I¹m becoming less attracted by disintegration. We see disintegration as a way of death. When we see a woman being fragmented so that we are shown only her body and not her whole personality. This is, at its worse, pornographic. The church has had little true wisdom to converse against the fragmentation of pornography or much of the advertizing¹ world¹s use of fragmented beauty as a way to manipulate sales. But as Christ begins to reveal His Restoration of things, we will see how things are meant to be seen as whole.
Sex then is not separate from a person, and cannot be marketed. Neither can other parts of beauty. We will see the beauty of the earth reordered so as to be the perfect reflection of its Creator. This is what the restoration is all about!
Once He begins giving us His Eyes to see how things are meant to be, we will war for this integration and proper ordering. This is the true holism that is found in Christ. The gems of the earth will be known in their full significances and meanings. And a woman¹s body will no longer be seen as separate from her whole self. Neither will men be stereotyped as all abusive, or as the marlboro man. Men will know who they are and stand in thier uniqueness. The ³black² man will no longer be seen as a threatening abstraction, but we will see the unique reflection of God that the african man was meant to be!
Solomon¹s time was a type of restoration. In His day, you see Israel as a source of wisdom and blessing for all the nations. You also see the splendours of a kingdom properly placed to reflect the coming messianic reign. God would not have given us this picture of true order if He did not intend to manifest it on the earth! Solomon¹s reign was like a large prophecy given to mankind about its future–a time when the nations would be in proper order and the earth would once again wholly reflect its Creator.
For the church to become a voice of integration and wholeness, it must allow Him to unify it, and bring its joints into proper relation to one another.
I think there comes a point when He has shown us enough of His Vision of things that we must choose to fight for integration as against fragementation. We must, as men, fight to see women as whole identities; and we must as nation come to see one another as complex and unique reflections of our common Creator. If we do not fight, we will find that the teachings of death will become our way of seeing. We will see all black as dangerous and threatening, and all women as objects of lust. We must fight this, but we must do this from the knowledge that Christ is making things whole again.
Various spirits flow into a fragmented self. Racism may flow into a people who have been victimized by abuse and not gone through healing. Manipulative spirits may flow into one who had no control over their environment growing up. We must fight these openings in ourselves. We must let Christ into these places, in order to become whole, and in order to not flow in these various spirits which flow and crisscross our world. Homosexuality as a spirit, often flows into spaces in people which have not been affirmed and loved and therfore break off from the rest of the personality. God wants us to be whole again, to integrate part of ourselves which have broken off. The enemy instead wants to have us moving in spirits which keep us fragmented and unhealed. Witchcraft often flows into unhealed spaces of abuse or self hatred. Sometimes it manifest as hatred of the other sex, or a desire for dominance or control. But our lives to be whole must become Holy Spirit controlled, this requires us to trust again that God is good and wants to bring healing into these split off parts.
God is all about restoring us. He wants our integration, but we must choose to allow Him in, and then to let Him teach us to see again from His Eyes! Then we will be less attracted by images of disintegration and more drawn to His Vision of wholeness. Come restore us Lord!
Lust is only possible when we see the other as disintegrated. I think men need to hear that. To lust after someone is not to see their whole self. When we let Christ show us that whole person, we will not lust after one part of them. We will desire their wholeness. To want to consume another person is not only wrong, it is a very partial understanding of what a person is! When we see a whole person, we are thrust into an encounter with them not a consummation. We must pray that God show us whole people in order to not participate in the fragmentation which is one of the enemy¹s ways!
But we start with not seeing ourselves as disintegrated. We must seek a whole vision of ourselves. The only way to do this is through Jesus Christ. He has to show us who we fully and truly are. Once He does we will no longer be satisfied by our own partial vision of ourselves, and we will not longer be open gates for the enemy¹s doctrine of disintegration. This applies to relationships between nations and denominations as well.
As long as I see a nation or other denomination as a stereotype, I do not encounter it, or even better, behold it. Martin Buber, the jewish philosopher spoke of our need to behold one another–to have I-thou encounters with one another, rather than i-it. He used this terminology to delineate between two ways of seeing other. In an I-thou encounter, we treat the other as a whole. In an i-it realtionship, we see the other as an object already known before we arrive. i find this distinction helpful in growing to relate to others in the way God does.
God sees each person and nation as a whole complex expression of Himself. To see as God does means that we need to see others more as He does!
As Americans, we have one of the greatest opportunites of any land to encounter other peoples as whole people, for our nation is made up of all the other nations. We could and should be modeling this holistic way of relating to one another. Daily, we have a chance to not encounter stereotypes but real people. Daily, we can encounter the mystery of other in a way that could teach the nations to love one another as He loves us. We are an experiment in more than tolerance. We are a warm up for the reordering of all nations, so that the diversity of God¹s creation can be placed in proper relation to one another in order to reflect fully the identity of Our Creator. That would be America at its best. A place not only of haven for the other nations, but a place where the uniqueness of each nation could shine and be honored.
Mr. derek
