft pictures and scrawls to denote what those pictures meant. Words were formed from those scribbles and a new class of people were created, those who knew what the scribbles meant, readers, and scribes, those who knew how to make the scribbles. (The reader and the scribe were not always the same person; one could write, but not read!) This invention, writing and reading, created a whole new industry in governance and trade. However, it never made a real, lasting impact to the vast population who couldn’t read or write.

Take a moment to think about how much time passed from this initial phase of writing until a printing press was created to permit multiple documents to be reproduced. Thousands of years went by before the general population could see the benefits of printing more than one copy of a document. Suddenly, printed communication began to have importance to all classes of people. Reading became a sign of a person’s place in the hierarchy of society, as did writing. New professions leapt onto the scene to capitalize on this trend in communicating.

Fast forward a few hundred years and a whole new method of communicating springs unto the world stage in the form of dots and dashes transcribed from the operation of mechanical devices attached by wires. Events could be recorded and sent across continents to people who never before had the ability to relate to others at such great distances. The distance of time had shrunk just as the distance between people had.

Today, 150 or so years since the Morse code was first instituted, we hold in our hands devices that give us instant access to people and events across the globe. We can speak to, and understand, people of a different language, see their reactions, and store pictures or video of those reactions for later viewing. Time has shrunk again to meet the requirements of a new form to an old medium of communication.

It would seem that the evolution of communication over thousands of years has been a natural event. But we all know that my simplified telling of the events cannot truly capture the drama which underlies all the brain power and technology mankind exerted to get us here today. The only obvious thing is that there was a progression, despite moments of regression, towards a goal, championed by few, embraced by all. No one would believe that the smart phone was in the works with the first drawings crafted in the recesses of some cave, would they? Of course not.

So, you might be wondering what all this has to do with grace. Have you ever considered that for all the wonders which grace has revealed to us, it was presented to us by Paul, someone who believed that the world was flat? Not only flat, but that the sun orbited around the earth? And he spread this idea of grace across the entire known world without even Morse code or a hundred copies of his letters?

Have you ever considered that the message of grace, the total unconditional acceptance of humanity by a singular deity, is a concept completely out of touch with a society where you were required to worship the ruler of the society you lived in? Have you ever thought what it must have been like to preach the inclusiveness of grace to a people who were slaves, people so below social standing that they resigned themselves to forever be beyond marginalized? Is it possible that grace then, just as today, was ahead of its time, waiting for time to catch up with it?

I have come to realize that grace is the one eternal affair which time cannot comprehend. It can quickly stick people in a box of certainty to old patterns of thought, while it also can blast people out of the same box into a life of apt wonder. It is the only concept, idea or belief that I know of which can create division by inclusion.

We live in an era where humanity across the board is rife with prejudice. Many are seeking a means of reconciling the differences these prejudices have created. However, no one is willing to offer the one means that will advance their desire simple because grace is not of this world; no one wants to take credit for employing a tactic they can’t call their own.

There are some people who believe that humanity is running out of time. I agree, however, not like you think. I believe humanity is running out of time while they run into grace. Grace is the Kingdom’s favorite means of communication. Eternal life never looked so good until grace revealed it for what it truly is.

I spoke to a friend a few days ago and the subject of grace came up. I asked him how grace was presently effecting his life. His response was a gleeful, “Grace – it’s da bomb!” He went on to eagerly tell me all the great things he was attributing to living in the grace of God. I was happy for his exuberance to life, yet, I could see that he didn’t fully understand the significance of identifying grace as “da bomb.” Sure, the term is a cultural euphemism meaning something great, grand, and incomparable. However, the truth is, grace is A BOMB! An explosive device that destroys all things which were formally known and experienced. Let me explain using some terms and concepts from the writings of Ken Wilber.

Over the last 150+ years the evolution of the science of human development has produced many experts who have clarified the nature of human consciousness. Today, these experts claim that each of us goes through four distinct transformations. Consciousness, our ability to perceive and be aware of our reality, starts at birth, obviously. We are from the get go only aware of ourselves, or egocentric. Me, myself, and I are the only concerns we have. This consciousness dominates our entire life cycle, it is our survival mode in threatening situations; it is our first line of defense in any new environment. Narcissism is the result of not developing into the next level of consciousness, ethno-centric.

Ethno-centric consciousness means that we have recognized and are aware of another person in our lives. As young children begin to interact with others we witness the progression through this stage by a) recognition – there is someone in my space; b) acceptance – this person does not appear as a threat; c) integration – we can play together. “My four, and no more,” is the fundamental campaign maxim for us in this mode. We form very tight-knit communities in this stage accepting only those who like what we like, who dress like we do, like the same musicians as us, watch the same movies, eat at the same restaurants, worship the same god. Yup, it is that prevalent. Tribal cultures form at this level of consciousness. Whether it be nations, churches or sporting clubs, ethno-centric consciousness feeds and binds our ego to someone like us.

Numerous studies have been conducted over the years and one of the primary areas of agreement they all share is that up to 75% of the entire world population operates daily from these first two forms of consciousness. I can assure you, even as you read that statistic, you are not in the remaining 25%, yet. Even to think that you are, would demonstrate how much you’re still in the first mode, simply because you haven’t heard what the remaining two modes are.

World-centric becomes our third level of consciousness. Here we begin to look at our place with the world which is different than the previous level which was very narrowly focused. This viewpoint takes into consideration large people groups of differing cultures, beliefs and values. It is the inclusiveness of others in this mode that enables us to think through and solve problems from many vantage points. The tests show that maybe only 20% of the entire world population is even close to fully functioning in this arena. Again, read that stat in relation to the world, not the church.

Kosmos-centric is the last level of consciousness. People at this level function with the scope of the entire universe in their field of vision. This is the realm of Christ consciousness that Paul exhorts us to be at when he says, “…let this mind be in you…” and, “…it’s not I that lives…” or, when Jesus claims, “… in that day you will know that I am in you and you are in the me…” This is a level which must be sought after since it does not just manifest on its own.

So now knowing these various levels or modes of consciousness how does grace fit into them. I said that grace is a bomb simply because if you’re in the first two levels and you suddenly see the depth of grace and what it impacts, your entire life is about to be blown up and not many want to live in a blast zone, yourself included.
Grace enters at the world-centric level. This doesn’t mean it’s not always around, which it is, it just happens that now you have become conscious of it, enabling you to see it at this level. Your “…four and no more” slogan suddenly changes to, “What! No more?”

How could I tell that my friend hadn’t fully developed into grace? His blessing, his favorable position, his prayers, his church…you get the point (I hope). Had he got the point, it would have not been about him at all. He would have talked about how his family is dealing with the diminishing number of friends who want to be associated with them; he would have told of how complete strangers come to him and ask for help knowing he won’t preach to them; he would have held back the tears of a lover longing to be in the presence of his greatest friend; he would have been true to himself and not feared telling me his doubts and apprehensions about living the grace-filled life in a world so totally clueless.

As I stated, grace is always around, however, until it has blown up your world, affected you and your loved ones, decapitated the false gods you’ve crafted in prayer and worship, paralyzed the fear towards those lords you’ve manufactured, and burned up the hope in your ability to be the redeemer in all things, you don’t know the power of the grace you’re juggling in your hands. Yeah, grace. It’s a bomb, working all the time.