Integration of New Believers into the Community

Written Summer of 2011

For new believers who have little or no background in the faith:

Know that the new friends that surround you are capable of greatly supporting you with the same love of God that must have drawn you to make your life changing decision. We are told in // a place of the first five books of the new testament// "Be holy/perfect as I am holy/perfect"//. Your new companions, however are there merely to guide you to the one who is perfect, though they strive as you undoubtedly do right now to accept God's love and grace more and more every day they are of course far from the achievement that may be only fully realized when God's work for us on earth is complete. Many of them are however very much familiar with ways of reaching more of this so necessary love, and of how to deal with the lies that discourage us and prevent us from being able to fully grasp it. They might not be able to comprehend or remember the exact situation you are in so as to give you the perfect advice, but do listen attentively to their experiences in confronting their own problems. You will most likely be inspired and hopefully will feel more hope and faith in the God who saved them and has used them to reach out to you.

EXCERPTED: They have been through many years of the walk you are just beginning and though they might even find themselves having to come to the same maturity you are now beginning to attain the

For he who has brought new believers to faith, who has much background, but perhaps as much or even less faith than those he saved:

You have been through many years of the walk they are just beginning. Worry you might, that you might even find them exceeding you in levels of spiritual maturity and doing so much faster than you did. The difference in your situation however is that by living the Christian lifestyle you have laid essential groundwork for living this life that they might not have. Such preparations are immensely valuable tools you may use to encourage them and to equip yourself to triumph and victory over sin, they include of course: good habits Bible reading or prayer, knowing to not ever forsake the body, familiarity with powerful scriptures used through life experiences, knowledge of resources, owning books, cds, pamphlets, handouts from conferences, etc. Recall all these experiences and what treasurable moments they have contributed to your life's memories. By reminding yourself of this you will bring back moments of the faith you once had and I do dare add recollections of contributions to your personal level of emotional satisfaction. For though the soul is not everything it is far better to have been entertained with these spiritual fun things throughout your life than to have had the deceitful things of the world for pleasure. All these experiences will be the fun things of the world you might desire to invite your new brothers and sisters into.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God through salvation for everyone who believes. Rom. 1:16

God has been bringing this verse to my memory.

Were not those experiences powerful? Just be true to what you saw and felt and do be honest with those around you about what you experience in conferences you go to or have been to even the simple feeling of comfort you experience through the same prayer experiences that you might give them. They are most always willing to receive this support from you.

Anyway yes that stuff is awesome, I wish to be united with all you my brothers and sisters in holding fast to these principles because they were easy to forget in a time when I was a bit distracted, but when God might have wanted me to use them. Anyway I am glad they will of good use to whoever might receive them now and that I am now accountable to impact people's lives with them in the future. Hhahhahahaha!! imitate Messiah, he was "created to destroy the works of the devil". We can help him out !

Tents of Kedar: Demystification of the Bible's context through google images search

1 The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.

2 “May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
For your love is better than wine.

3 “Your oils have a pleasing fragrance,
Your name is like purified oil;
Therefore the maidens love you.

4 “Draw me after you and let us run together!
The king has brought me into his chambers.”

“We will rejoice in you and be glad;
We will extol your love more than wine.
Rightly do they love you.”

5 “I am black but lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
Like the tents of Kedar,
Like the curtains of Solomon.

From Wiki.answers:

What are the tents of kedar?

Improve

Kedar is the second son of Ishmael. Kedar was a nomadic Arabian tribe living in tents made of skins from their herds of black goats.

This image was found at: 

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l9OoLdn1ZjQ/TX_qoZhdUlI/AAAAAAAAAgY/UStilRI7Wew/DSC_0938.jpg

Short Thoughts on How to Open My Heart to Scriptures

   It seems to me that the different churches receive different kinds of messages, many things have been wrongly interpreted because we don't understand Paul's heart for the people he is writing to.  When I see that the Corinthians were practicing asceticism and going to the extreme of not marrying I understand why Paul wrote to them certain things about marriage.  For understanding this it was particularly helpful when I read the messages to the seven churches in Revelation.  If I decide to read an Epistle from front to back I can now pray and give up my thoughts to God as I read it so that whatever is in line with me and what I need to receive would be drawn in and what isn't for me would be left out.

Beautiful areas where I personally see God’s Kingdom is being eestablished

Rough Thoughtspill on Beautiful areas where I personally see God’s Kingdom is being eestablished especially with creativity and technology and art, #good-news #goodnews #good_news.

