Author: Derek and Amy Chapman

fear of the threshold

The church has to stand on the threshold in order to fulfill its destiny. If it remains afraid of being deceived to the point that it won’t step into that heavenly threshold, it cannot move into the wholeness and power that it must manifest in order to fulfill its calling on earth. We are citizens of a heavenly Kingdom. We must overcome our fear of standing on the threshold in order to lay hold of our true identity as a people.

choosing integration

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

stepping on the threshold

³On that day I will punish all who avoid stepping on the threshold..²

Zephaniah 1:9

In I Samuel 5:5, we get the story that informs this warning. It was the time when the ark was placed beside a statue of another god, dagon, and this statue toppled two nights in a row. On the last night, the statue¹s hands broke off and landed on the threshold, so people started avoiding the threshold out of fear and respect. So those who were avoiding the threshold were offering respect and fear to this other god.

God wants us to fear only Him, not the gods and spirits of this world. This is not to say that we should ignore the ways of evil as if they did not exist, but we are not to fear other spirits or gods. We should only fear the threshold of The True God. And we should live on that threshold.

There is a threshold between realms, between spriit and soul. As a spiritual people born from above, we should know both realms and how they are to relate. This is not an ³upper story² spiritual experience, but we are the ones seated with Christ, so we need to know the heavenly realm and how it interrelates with the soul realms. To do so we need to overcome our fears of stepping on the threshold. This is about our freedom!

Many have become afraid of counterfeit spiritual experiences, and so have rejected the supernatural entirely. But His people ARE supernatural and have access to the heavens through Him. We are commanded to be seated with Him in the heavens! We must enter the inheritance of those who are in Him, and take up our heavenly position with Him.

Many have avoided the ³supernatural² aspect to their Christian life out of fear of stepping on a false threshold. This is ascribing respect to gods who are not gods. And it keeps us from living the abundant full life in the spirit we are meant to live. The Church is a spiritual thing, and our power and life come from the spiritual realm. God is spirit and we must learn to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

We see many fearing to step out on the threshold of newer levels of revelation which God is wanting to offer His People. Most have seen abuses of supernatural experience, or an unbalanced overemphases or lack of word anchoring. But the reality is these are not excuses for not entering the supernatural part of your relationship with Christ. Christ is supernatural, so for us to let fear rule us from meeting Him is to miss out on getting to know Him. We must not avoid stepping on the threshold any longer!

two ways

The first Psalm is sort of a meditation on the two ways: streams of death and the streams of Life. If we enter the ways of death, we aren¹t covered. When we sit in the seat of mockers, and walk in the cousel or²wisdom² of the wicked, we are in the way of sin.

The Ways of evil have their own laws or thoughts, and the ways of Life or what scripture calls rigteousness have their.

One law on the righteous way is that things grow in the order they were meant to, so you don¹t have position before its time. And so that your fruits grow just at that right instant when you have grown enough to be able to deal with it. Things yield their fruit in their season, isthe way this psalm puts it.

Coversely, if in the paths of death, things bloom out of season and we do not have the wisdom or knowledge to harvest them.

Sin is a way. Righteouness is also a way. Ways are paths or flowing patterns. When we abide in Christ, we stay in the flow of right things; we remain in the right order and things get birthed in the right season. The entire process then reflects and teaches of God the Creator. The paths of sin have mocking and withering, but also they are judged by the very winds which would have refreshed. ³The wicked are like chaff that the wind blows away.² So you see the very wind itself judges the chaff and corrects it. That same wind can be refreshment and seed bringer on the other path.

Sin is not just an action, but is connected into a way or flow of pattern. So is righteouness. The Lord watches over the His Own ways. He watches over the way of the righteous–His protection and guidance is there, but it ways that the ways of wickedness will perish. They are not eternal, whereas His Ways are. Along the way of life, we are promised that God will be watching, for He by nature watches over His Own Paths.

These are like two streams of being, and each day, we choose which one to enter and be carried along on…

If we want to end up like that tree which is planted by streams of water (notice, this tree is planted because God does it, and that it is near streams of water or His Word, for that is where things grow); if we want to enter that blessing, we have to choose which path on which to walk.

realigning the earth

our recent travelling brought meditations on His unifying and restoration of all things…

..travelling letting Him bring together different parts of Himself–this brings Him joy. staying with presbyterian artist and morningstar prophets, and worshipers from the mountains, and baptist leaders…getting to be the joints, the synovial fluid of Christ, but also seeing how these parts need one another and watching Him as they touch. Oh that is what that is! Aha! that’s why i always get depressed on that particular street. that’s the half step i keep taking. oh there is the trap. Knowledge and understanding increase as different parts of Himself touch!

We all need one another. The land rovers need the eagles. And the pastors need the fire throwers. The arm needs the heart.

as this is echoed in His Body, so it is in the earth. God is Life, so we see the streams cleansed, and the houses each with their unique shapes reflecting back onto the identities of their owners. Some with gardens other with sculptures; still others on hills engulfed with silence…

As He knits us together, we experience and know a fuller expression of Him, but also more of that whole reflection shines, so that the earth can see, oh that is what God is like–now why was I not turning towards, and basking within that?!

For all the suspicion between the parts, God is One as the Shema proclaims, and as the Jews declare daily..God is One. He is One but has a diverse expression. For in His multifacetedness, we glimpse the nuances of His Glory.

All the earth is the Lord’s. What part did He not form?! So where does He not see Christ?

