Author: Derek and Amy Chapman

incarnation, reformation and restoration

The reformation began a new level of formation of God¹s Son in His People. This is still being completed, but He is able to fully form Himself in us and together to incarnate the fullness of Himself. The fulness is expressed when all his People are joined properly together in Him. This is His integration of Himself in us. This is His Unity.

a prayer:

l believe in Your ability to form yourself in every area of my life!

You are able to do this, and as you do, Your Power and Ways will be made manifest through and in Me. Nothing in me can produce this–only You in me Jesus. There is not an area which You cannot govern. This is true in me and in the world around me, but I begin in Me. I know You have your ways of coming to rule within me–ways which reveal and teach about Your Father. I want those ways, and Your Order. I know You take the lands within, in Order–an Order that is mysterious, but also reveals Your fulness to me in the best possible way. I trust your parenting, your birth order of Yourself in Me.

I know that many along side me have been caught up in doing spiritual activities and have fallen away from You Yourself. I myself return to a devotion to You, and a commitment to allow You to form Yourself in every area of my own being, and I believe that you are able to finish this formation which You began in me.

³We must make way IN US for the coming of the Lord.² Francis Frangipane

³Whom He foreknew, He also predestined TO BECOME CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON, that He might be the first-born of many brethren.² Romans 8:29

The new level of incarnation which many of us are beginning to experience is in many ways the completion of what was started at the reformation (or, what He calls the formation–ie of His Son in us).

The restoration of the earth will come through His full incarnation in us and on the earth. As we find ourselves experiencing more of Him in us–as you see the Body at large starting to testify to– we see how He has parented us towards this moment of a fuller revelation of Himself in us. God in man, us trully a living temple for His Presence.

The priesthood of all believers is in fact the sonship phase of the church¹s maturation. The Son of God is the High Priest, and it is this part of Him He is living through us. As we allow Him to share His Priesthood, we recognize our heavely identity. What do priest do? Pray for, consecrate, confess personal and collective sins, remain holy…and so on. As the church journeys out of mere religious activities and enter His Priesthood, we will begin to know the Inheritance of The Son, as He possesses the earth.

The earth will be fully restored as His Inheritance, for all the nations are His. This means that things will be put in order, before there is a new earth and a new heaven. We are part of that generation of restoration of the earth in Him! As He incarnates in us, we will join Him in restoring the earth into its proper order. Dominion (kratos) does not just mean having power over, it means to help complete by putting it back in God¹s Order, which is the order which perfectly reveals God¹s Ways.

We know that the earth¹s restoration will mean the proper order established between nations and people. This is a matter of the Spirit rather than man, ordering relations. We see new alignments being made on the level of freindships and between nations, companies, states and ministries.We see that the arts will be placed in their proper context, as will medicine and bussiness. Already we begin to see this happening. He is harvesting the lost, yes, but this is part of restoring His Order to creation. His order is that men would see who the Son really is and then to know and love the Father.

As Christ forms Himself in us, the earth also will be placed in order. All that is rebelling against His Order will be made very manifest, so men will see His Kingdom more clearly, and be given an obvious choice. Jesus is in the act of coming. He is coming into us as we speak.

to BE His Gates

…to be ourselves the open gates of jerusalem to allow This King of Glory to enter the earth—lift up ye gates, open up your door…and we ARE those gates and doors for Him to enter through…

Christ in us allows us

Christ in us allows us to see earth and sky as also in Him. To the pure all things are pure. From Christ we see Christ. This is how Patrick found God in the sunset and stones. To see through Him, is to see Him in all of creation, and to enter that Divine Dialogue.

Jesus is tree–earth, sky and stone

jesus in me–skin and bone

jesus this sight by which i see

jesus in you

jesus in me

and so on…

Jesus wants to touch His Own creation through us. This is the restoration of the earth, and it is the restoration of our relations. We come to see His creation as gravitied within HIM, as it was formed from Him. We come to see nature as a meditation back into Him, as we do our friends!

poetry of Being in

His Being in us poetrying through the lines of our being…as in we ARE His Poesia (ephesian 2:10)…like jesus speaking the poem of Himself through our unique nuances,

broken as we are, but He is whole in us, and His singing through us creates an ambiance of His expression.

I’m looking at a true foundation for art and arting. It goes to Him here in us wanting to express through us–how it comes out uniquely styled based on the shape of the poem you are. As He comes more fully to reside within us, so our own shapes are revealed more acutely and freely, so new voices are heard as He Winds through us.

John was a reed played by the Wind–ie he was yielded, so his identity played forth. That space of freedom was Jesus singing through him less interruptedly than most of us. His Being in us singing out through the unique nuances of what He formed us to be–and that is beautiful! And is the method of restoration of His Creation!

communioning into balance

..back to this theme of what it means for the different parts of God to touch one another in His Order…

as He integrates Himself through us, we see newer alignments and relations between one another. Sometimes what feels like odd connections are being formed!

