Omertà:
A brother asked abba Poemen,
"If I see my brother sin, is it right to say nothing about it?"
The old man replied,
"whenever we cover our brother's sin, God will cover ours;
whenever we tell people about our brother's guilt, God will do the same about ours."
Natural Man; is he bad or good?
“Common sense is a gift which God gave to human nature; but common sense is not the gift of His Son. Supernatural sense is the gift of His Son; never enthrone common sense. The Son detects the Father; common sense never yet detected the Father and never will. Our ordinary wits never worship God unless they are transfigured by the indwelling Son of God.” Taken from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, August 9th
As I sat on my porch and watched two never before seen green breasted birds eating seeds on a stalk of one of my white sage bushes I asked a question; are these birds beautiful? Are these birds fallen or are they perfectly birds as God intended?
Natural man is a beautiful being and is as beautiful as the natural birds or a natural redwood tree or a natural elephant. All these are destined to glorify God by doing what they were created to do; live then die and return to the dust. These all walked by sight without any element of faith and met their end; death. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
1 Corinthians 2:14
Regenerated man is the one who stands out as the one in creation who has, by God’s grace and through faith, been given life eternal. We now walk by faith in tension with our natural sight as fully formed New Creation Man.
We can no more expect of natural man or the birds what we take for granted. The natural does not walk by faith. The natural walks by sight.
By Ken Nielsen the week of August 18, 2009 after watching two green breasted birds eating seeds from my sage plant.
It is not another coming nor is it the idea that these are "the last days" that we are authorized and empowered to extend the Kingdom of God in the earth today. It is all because God incarnate came in the fullness of time to inaugurate the age to come and the "New Creation" in the earth, we are that New Creation. Jesus prophesied truthfully and it is hell that is hanging on for dear life and not the church.
Forget the "end-time fables", those scenarios concocted by those who had too much reliance on eyesight. The Kingdom is advancing, even if it is not as visible or as fast as we might like. Those with this kind of prophetic discernment must not fall victim to the same self-righteousness as those who oppose the Kingdom. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Jesus did not rebel against evil to defeat evil and rebellion ought not characterize us.
Jesus continues to defeat evil today through those who are clothed with His righteousness. Those who are not expecting sinlessness to be bliss but understanding that sinlessness is the requirement to eat from the Tree of Life and then to be Fathered as Jesus was; ”this is that".
