Author: Derek and Amy Chapman

The One who brought mercy near

The One who brought mercy near

the One who brought mercy near

the One who brought mercy here

(in this space between us all, where he unites us in Him)

this one who brings the father’s Nature in

the One who brings mercy near—right here

between us

(between page and syllable,

skin and bones, voices of friends//

wireless phones)

the One who brought mercy near

the One, who made it

touch!

there are so many dimensions to His workings, but this one to make mercy tangible… to put skin and bones on it, still astounds!

right now making it manifest in bangledesh, pakistan, my own neighborhood, my insides, my friends, iraq, iran, israel, new york, the jewish neighborhood in antwerp, belgium, in conversation in london between friends, on the phone with the carolina’s, at work, in a car, on a subway tunnel…. on line

extending mercy

…so in practical…

to extend mercy to one another makes God manifest. There is this sense that we are manna to one another. That we need the manna of one another’s active mercy to make it. If people see those in Christ extending inordinate amounts of mercy to one another, things will shift. It starts in the spirit, then makes itself know in throughout the soul spectrum.

We are all so cautious to love one another, but then, that even harder step of actively mercying one another full force. Let God judge, let us extend mercy!

We are about making God known. A quick way in is overt active acts of mercy. We could just start with ourselves, then move out!

showing Mercy’s face

Mercy—compassion or forbearance towards offenders or defeated enemies.

Jesus takes from the Father the water of mercy and sprinkles it over the nations, applying, or making tangible the Nature of The Father. This is part of His role as Priest to the nations. The Church enters this priesthood (all believers) and offers relentless compassion and mercy towards each nation, each ethnos or people. To exalt and make know Jesus is the job of the church. Jesus goes from nation to nation extending the Hand of Mercy, the actual being-stuff of the Father’s unending pardoning Nature.

We generally are not even merciful towards ourselves, much less those unlike ourselves. But this is an hour of manifest mercy. Time to make overt overtures towards one another. To love Russians, Arabs, Jews, Christians, Tibetians, Presbyterians, Bangledeshians, whites, blacks, reds, olives… we are the arms and hands and palms of His Mercy on the earth in this moment. We have no right to hold back. We are to be making Him known, and He is above all Merciful.

When we mercy, God’s Face is seen.

the cross and heaven

Isaiah often streamed into the testimony of Jesus, as the Spirit tends to do, but it was into His Suffering that people typically notice the most. The Suffering Servant passage reveals that part of Jesus in ongoing suffering to accomplish the things of THe Father. The film The Passion has this same seed within it, and is entering people worldwide. Last week it entered Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and beyond.

To know Jesus as He Suffers is to know Him also in His Resurrectional Force. They go together and are being co-released so to speak in the Spirit! The Power in Him is connected to both His suffering and His triumph. The Cross is again being preached in the most vicseral and directly impartational manner. The Cross is our entrance into heaven now, as well as into what is meant by “resurrection life”. I still like this term, the abundant life, though its been overused–what it means to me, is to enter more of The Actual Life of Christ HERE ON EARTH. Lots of us are having much more daily heaven experience, not just occasional worship moments, but ongoing vision and incarnate awareness of His Presence in our every day. But the focus is not just on experience, it is being returned to the Cross, and actually moving in what it opened us to.

I think that this is the right focus, as it is the single act which revealed the Father most overtly in history, and it is also the actual path into heaven right now for every person. There is no other way to enter heaven, but through the cross.

David goes into this over and over even before the cross had occured in space and time–confession itself, is based on the reality of the cross. We confess assuming that the cross and its power is real and can be made ours.

So as many are ascending higher. Many are seeing angels, and really hearing God on new and practical levels–not just as an upper storey mystical experience, but as a daily diaper changing one. As this happens, God starts preaching the cross. This film comes out, and His People are riveted to His Side!

the harvest of light and dark

….as the darkness increases so will the Light. May His Light and Truth guide us to that Holy Hill (psalm 43:3)…as the darkness is allowed to run rampant, so His tremendous Power is being poured forth. The Father cannot help but gather what is His, as a hen gathers her chicks—as the darkness is made manifest, so His glory will shine as never before…this later temple may look like less, but just as the second temple had more glory so will this one–this one in His People already gathers Light….as people see the witness of who He is In His People, this witness will draw men to Him….as the choices become more obvious between His World and Ways and the ways of evil….we will know one aother in and through Christ!

