Snapshots and Synapses

As we  spend time in His Presence , we take nourishment from His very life, just as a branch receives the nutrients it needs through it's connectedness to the vine. So eating and drinking the Reality of Christ fills us with an ever growing awareness of Who God is: He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and fully-good! I become emboldened by His love, the heart-felt knowledge His goodness is directed at me, and that his power and knowledge are working that goodness together for my benefit! (Romans 8:28) Basking in the Reality of God soaks us in the awareness of His Presence. Where we see the Reality of God, then? We know Him through the life and witness of Christ We touch Him through the life and witness of Christ's Body, His people We listen to Him through His prophetic speaking through dreams and visions or as a gentle voice in our consciousness We breathe in His Presence through our wonder of creation We experience Him through His coordination of our life's circumstanc...

So jumping back to the first question: what does it mean to remain in Him? Somehow, our lives and His essence are joined. My very being, my existence is intertwined with His. My purpose, my identity, my... me, is one with Christ. The circumstances of my life are perceived in the context of this relationship with Him. It is my very life. “I think and therefore I am” is a quote attributed to Rene' Descartes, a French philosopher, mathematician and physicist. Descartes exposed a fundamental truth about living, something completely personal, inward-looking and undeniably real: with life, there is an awareness of existence. The mere fact that I know I'm alive, proves beyond doubt that I am a being who exists. You see, this awareness... this heart-felt understanding that “I am aware” proves that I am alive. Am I aware of my environment? Am I aware of pleasure? Am I aware of pain? It's this awareness that makes my existence irrefutable. But there's a deeper, newer awar...

So as adopted children of God, what are our Family Values ?  Above all, we value the Presence of God’s love. We seek to live in His Presence. John’s gospel is often used to introduce new believers to the faith. John, friend of Jesus, often referred to himself as the beloved disciple. He understood the importance of basking in God’s loving Presence and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote: "Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.  "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to My Father's glory, that ...

In some ways, this is a continuation of a previous post , but I think it also stands on its own: In the beginning God's love overflowed into an action: the creation of others for Him to love. Because of His love, we are continuing to learn how to love. But rebellion entered the world when those He created for love sought to become their own god rather than remaining in the peace and grace of His Presence. The rebellious forsook His provision and protection (as well as obedience to His divine direction) and pursued inflated self-gratification in all its myriad forms. So sin entered the world, and the would-be-gods became victims of each other, pawns of a great deception because a rebellious heart tends to use everyone and everything for self-gain… and because there is and can only be One True God, Who is all-powerful, all-knowing and fully good.  God is love, and while He has loved us from the very beginning, He existed before “the beginning”. Since love only exists when the...