Looked at through His eyes, we begin to see how the earth is meant to be, and we begin to be part of His proclaimation of its re-storation.

Daughters and Sons becoming queens and kings, partnering in His receiving His Inheritance. All the earth is the Lord’s, and He is restoring its order. The children–His brothers and His Sisters are receiving back the restored earth as we partner with Him in realigning the earth…

man links vs God links

In order for our lives to reflect His re-ordering, we yield to His Ordering. All of the church’s life was to reveal His Order for His order reveals who He is, His Nature, Character or Ways.

When we do not yield, we reveal our own ways. But God’s two major interventions in History or methods of revealing Himself: the jews and the church, neither have fully yielded.

When they do not only will they find themselves in proper relation to one another, they will become revelations of His order which will reveal His Ways.

They are unique methods to be sure, but both were meant to reveal who He is to the whole earth, so that the entire earth would be that pure reflection of its Source and Creator!

When Jesus fully returns, you will see the nations placed in His Order. This order will reveal the father. That is the goal–that all the earth will be an uninhibited teaching of who God is–a revelation of The Father.

As we watch the various man-links between ministries and nations, we feel that tension between what they were intended to reflect and what they are reflecting. In Malachi, God tells the Edomites, you can build whatever, but it will not stand. In fact He names their creation Wicked Land. “They may build, but I will demolish.” Whatever is built from our own ideas of linkage will be demolished. You see this as many flimsy man-made linkages are beginning to erode in our time. Only what He brings together will stand, for these are the relations which reveal His Nature.

God in processes

One way of God is that He reveals Himself through the processes of living. he chooses life as the frame through which He is known. so we are taught Him through relationshiping..

God is dynamic, and reveals Himself through dynamic processes. This is one of the ways the creative process reflects and teaches about God. For there is always the emerging…the not yet, almost aspect in creating..

the birthing process itself is a reflection of this dynamic aspect of God

For God to be creative Himself means that He chooses to reveal Himself through the dynamic process of life.

Rich Mullins saw this in the wheat fields of kansas and indiana. Brennan Manning in the long displacing of the patterns of death thinking in an alcoholic person’s life–ie his own.

Henri Nouwen in the mixture of passion for others and loneliness he felt even when surrounded by people.

There is always this ongoing nature to God’s revelational processes. For God is Life, and life is moving and alive! He chooses to reveal Himself as Life and within its dynamic processes!

the father’s tears

If gazed at with care and Spirit, beauty is always contextualized in some suffering on earth. Beauty without suffering does not reveal Christ.

Pornography is a great example of how the enemy of Life contextualizes beauty. What is offered is beauty outside of covenant or the labour of marriage. Christ conversely, always reveals Glory with labour. So you see the image of the Cross which is coupled with the empty tomb. If we are to know His Glory, we must know His death is the way Paul teaches it.

Art itself has been contextualized in a market metaphore, but look at the role of beauty in Israel as they crossed over to take possession of the land, and you will see the role beauty is to play in our day.

Just as compassion cannot be divorced from suffering, neither can beauty. This is because of who Christ is. He suffers as the creation is being restored. He suffers the disparity of what is compared with what it shall be!

The Buddha taught men ways of escaping the wheel of suffering. Jesus did not. He taught people how to enter His Suffering in order to know His Glory.

This is because God is suffering as he brings forth beauty and gives it to His Son. As the banquet gathers, there is suffering, there are the father’s tears.

People say, i will build

People say, i will build a great work. Wisdom responds, only as it reveals God will it contain meaning.

There is human wisdom which considers how to apply knowledge, and then there is divine wisdom which considers all of who God is, and applies His Knowledge in a way which reveals who He is..His Ways. Only Jesus knows fully who The Father is, so only Jesus can properly be called Wisdom.

As we turn to His Ways, we begin to see why He is linking us with this or that place or person. We begin to see the whole orchestration of our lives as a revelation of His Ways.

we as revelations

Part of the restoration of all things to Jesus is a great REORDERING. You see that the earth will be put back in proper order with humans, and beauty itself will be placed in its true context.

The nation’s also will be in proper relation to one another, and the stones and gems of the earth, which are all His, will once again have their exact meanings known in Christ.

the earth was to reveal who God is as heaven does

the particular houses we live in at a certain season of our journey also should be linked with what God is doing in our lives. There is no area which should not symbolize exactly what god is doing with us.

As all things are being restored to and through Christ, we will see this emerge more overtly. Those who are led by His Spirit become Sons of God…and their lives then reveal that part of God that they reflect and carry. For our lives, in this way, are His Poems or books which He is writing to reveal Himself.

The paths prepared beforehand to be our WAY is THE way that He reveals HIS Ways!

That is to say that when we are moving in the particular way we are, we are revealing His Way. This has to do with knowing our identities..the paths prepared beforehand for us to move in.

Part of the restoration is that we are to be moving in the specifically us shaped paths of our destiny more and more, but our motivation is that He might reveal His Ways through us living out the poems He created us to be. Our personal freedom is then about His being allowed to pronounce us out as poems into His universe.

Individual lives, when meditated upon as a means to see his Ways, are then instantly placed in their larger context. Why do i like wearing many colors? because I reflect a part of God which is dynamic and has an urgency of becoming. For me to live that out is to reveal this aspect of God. As individuals we are then revelations of God. He wants to be known through our lives. Our lives are to be revelations of who He is!