What I've/We've Been Learning!!

First off, two concepts that you will need to redefine are:

1. Righteousness
2. Good and Evil

The Hebrew meanings of these are COMPLETELY different to what I have ever heard of before! Keep reading to find out!

Jeremy, the man who taught helped us gain the *AWESOME* revelation on the need and power of LOVE, and Myles, one of our AWESOME leaders who I have learned a lot from already, and who is now living with us interns!  We interns call him 'Papa Myles'.

 Yesterday, we were just learning about how LOVE is the center. It may look like we are just hanging out a lot, but that is what we are supposed to do. We are hanging out with the Holy Spirit!! We are being filled. It is amazing. We learned from this dude named Jeremy (picture above). He was our 'guest of awesome' for this week. Here's the basics of what we learned:

Don't focus on all the sickness and problems around. When Jesus came, he didn't simply go out and heal all the time, yes, He did a lot of that too, but that wasn't the goal. His goals were about love. LOVE. He loved the disciples, he loved people, he loved His FATHER. He loved the Spirit. it was all done out of that place of LOVE. Instead of the place of seeing the need and dysfunction and brokenness and operating out of that need to fix it. Y'know?

Jeremy talked about how in the bible it says, 'God so loved the world... that he gave his son...'

but that is the main part right there! GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD..<<!!!!! It is/was out of HIS LOVE that he came to the world. It was out of HIS LOVE that He does all this stuff. It is out of LOVE.

So in turn, that is what, and how we should operate from. In our intern group, we are a group of people with all different sorts of backgrounds and upbringings. The vastness of differences is actually quite amazing! For example, there is about a handful of core personal things that I absolutely cannot relate to for each person living in our house, we're all THAT different. And we are all broken somewhere in our lives. Somewhere in our spirits. No one is complete, and no one has the full understanding of God. But if we just focused on that, and operated out of that need to be fulfilled, it would not work. NO, we must, and are learning HOW to operate out of a RELATIONSHIP with God. We are learning how to, as much as possible, be RIGHT-RELATING with God.

Side note: In Hebrew, righteousness means right-relating. Right-relating means basically being aligned with, and literally facing God, and being in a 'right relationship' with Him.

And if we are right-relating with God, we then naturally become right-relating with others who are also right-relating with Him. We then have a common LOVE and therefore we LOVE more. Because the love is shared towards God, and towards God lovers.

To sum up, the goal is to operate out of God's love. And in order to do that, we need to be filled with His love. And in order to really do THAT, we need to be right-relating with God, and His people who are also right-relating with Him. When Paul talks about the body of Christ, he is bang on serious! It is absolutely silly and useless, and downright crazy to simply have one person, a hand or foot, to reach people who don't know God!! God is all about RELATIONSHIP(S)!!!!!!! You need the WHOLE body as ONE to operate and function!

THAT is the key. He is all about LOVING relationships. And His definition of love is way different than any other definition (please refer to 1 Cor 13 for love definition). You see, if the body of Christ is operating in a functional way, then the multiplication will be fast, and NATURAL. Because it is coming out of a place of LOVE. Loving each other as Christ does.

Oh, another side note: We learned the other day about how the Hebrew meaning of the words good and evil.

• Good is the same as functional, perfection, and right-relating.

• Evil = dysfunctional, imperfection and swerving off the path of right-relating/wickedness.

So in Hebrew, good = functional, and evil = dysfunctional. Also, we learned that in Hebrew, all the words are descriptive, and are ALWAYS actively describing the thing that the word means. So good doesn't mean 'function'. It means 'functional'. Because it is actively functional, not still and stagnant. Even the verse, 'be still and know that I am God', the 'be still' part means 'actively standing still'. Like when you stand, you are actively making yourself stand upright pushing against gravity, and using your muscles to maintain that active position.

SO, FINAL SAMMATION... we must be functional as the body of Christ, in order to be replicating and spreading more of Him to others. For example, our neighbours come over all the time, and they are really open to God. And we as the body of Christ are always doing some sort of God stuff at the times when they come. And even if we aren't doing anything spiritual, we are there for them. LOVING them as Christ. Now I know this sounds sort of self glorifying to say that we can love them as Jesus did, but you see, THAT IS THE GOAL!!!!!! The goal is to keep being more and more filled with Christ's love, so that we keep getting renewed and the old keeps dying more and more and more, so that His newness can enter in!! So that more and more, it literally IS NOT our love, and our works, and our stuff that we do that touches other people (even believers too), but it is GOD's HEART and HIS LOVE!!!!

There are a lot of verses that refer to us dying to ourselves, so that God can live in us.

John 12:23 really talks a lot about that. About how if the seed dies, it will grow into more plants. And also in John 15 about how He is the vine and we are the branches, and how we have to be pruned in order to produce more fruit. And there are more! Ones that Paul wrote too! :)

The point is this:

The more we are right-relating and facing God, and the more we learn how to BE THE CHURCH, be the body of Christ, the more we can duplicate.

The thought of trying to make more churches WITOUT any of that, is just painful to me. Because it HAS to operate out of the place of HIS LOVE. His love flowing and filling us as individuals, and HIS love OVERflowing and pouring out into and onto each other. THAT is the goal. THAT is the basic grounding of 'making disciples', and of doing ANYTHING in Him. IT IS THE RELATIONSHIPS!!!!

One of my favourite things that I've been hearing and learning from so many people down here:

'God intended and made us as His people to live in community, with Him, and with His people.' The verse: 'God draws all men unto Himself' really fits with that!

I'll stop typing now, so that you can have a break!

We're going to be learning a lot more too! I haven't even put it all on here yet!!!

G'Tavias (neighbour) and Morgan (house-mate) having some bonding time!

G'Tavias and Tommy (house-mate) climbing a tree - more bonding time!

Prayer and listening to the Holy Spirit before we headed out for outreach.

Same prayer time as previous pic.

Angel, who lives with mom and bro at leader's house, and Courtney (mentor).