A new level of incarnation of Jesus in His People. The Light makes the darkness apparent! WE will all be forced to cling to Christ, to love-clutch His Garments–to actualy BE in Him! As if through fire, this hour, judgment begins with the house of God–already the sons and daughters prophecy, the old dream dreams, the spirit of Elijah released. His Witnesses start to stand!

the deeds of men will be separated from His deeds. IT will be obviouis where the church has built from on its own apart from Him, and what He actually built. All things not built IN HIM will falter shake and crumble. The time of separation has come–separating the dead works of man from the works of His Spirit. Word without power will no longer hold weight. Incarnate words of fire and life are falling into His People…the time of true spiritual poetry-word in Power, word in Him..word from Him…word as Him–Jesus is streaming into, through and onto the earth, making His True Kingdom known to man—and we are His Living temple, living stones in Him being built as a dwelling place for the Father….

Jesus is The Truth, The Way, The Life.

Light, love and life are teethered together within Him. Light comes–the understanding His Presence brings; then Love enters where blindness once was; then Life teems forth!!

Compassion increasing between His People–real radiant Love, quick to forgive, passionate to lay down our lives for one another–deep concern without judgement–unrighteous judgement banished from His Courts within His People..replaced by the encouragement of prophetic life words, songs, touchings by His Holy Spirit.

To Life!!

restoration

Something has been gathering in my spirit for some time which needs voicing now. It concerns the restoration of the earth.

As a whole, the church has spoken much about Christ¹s redemption, but little of His Restoration. As a result, we have not known how to approach the earth–ecology; the physical body–health and body image; or interpret the times.

As we see the darkness harvesting along with the light, and as we see the increase of darkness on the earth, it is easy to wonder about the restoration. Are we getting closer to wholeness or further away? Pollution, disease and ecological turbulence seems to be increasing, so how could the restoration be in progress? It depends how far back you step, or into Whom. Jesus is coming and entering His People, so His Order is increasing, but as this occurs the disorder which is getting displaced is getting much more obvious. Both are becoming more manifest and distinct!

God begins the restoration with mankind. And specifically in His People. The earth cannot be fully restored until His People are.

We are the very agents He has chosen to restore all things to Himself. This is not just people, but the earth itself. Here is one of the reasons that the arts will be brought back under His Dominion, because all the earth is the Lord¹s and everything in it. All the beauty is His, as miscontextualized as it is, none of it is not from Him and will not be returned to Him. He is Lord over all of creation including all beauty.

From His Courts, it is obvious that when beauty is contextualized it has meaning and reflects back onto Him. The body is not evil; nor is the earth itself. They are creations of God meant to reflect back onto Him. Though we know that the earth will pass, it will not pass before it is completly restored to Him, and rest in His Order.

The restoration of all things means that you will be part of Him bringing all things into His Order! So we must see what this order is. There is no other way, but to let Him show us. There are many scriptures about what this will look like. But we must also seek direct visions of the restoration. What is the proper order between nations? For He will begin with mankind! We must be in His Order in order to be part of His restoration! So are we in order? As the denominations stab one another, and the church is so slow to interpret the events of our time from His Spirit? No, we are not. But Jesus is! And so we must enter His Life.

If the church is not in His Order how will it be an agent of restoration? This is why judgement begins with the house of God, whose house we ARE.

At present you see very much disorder. You see pornography, you see polluted rivers, you see nations hating other nations. But this will not always be! Thank Jesus that He IS restoring the earth to His Father¹s Proper Order. This is the true Order that men seek. An order when the nations will be properly aligned and allied with one another, each offering its gift and its particular reflection of God to the whole expression. This is a very real hope for us who believe!

Jesus is Lord, not just figuratively, or only in heaven. But He is Lord over earth, and this is one of His Concerns as He incarnated more fully on the earth. He came to restore the earth, and the earth will not pass away until He does. The Father has given all authority to the Son. He rules.

Part of our job on earth is not just to save lost souls, or to war off the enemy of life, but is to restore all things!

We must enter the spirit and see the earth as it WILL BE in order to move in His wisdom daily. Yes the darkness is increasing, but so also is the vision and power to see and restore all things to Him.

We need to concern ourselves with how He is restoring the earth! The pattern of the Lord is always to bring Light then love then life. We must first see or have a vision of the earth restored, then He will release His love and compassion to bring it into this new Life.