John, in his amazing meditation on what fellowship is, goes on and on inviting people to fellowship with what He is fellowshiping with. What was he communing with–that vast love-filled space between The Father and The Son–that is the communioning space, and is what we get caught up in as we allow Him to commune through us with Himself in others.

We see misalignments between companies, states and people which have happened either based on our wounds, or on building based on the ideas of man, rather than the leading of the Spirit. When the spirit draws things together it for the delighting of the Divine in having the proper parts of Himself in the proper relation with one another. It is like His Arm actually connected to His Shoulder. This brings Him great joy as it is about His own integration.

We tend to think about our own integration as a private process, but the joints being properly fit together means we being properly related to others. Allowing Him to pick our friends and occupations is a starting point, for we come to know ourselves in relation. And we come to see our friendships as a meditation on Him and how He orders in order to reveal a fuller expression of Himself.

Religion has many false alignments between things. Our programs and practices can get us into the wrong relations with one another. But when we trully are led by His Spirit, we start to see relations forming which reveal His Nature. Just as companies often make “teams” of people who were never meant to be in relation, so do many of our religious institutions, making “teams” which were not formed by His Spirit. Not only is this not effective for manifesting His Kingdom, it is a misrepresentation of God!

Is He being allowed to be the choreographer or not? is one question. If not what vision is guiding our netting or relations, and what is being formed through them–ie what are they representing? What kind of painting is being portrayed. Often it is a painting about our own ideas of what we think would fit together, but that won’t last, nor will it–but by His Grace–bear real lasting fruit!

This is also true of our core beliefs–both personally and as a whole. When we overemphasize one idea, and do not balance it with others, we go off track. In spiritual terms, this is like not balancing Grace with Judgment, or over focusing on our need for repentance without balancing it with faith that God is able to trully forgive and restore. We then make an idol of our own guilt and block the spirit from flowing throug our lives.

In fact, all the core christian doctrines must be in balance to reveal truth. His Nature is integrated! So we know that the foundations are operating at all times, even when He is emphasizing one aspect of Himself. So Jesus is respledent King above, and He is also Warrior Chief below. He is healer, and He is builder. He is both the tender shepard and the one who will kill a bear if it gets too close to one of His kids. There is a balance within His Nature, which we must mirror when looking at our own doctrines and beliefs in order to reveal Him fully.

confrontations

To have things pulled up and out of us which are misaligned with The Order of things in Christ is basic for growth. As in a garden, when we pull weeds or things blocking the growth of what is planted, there is a necessary clearing out of things which pull us away from the path of Life, or Christ Himself.

Confrontation is a method of exposing weeds in our inner garden. It is rarely about the thing which exposed the weed, and more about looking at the weed itself and allowing it to be pulled.

You see this happening internally, and that is where the focus should be. God uses confrontation to expose those misaligned areas. When we become in conflict, to quickly turn and see what is being exposed in us is the core practice. We often try to return to a state of peace without allowing the weed to be fully exposed, and so miss the purpose of the confrontation. When we are confronted with something that rouses our defenses, it is good to look at what we are defending, and let it get exposed. Conflict in this way becomes part of our growth.

To make connections on a deeper level allows different parts of Jesus in us to touch other parts of Himself. The essence of growth is Him integrating Himself through His People. If the confrontations just bring up wall against wall, we miss the touching, the possible intimacies He is trying to have with Himself through us. Fellowship is to be communion, which is a inner touching inner in another—spirit touching spirit. This is where love rest as well, and is not ultimately about donuts and coffee, but fusion and relationship between parts of Himself which yearn to be together.

derek

“..to make our joy complete..”

“..to make our joy complete..”

tis enigmatic phrase feels like it has to do with the parts of God distributed in His People coming together and touching through and in love. This little phrase has always hooked me, not being sure why or what it was about–how could our joy be made complete…looking at how He completes Himself through us, and really how communing with one another is a vehicle for these different parts of Him to touch–that touching brings God delight and joy, which is why there is always so much coming against us hanging out in Him together!

the end of the world, the jews and the church

ok, that may sound a little grand for a topic, but I’m back on my favorite subject…which is looking at the true identity of things. In this case, two things: the church and the jews.

These two have obviously not found the way which they are properly related up til this point, and for this to happen each must know who it is and what is its particular destiny; and then see how they fit together in God’s grand plan.

In short (very short), the church is to be a supernatural manifestation of God, and the jews are to be a natural manifestation. Having said that, it does not mean that one is better or more valued than the other, only that they have unique identities and destinies, which I believe come together and touch in Christ.

At this stage, neither is being what it truly is. The church is not living from the supernatural fully. It is not yet living from heaven down. And the Jews as a whole are not yet being the teacher of the nations that they will be. But both are beginning to turn in the direction of their destinies.

