Okay, this entry may seem kind of controversial, but whatever, I'll just write it.
I think I am learning more and more how to experience the opposite/flip side of "demon posession". That is, Christian spirit possession, namely allowing the Holy Spirit to possess our Spirit, or "consciousness" so that the "consciousness" of Jesus takes over our consciousness.
Here is the theological and philosophical basis first. I think that if someone can get demon possessed and have the conscious mind of an evil spirit take over/take control of him, then this just shows that the human spirit/consciousness can be totally taken over by another conscious/spiritual mind. The question is whether or not it is taken over by something evil, dark, and against God, or by something (or in the Christian sense someone) good, holy, and for God. Hence the Holy Spirit.
It is a little like a someone taking over the driving seat in a car, and making you, the original driver, strapped/buckled/locked down in the passenger seat where you are no longer in control of where the car goes. In demon possession, sometimes it is involuntary, the demon just hijacks the car, locks you down in the passenger seat, and drives away crazily like a maniac and you can't control him. Or sometimes it is voluntary when someone willingly invites in demonic spirits to take over. Either way, the driver is an evil, dark, demonic being.
In Christian spiritual possession however, Jesus, through means of the Holy Spirit in us, gently takes over the wheel and drives peacefully in his direction and guidance, and will. Since Jesus respects our freedom/free will, he will not forcefully take over the driver's seat and hijack the car unlike demons. He will only take over if we willingly and freely move over to the passenger seat, and remain there. To remain there is hard, because usually after a few seconds, we naturally just drift back in the driver's seat, and Jesus being the respectful and loving God that he is, will not force himself to take over our being.
The scriptural support of this is Colossians 1:27, as well as Galatians 2:20. I am highly influenced by Frank Laubach in his experiential interpretation/application of these scriptural truths. That means there should be mini-labels all over our bodies, including our hands, feet, eyes, neck, chest etc that say "Property of Jesus" and that they all belong to him. Furthermore, anything that we experience, Jesus experiences at the same time. More specifically, anything that we feel with our 5 senses, Jesus feels it at exactly the same time, moment, and capacity that we experience it in. So each time we walk in the perfume section of a department store and smell the cologne, Jesus smells exactly the same phenomena, each time we put on shoes, Jesus feels the exact same sensations on our feet, each time we shake someone else's hands, Jesus feels exactly the same physiological input on our hands that we do. The same goes with all the emotional, social, spiritual experiences that we have. He is always in the "same car" as us. The question is only whether he's driving it at the moment or not.
I think I am learning in this journey of practicing God's presence how to allow myself to be "spiritually possessed" by the conscious spirit of Jesus' mind. It is hard to explain, but in good moments where God infuses extra doses of grace in my life, it feels as if Jesus himself, the person who died on the cross for me, who made the heavens and the earth, who sustains every molecule/atom in the universe with his powerful word is occupying the "driver's seat of my consciousness". It's as if he's actually controlling my being, and I'm just sitting right beside him, joyfully consenting to him taking over. Of course this is the exception rather than the norm, for the two times that it has happened it took about 30 minutes in total quiet solitude for every inch and fiber of every level of my being to be surrendered to him and to move over in the passenger's seat. It is only then that Jesus takes over the driver's seat of my being just like how a demon takes over and possesses a poor human soul. The thing though, since Jesus is so kind to respect my free will and only take over if I completely and utterly surrender myself to him, usually when I come out of solitude and back to the "real world" I am just bombarded by too much stimuli and distractions that I just end up getting distracted and subconsciously but quickly gravitate towards the driver's seat again and put Jesus in the passenger seat. It takes about 30 minutes to put him fully back on, but only about 30 seconds to kick him off and go about things my own way again.
But during the moments it does last, however, there is a sense of indescribable joy and peace that takes over the atmosphere of my soul. It is different, not only in quantity, but in kind, than earthly joy and peace. I wish that I could maintain this state forever, however, I am too sinful! I need more and more of God's grace to do so! Hopefully by his grace I improve more and more each day! Why do I not willingly give myself to this type of communion with God more frequently if it is the most blissful, satisfying, meaningful state my human self can experience? The answer is a mystery. The answer is sin. Sin is a mystery. In this case, only a mysterious cure can cure this mysterious disease. Oh Jesus, save me from this body of death!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
found a way to win every minute while listening to a sermon!