When Jesus shows up there is always Life. For the Light and The Life are inseparable in His Love. God sent the Light as an action of Love to bring Life! They work together in Him. The Light is now increasing, and we must move within it, get a vision of our part in the restoration of all things to and thorugh Christ!

He came to restore the earth not to destroy it. He came to destroy the works of the devil, but not the earth. We are His agents of restoration. He redeems men into this task of placing all things under His Authority. The leaves of the Tree of Life will heal the nations! We are these leaves. In Him, we are used as salve to bring healing to the nations. All things are being restored to and through The Son. If we are only comcerned with redeemption, we are only moving in one part of the picture. We must expand our vision to see His Desire to restore the whole earth and all that is in it!

written and received by: derek (also known as dr derickoviski)

Bible translations and My Mind

As I picked up one of the many Bible translations stacked around our house (we can’t get enough!), I asked, is this one for today?

³This Bible (The Living Bible) is one of my favorites. I put a special touch on it, which is still bearing fruit in other translations.

“I like some Bibles because they seek to reveal me‹those who translated them seek to reveal me. Anyone who loves the truth can love me, because I am the Truth. If they are genuinely looking after it, I will give myself to them. No translation of the Bible is perfect, just as with prophecy it is all in part and needs other parts to be made complete. My original words are perfect, and in them even in the original languages it is only with the reading of the Spirit to spirit can they be heard as perfect. Even the original inspired text can be read imperfectly if read with a dull heart‹one that is only looking for immediate solutions and not for my voice.

“You can often tell which translations are Œinspired¹ and touched by me‹because there is a breath and life in them that will water your spirit and soul. You know them because you feel inwardly refreshed by them. It doesn¹t matter if it is Œhigh¹ or Œlow¹ in its language, if I choose, they can still impart true spiritual meaning. If someone has sought to give the inner meaning‹the secret things of me‹I can give it to them even with a contemporary analogy.

“The church spends a lot of time arguing over words, but soon they will come to know Me as the Word. I reveal all things through my spirit if anyone would ask. The human mind is subject to decay just as with the rest of human nature, including the heart and the body. But since I seek to renew the Mind in these days, my people must learn to choose things with spiritual understanding, which transcends intellectual understanding. Only then will the mind be renewed and have perfect ³reason² and ³logic.²

“At present, the human mind is captivated by logic‹by sequenced arguments that build to create a kind of unshakeable fortress. Being very powerful as I made it to be, once the mind arrives at this fortress, it can take captive the rest of the human soul, including the heart. It is very difficult to ³change one¹s mind² once something has been absolutely proven through logic. Yes, I made the Greek mind and made it to apprehend spiritual things, but the Greeks often idolized it and wrote great raptures to its potential. This is why Paul taught that even to the Greeks who seek knowledge, my cross is a scandal to their logic, just as it is a scandal to those who need proof through miracles.

“Yet my people the Greeks still thirsted for spiritual things, but outside of me they would only come to them through sequential logic. This manifested most strongly in the Greek religion you call Gnosticism, which made its way into my church and Israel. In their religions, to achieve a spiritual enlightenment, one has to climb ladders of secret knowledge. This created an addiction in much of the world to that building of arguments in order that the mind may feel free. But the mind has become trapped. My knowledge is only secret to those who will not listen with spiritual ears. I gladly reveal myself, and will gladly open your mind to receive me in ways that ‘logic’ had never fully satisfied.

“I am the only fortress and the only unshakeable Truth. I am arrived at not just through logic, but through the inner eyes of faith, which believes in spite of all the material arguments. The mind is capable of so much more than it now explores. In my kingdom, the mind my Father intended will work in perfect tune with the heart and will be able to synthesize and comprehend things far beyond this earthly dimension. Its ability to learn, retain and even enjoy (yes, the mind was meant to enjoy) my Father¹s world will exponentially grow with each passing second in His presence. But now, on earth, this mind is often separated from heart and is decaying. Only by receiving my Spirit and by asking for this re-linking will the mind be renewed.