If you look at the promise given to abraham, you see that his seed had both a natural and a supernatural line. These two then come together to restore and bless the earth to the full extent that god intended. It is as if the earth and the sky will touch, and God will once again place His throne with men. For this to happen, both the Jews and the church must be in their proper role and relation.

There are so many scriptures about all the nations streaming to Jerusalem to have God teach them His Ways and sort them out, that it would take an entire book to catelogue them, but I pick one. It is from the beginning of the prophet Isaiah, and reads, “In the last days, the mountain of the lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills and ALL nations will stream to it…the Law will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge the nations and will settle many disputes for many peoples…” and it goes on.

Both the church and the jews are looking towards this day! For it to come, both must be in place– knowing both who they are, and how they fit together. The beginning of this conjoining is in our day.

These two methods of god–the church and the jews seem to come together in this passage so that both the metaphysical temple of god which the church is, and the literal physical temple building in jerusalem touch and reconjoin in such a way that jesus Himself is actually sitting on a literal throne in that literal city. There are of course mysteries in this, but one of them is not that the church replaced the jews, or that the jews will replace the church. They are two different aspects of God’s plan which will come together at the end of the world, and already are moving towards their true identities!

We need to love and understand one another in our day, and part of this is to seek god’s heart for one another, and a vision of how the church and the jews actually relate in Him! When we are both being who God intended us to be, the world will be altered permanently, and will see God in the fullness that He intended!

confessing up the mountain of God

David gives us four areas of sin to confess from. They are interesting, as nearly all our sins fall somewhere within them. If we start by asking the Spirit to bring up any unconfessed sin in any of these areas, we may be surprised by how much house cleaning still remains. But the point isn’t cleaning house, but entering up and in…

This is from Psalm 24:3,4…

Who can ascend? David asked.

One with clean hands.

Clean hands speak of relationship sins, or areas where we have either not forgiven or have not asked for forgiveness in our relationships. It includes any areas where our relationships are not clean.

One who has a pure heart.

Pure heart speaks of inner motivational sins, or areas where our motivations are mixed are not right before God. (The Holy Spirit will search our hearts and find these for us, so we can confess them!)

One who has not lifted his soul to an idol.

This speaks of putting our own soul solutions above God’s spiritual solutions. When we come up with our own way of solving our problems rather than letting the spirit lead us, we sin. It is like the sin of rebellion which is no small matter.

And one who has not sworn deceitfully.

This one has to do with using our words as instruments of Truth, or areas our mouth has sinned.

As we let the Spirit take us through each, we are allowing the cross to cleanse us, so that we can enter the higher realms of his Life.

Jesus is the only one who has clean hands, a pure heart, hasn’t placed his own soul’s solutions above God’s, and has not spoken untruthfully. So entering through His Life is the only way in and up. This is why the cross is the starting place, and confession is our way of allowing the cross to enter us experientially. It is also the way to begin ascending…

We are then moved to thank and finally to praise, which forms us into open doors into heaven, and allows us to roam above as He leads!

All of this has nothing to do with being religious. It is more like a spiritual map of Reality, so that we begin to know how to climb up into the realms we are to draw our life from. I am exploring practical, and less mystical sounding ways of ascending into the heavenly realms. There is of course no way around the cross, nor is there around confession, because he is Approachable Light, but He is Light, so we have to know how to approach Him in Light. If we have shafts of darkness in us, which we all do, we have to know the way to have them removed in order to enter the gates of heaven.

confessing our way up the Mount

Continuing with this song of ascents…

confession which is the first step towards the mountain of God, is not really about our shortcomings. It is about Jesus!

When we confess, we are meditating on the Cross, and what Jesus did there. He both forgave us, and took power or dominion. When we confess, we are asking Him to forgive us, and then receiving his Power in that area of our lives.

In tradition, confession became a thing in itself. But it was meant to be “on the way” towards thanks and praise. It is basically positional.

Positionally we have no way to commune with God because of sin, so we must have that block removed in order to approach Him. Darkness cannot be in His realm, so we must have a way to remove that darkness in order to climb His Mount.

People don’t like to meditate on confession because we usually make it all about us rather than the Cross. But God loves for us to confess because The Son is then allowed to enter and open the way for true relating again. And the Father loves to be in relationship with us.

Since confession is the first step in ascending the Holy Hill of God, we see nearly all those close to Him constantly doing it. For what it does is apply the cross. It says that without the cross and what Jesus did, we could not enter heaven. The Cross is therefore the starting point on the journey into heaven.

But confessions also births thankfulness, and thanks gets us into the outer courts of heaven. We find ourselves thanking when we see what Jesus did and is doing both to forgive and empower us in the areas we are confessing! As we thank, we climb higher…