Graham Cooke:

community fairs

environment changers --->  tongues as group

Heidi Baker

Stars and Astronomy

Dance artwork with lights, getting used to God decorationg the room in worhsip with glitter and other shiny objects

String theory

Vibrations fun with Dan McColam, Joanne McFatter, Ray Hughes, David Van Koevering
Inventions for the Kingdom

Animals being educated and blessed,  e.g. very organically does it happen that a Dog in Christan home learns to say “I love you”, wow I love that dog Samson he’s so awesome.  
“He bled and then he died and then he rose again for me”

dressing as we are seen in the spirit.  decorating our houses as we see the ones in heaven being built for us

Space Exploration

Beautiful Lord Jesus his face shines beyond all stars and galaxies and beauty, perhaps glitter decorates his face as the glories of the discovered cosmos

For Dancers and other worshipers

Building worship toys and instrumentslike the angels use in heaven,
      glitter spreaders, colored water dripping from tip of arms for dancers, balls that distribute light rays and glitter through the room.  

wedding bells

bells on pants and on clothes for dancers

colors colors everywhere

worship arenas were everybody gets dirty with paint, oil, molten gold, molten liquids with gold dust on them and perfume and incense and frankincense and molten gold and myhrr and testimonies and thoughts and imaginations flowing and creating like wild spirit-hearts as dances for King Father God, and Jesus and other unthought of stuff getting splashed and spread everywhere beautiful Lord Jesus all for your glory and the sake of intimiacy to your face and your bosom Lord Jesus. Glory!  in his temple all cry,  :D! sun shine! sun shine! you are the sun Jesus.  We love you Lord Jesus, we want your love and your life to flow through us Lord Jesus. thank you for revealing these things to the infants and babes and to give to the infants and babes and those orphans and widows and those poor in spirit, those who will receive it with the the most delight and with the best stewardship.   lord jesus, love you ;).  whoah! shaka baba, boyaba saka he!  :)

instuments that do all of the above, all senses targeted through same instrument.  
God’s tangible love and we are all hugging, strong bass speakers from music all over room --> touch, colors, sound, smell, and taste through smells and maybe mana from heaven too :). thank you Lord Jesus

the blood of Jesus and his image being impressed hopelesssly and transfixed into the image center of our eyes’ permavision, we see the world through his image and his eyes as he lives inside of us.  Beautiful lord Jesus, beautiful are the feet Jesus :D

I think Holy Spirit says I”m done. I will worship now and be in heaven thank you Jesus.  

Some more quick thoughts before going to sleep( people and relating to other people)

dependent relationship (expects from the other person in return, what you give is what you get)

interdependent relationship ---  (everything has a cost, I love you I'm your friend.  you need something.  I'll provide it to you)


holy spirit come, heaven was there. it was fun and energizing to pray for people in tijuana last night

my friend who came with us talked about how the people connection was an important and necessary part of life.  that is why she said she could not survive on a relationship with God and holy Spirit alone for 4 years of her life.  She realized that we need people,
God said that it was not "good for man to be alone"
why does this make sense?
    Perhaps to think of what "alone" means.  Not the only one here on the earth in this physical place.  Can we be companions to God as he can be a companion to us?    Can we relate to the animals?  Can we relate to God like we relate to other people?  Even if community was a good thing that is    one of God's extra blessings like jewels or an ocean to swim in or the beauty of nature, something good though not completely necessary as joy or peace or love or food.  Even if community was not as necessary as those things then we might at least observe that the world is full of people whose lives we can change with the love of God that we've known.  It is perhaps we
    would need to learn to relate to them and the culture of living among them would need to be learned if we are to most effectively reach out with this love to them.

1 Corinthians 12-13 and Spiritual Maturity

Is spiritual maturity the same as emotional maturity. I will argue that they may come hand in hand at times and that the fruits from spiritual maturity when coupled with an understanding of love may in fact yield the most noble form of emotional maturity.

1 Cor. 12, NASB

¹ Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. ² You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to the mute idols, however you were led. ³ Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking ^[a]by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is ^[b]accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except ^[c]by the Holy Spirit.

"you were led" here is the key phrase we will focus on. Are we to say in this case that we should have known better? We couldn't have, because even if we were to have.

These are some of the things I have at times thought about in reflecting on 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 especially since maturity is a strong theme at the end of the 13th chapter.

There much more to say on this, but I shall have to do so a later time.

Ministering grace Grace for Freedom from Sin

1 Brethren, even if ^[a]anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. ² Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. ³ For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. ⁴ But each one must examine his own work, and then he will havereason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another. ⁵ For each one will bear his own load.

Any thing that I write on this topic right now is only because I am trying to understand it. So if you have any input please feel free to give it.

In gentleness:

Love and grace is what this means to me

"Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ":

Is our sin not taken care of and the old law taken away, what law is this then. Sin doesn't condemn us in any manner, this is clear. However if we take the viewpoint of Jesus looking down on his church, it is something inconvenient since it does lead us away from being able to please him as much. In earthly marriages we might observe for example that the husband dislikes eating fastfood. If the wife insists on eating fastfood and the husband is a loving husband he'll do this for his wife, but he will not be happy. If we want our groom to be happy, we know to do certain things to please him. I do think though that sin goes further than the mere act of displeasing someone. We can sin against God and also sin against man, such as if we were to be unfaithful to our spouses. I am inclined to think, though I am not sure that this passage is saying we should encourage each other to love God with a more pure love everyday and daily bring our thoughts captive so that we are not enticed by any thoughts that would lead us to sin or idolatry.