“Because man was created with a need for supernatural things, he will always seek them even when he is living in a highly secularized environment. Even in materialistic philosophies like socialism and Darwin and modern psychology magic has flowered. The spiritual drought created by many western philosophies left humankind begging, and so in that void there has been a flowering of occult religions, animal worship, earth-worship. You can see this in your own country‹all the seeking after Eastern spiritual practices was an attempt to fill in the spiritual void that the church had left behind. At that time in your history, the church was not seeking after my Holy Spirit and the supernatural rain He brings through the prophets and all of His gifts.

“This happened in Israel¹s life several times. Since Saul had thrown out all of my prophets from the land, there was no voice to connect him to supernatural revelation, and he was forced to seek a witch to conjure a dead prophet. In Elijah¹s time Israel suffered an actual earth drought since Ahab and Jezebel had killed all my prophets.

“In this day I am raising up new prophetic voices that will listen to my words and seek to bring the rain back to the Western church. I have brought many revivals and renewals to the church, but often the pride of the mind has stamped them out and argued them away. Will there not be one explosion of my grace into the earth that is received with great expectation? Will their not be one flood I send that other parts of the church will not try to critique? Whenever the church critiques my Holy Spirit¹s great outpourings‹as has happened many times even in your own lifetime‹religious pride and accusation flourish.

“How much I long to renew all minds that even the most intellectual thinkers of your day would find themselves every morning with a fresh idea of me, a fresh word, a fresh volume of thoughts that exceed all they have ever read! In this day I am giving to myself a new kind of teacher, one in whom seeks to know the Truth with all his or her heart, and will guide people into personally experiencing the very mysteries of heaven. I am seeking those who will give their minds to me so that I can expand them. They will think original thoughts and not just expand on others¹ thoughts. And their mind will be kept most of all by the renewed heart. For it is the heart that learns, and the mind that collects and gives understanding to that learning. If only the mind learns, no transformation occurs, no life regenerates, nothing is ‘renewed.’

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

“The ‘pattern’ is the desire for consistent and convincing argument. Do not cling to this need for pattern, but rather seek transformation. Come to me, the Truth, every day, and I will show you patterns of heaven that have barely been breathed since the days of the garden.

tell her…

tell her, she is rich and I am about to take down her walls, and put up Myself as her wall

tell her, she is not poor, and I want the world to see My wealth by sharing it with her

tell her, that My Glory is Mine to give and I wish to give it now, so that the world will see My Glory

tell her, to stop living under a spirit of poverty which is basically selfish in seeing her worth as above My Will

tell her, it is not noble to keep spiritually poor, while I have made her rich

tell her, to give Me her walls of protection, the containers she has built, and I will become her container

tell her, this is for My Purposes of revealing My Own Riches, and she is My servants in doing this

tell her, I am coming as King not pauper, and that My Bride will be bejewelled

tell her, she is not dressed as a tramp, but as a true Bride of The True King

tell her, this means that all the riches of the cross must be entered

tell her, that she lives in heaven with Me and cannot go on acting like she is not a heavenly being

tell her, I am making her rich now, and she must get used to My Wealth

tell her, this is My Way of attracting men to Me

tell her, she must leave the lie behind which tells her she must stay ugly and poor, and embrace the truth that I am a royal King

tell her, this is a new season in her develpment as Bride

tell her, all the riches of the Kingdom are hers

tell her, she is not receiving them as she should

tell her, it is her destiny to be beautiful

tell her, she is My Bride and must now receive My Lavishings!

tell her, I am her Wall and she can give me hers

tell her this means more than protection, it means that I am about to show her the boundaries of her very being

tell her, her identity is about to be seen first by her, then the world

tell her!

Irish monasticism and the wall of God

³Then the angel who was speaking to me left, and another angel came to meet him and said to him: ³Run, tell that young man, ŒJerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of men and livestock in it.²

Zechariah 2:3

In Ireland, monasticism grew with a unique flare. Though Patrick and others introduced both the seed of the Roman church and the seed of monasticism, it was the later which grew into a vast tree whose fruit eventually went back into Europe and manifested the Kingdom.

There were many reasons for this, but one is a secret to spiritual growth. It is not acsetic practice which was reproduced and eventually started Iona and led men to Lindesfaurne and into England as a missions movement. It was not the cultural frame which men were converted by. Rather it was God being allowed to break into the broken lives of those monks.

Monasticism is not salvation any more than the roman church frames could save men. Both, at times, grew religious and replaced Jesus with spiritual practices (which is the way of religion). Neither the celtic or the roman frame save men. Jesus Christ does.