As I attended Grace Toronto Church's evening service tonight, I wanted to try to keep God on my mind in second person at least every minute. Especially listening to the Pastor preach his sermon.
I didn't want to do it "mechanically" or "legalistically" without any life in the process of attempting it though, so I sought the Holy Spirit to lead me in a certain way to do it, according to His specific "flow" or "rhythm" of the moment (which I am coming more and more to believe that differs every moment for each individual Christian).
As the pastor just started to preach, I went about at attempting this vigorous yet "strenuously satisfying" pursuit.
As the first minute passed, some ideas were coming into my head. Whether or not they were DIRECTLY from the Holy Spirit or indirect suggestions mingled with my archives of Game with Minutes strategies I am not sure. Regardless, the suggestion was this:
"since I am commanded by God:
1) to be thankful in all situations, continually thanking God for everything (Philippians 4:6, Ephesians 5:20, Colossians 3:17, 1 Thessalonians 5:18)
as well as
2)to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17) aka keep in constant communion with Him
why not try to combine these two commandments which God wants us to do continually?
So here I am, with the first minute into the sermon, trying this wacky idea of trying to practically apply these two commandments simultaneously while the preacher is expounding his points from Ephesians 1:1-6. In my mind, a more specific idea of concretely applying these two commandments throughout the whole sermon popped in my head. Try to thank God for everything the Pastor mentions. Every few seconds try it. No matter what the pastor mentions, just try to keep thanking God in second-person communication for anything my mind can think of that the pastor says.
The results were astonishing! I think by God's grace I was on a roll! When the pastor mentioned stuff like "Paul's letters", I'd say in my mind to God "thanks that you gave us Paul's letters". When he mentioned "Peter" (the apostle), I'd say to God right away "thanks for Peter". When he mentioned "growing up in a democratic culture", I'd immediately thank God for democracy right after. When he mentioned american football, I'd quickly thank God for sports the second after. When he mentioned an analogy about winning the lottery, I thanked God for money afterwards. When he mentioned the "educated class in developed countries", I thanked God for post-secondary education. And of course whenever he mentioned Jesus and/or what Jesus did on the cross for our sins, I'd express to God my grattitude for my salvation. Since Dan McDonald is a Cross-centered preacher, I found myself thanking God for salvation several times throughout the sermon. And when the pastor was silent for a few seconds, I tried to thank God for whatever came to my mind, which included thanking God that the pastor had fingers, that he had glasses, that he had hair, that he had a wife and has a marriage. Haha. It helped!
Here's the cool part. By God's grace, it worked!!! The strategy flew! I was able to simultaneously digest over 90% of the content of the sermon (except for one part when he talked about a story of a football star, I got lost on some parts while trying to thank God every few seconds) while thanking God silently in my mind for whatever I thought of during the whole 30 minutes of the sermon! I think I can truly say to myself that I won the Game with Minutes EVERY minute of the sermon! The cool thing is, I not only communed with God at least once every minute, I think it was once every few seconds too! I think the most that I stopped was for 5 seconds! With this strategy and the grace of God's empowerment over months and months of training, I kept God on my mind every 3-4 seconds during this sermon! Praise God for both the open/creative idea, the grace to carry it out, as well as the exhilaration that accompanied the experience!
Nearing the end of the sermon though, I started to feel that this strategy was starting to become a ritual, and that after the sermon, if I still continued, it might have started to get ritualistic. So I persevered until the sermon was over, thanked God (one last time haha), and was willing to "close" this mini-chapter/leading of the Spirit which had a certain rhythm of gratitude for these sacred 30 minutes.
I know it's probably not God's will for me to use the exact same means for every single moment, for he is a God of variety, spontaneity, and freshness that is ever creative, adventurous, novel, and keeps us surprised every turn around the corner. I don't want any method of keeping in communion with him every minute to become mechanized/ritualized. But I want every one to be natural, receiving the fresh signals from the Holy Spirit, fresher than the news on the morning paper. If every "method" that the Spirit has given me can be metaphorically represented as a key on a piano, I want to put each of these keys on the piano scale of my mind, and play each one appropriately when the time is called for while paying attention to the composition of holy spiritual music of the Father's will.