What was unique about Irish monasticism is that it allowed men to start with the central motivation of finding and growing in Christ. Men did not go on mission to save others–primarily they went to be saved! This is a huge matter. It has to do with the heart¹s motivation for doing missions. If we believe that we are going to save others first, we will fail. If we instead see our goal as being transformed ourselves by Christ, then His Kingdom can come and save others.

The primary motivation of being trasformed by Christ leads to His being able to use us then as living stones, placed by Him to do His Work. There is a vast difference in believing that we are already whole and that others need something we carry, and seeing ourselves on a pilgrimage into His Life. These are two opposing motivations for missioning.

We are first on mission, then if we allow Him to form Himself in us, we may become His Action of missioning the nations.

Patrick had both seeds or frames within him. Growing up Roman Catholic, he knew the ways of the church. The frames of bishops and diocese were not alien to him. Nor was the seeds of the monastic movements which had spead across Europe starting in Egypt with the desert fathers. Men had created frames in which to find and be transformed by God. But he was not preaching frames, he was preaching Jesus Christ and His Cross. And men were transformed. In fact, a whole nation was transformed.

There is no way of calculating how many churches and monasteries Patrick himself formed, but after his death (as his seeds went into the Irish soil), a nation wide living network of churches and monasteries emerged. Here is the man who had prophecied the growth of Dublin into a commerce center, and who had raised men from the dead. Here is a man who had not come to convert the nation, but had a dream which stirred his compassion for the irish people, until he had to go on pilgrimage into their nation. Here is a man who manifested the Kingdom of God wherever he journeyed.

The walls of the church are indeed coming down. And unprecedented riches will be received, so that its glory will be so obviously from above that no man will be able to deny its radiance! These walls were for protection, but came to serve to keep people in. They also began to keep people out of the church. Religion itself is a wall which is breaking off the Body of Jesus in our hour. Religious practice does not save us, Jesus does. This is becoming apparent to many.

In the verse that follows this one, it is said that God Himself will become our wall of protection. God as a wall is an entirely different type of boundary! Things which need to come and go will. And people who need to be protected as they grow, will be. In this hour the boundary of the church is blurring, and simultaneously, becoming more clear. The true boundary of those in Christ is Christ Himself not culture and not religion. Christ Himself is both our fortress and our high tower. Nothing else will guard us from what is coming, and noone else will the true boundaries of our identity as The Church eternal.

As we individually and coorporately take down our walls and allow God Himself to become our wall, we will begin to taste and see the boundaries of our own identities, as well as the true identity of The Church.

Irish monasticism effected all of europe, as any movement will, in which God Himself forms His Networks and walls of definition. It was not pure and perfect, but it gave God room to move and use His people who were on spiritual pilgrimage as living stones in His House.

Monasticism as a whole is no more perfect than any other frame of getting the know God. But one thing it had, especially in its irish incarnation, was this central spiritual starting point of personal transformation. Men wanted to be transformed, and God worked with that! They wanted to be on mission, so God could use them to be missionaries. Our heart must be to be Christ formed. To be transformed by His Life. There will be unique expressions of this for each person and nation, but the goal is the same. That His Life and Kingdom be made manifest on earth as it is in heaven.

For a season, Irish monasticism achieved this aim. For a season, Irish monasticism had no walls but Jesus Christ. This too is our calling. Then we will become a living network formed by and through His Holy Spirit, and the nations will see that God is the glory within our walls. Then we will be on His Mission.

God’s diverse expression vs homogeneity

You see that pornography homogenizes the nations. Each nation is experienced with the same objectification. This is the most overt clue that it is teaching a doctrine of death. For each nation is a unique identity, and anything which makes them all seem the same is a deceit. God is calling forth the complex and unique expressions of each nation, for they are all part of His Inheritance, and they reflect the different aspects of Himself. The enemy tries to homogenize life and take the individuality of diversity out. But God’s earth is diversely beautiful. I am contrasting here, a pornographic vision of the nations with Vision through the Eyes of Christ. When we look out from His Eyes, we see each nation as a unique expression of His Beauty and creativity. The enemy’s version of this is to have all nations with the same expression of what beauty is. The enemy disembodies and fragments the self; The Lord integrates the uniqueness of each person and nation and makes them whole. But also, and this is my point here, in the area of expression, God is diverse, whereas the enemy is homogenous.