HALLELUJIAH!
I didn't want to do it "mechanically" or "legalistically" without any life in the process of attempting it though, so I sought the Holy Spirit to lead me in a certain way to do it, according to His specific "flow" or "rhythm" of the moment (which I am coming more and more to believe that differs every moment for each individual Christian).
As the pastor just started to preach, I went about at attempting this vigorous yet "strenuously satisfying" pursuit.
As the first minute passed, some ideas were coming into my head. Whether or not they were DIRECTLY from the Holy Spirit or indirect suggestions mingled with my archives of Game with Minutes strategies I am not sure. Regardless, the suggestion was this:
"since I am commanded by God:
1) to be thankful in all situations, continually thanking God for everything (Philippians 4:6, Ephesians 5:20, Colossians 3:17, 1 Thessalonians 5:18)
as well as
2)to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17) aka keep in constant communion with Him
why not try to combine these two commandments which God wants us to do continually?
So here I am, with the first minute into the sermon, trying this wacky idea of trying to practically apply these two commandments simultaneously while the preacher is expounding his points from Ephesians 1:1-6. In my mind, a more specific idea of concretely applying these two commandments throughout the whole sermon popped in my head. Try to thank God for everything the Pastor mentions. Every few seconds try it. No matter what the pastor mentions, just try to keep thanking God in second-person communication for anything my mind can think of that the pastor says.
The results were astonishing! I think by God's grace I was on a roll! When the pastor mentioned stuff like "Paul's letters", I'd say in my mind to God "thanks that you gave us Paul's letters". When he mentioned "Peter" (the apostle), I'd say to God right away "thanks for Peter". When he mentioned "growing up in a democratic culture", I'd immediately thank God for democracy right after. When he mentioned american football, I'd quickly thank God for sports the second after. When he mentioned an analogy about winning the lottery, I thanked God for money afterwards. When he mentioned the "educated class in developed countries", I thanked God for post-secondary education. And of course whenever he mentioned Jesus and/or what Jesus did on the cross for our sins, I'd express to God my grattitude for my salvation. Since Dan McDonald is a Cross-centered preacher, I found myself thanking God for salvation several times throughout the sermon. And when the pastor was silent for a few seconds, I tried to thank God for whatever came to my mind, which included thanking God that the pastor had fingers, that he had glasses, that he had hair, that he had a wife and has a marriage. Haha. It helped!
Here's the cool part. By God's grace, it worked!!! The strategy flew! I was able to simultaneously digest over 90% of the content of the sermon (except for one part when he talked about a story of a football star, I got lost on some parts while trying to thank God every few seconds) while thanking God silently in my mind for whatever I thought of during the whole 30 minutes of the sermon! I think I can truly say to myself that I won the Game with Minutes EVERY minute of the sermon! The cool thing is, I not only communed with God at least once every minute, I think it was once every few seconds too! I think the most that I stopped was for 5 seconds! With this strategy and the grace of God's empowerment over months and months of training, I kept God on my mind every 3-4 seconds during this sermon! Praise God for both the open/creative idea, the grace to carry it out, as well as the exhilaration that accompanied the experience!
Nearing the end of the sermon though, I started to feel that this strategy was starting to become a ritual, and that after the sermon, if I still continued, it might have started to get ritualistic. So I persevered until the sermon was over, thanked God (one last time haha), and was willing to "close" this mini-chapter/leading of the Spirit which had a certain rhythm of gratitude for these sacred 30 minutes.
I know it's probably not God's will for me to use the exact same means for every single moment, for he is a God of variety, spontaneity, and freshness that is ever creative, adventurous, novel, and keeps us surprised every turn around the corner. I don't want any method of keeping in communion with him every minute to become mechanized/ritualized. But I want every one to be natural, receiving the fresh signals from the Holy Spirit, fresher than the news on the morning paper. If every "method" that the Spirit has given me can be metaphorically represented as a key on a piano, I want to put each of these keys on the piano scale of my mind, and play each one appropriately when the time is called for while paying attention to the composition of holy spiritual music of the Father's will.
HALLELUJIAH!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
