I have been spending my three snow days here in Texas re-writing our church (The Abbey) membership class and have managed to inspire myself and now have more energy wanting to burst out of this house. Below is an unpolished excerpt that goes with my current Facebook status....I haven't added a FB "note" (or blog entry) in such a long time that I thought I would share the fruits of my labor here in cyberspace! Warning: INTENSE AUTHENTIC OPTIMISM demonstrated below!
Experiencing the Father’s YES:
You will no doubt hear the word “religion” used in a negative context often here at the Abbey. Because religion can also be used in a positive vein, it is good to clarify what we mean by the term. Of course, we do not mean the kind of “pure religion” that James 1:27 commends, where acts of service are the fruit. The religion that actually keeps people from getting to the marvelous realities of God is the same thing that Jesus spent a good portion of his ministry dismissing. Throughout the Gospels, we hear Jesus saying, “The scribes and Pharisees say…., but I tell you instead…..” and his contrasting declaration was always a statement of a loving God, rather than a harsh and legalistic judge. Perhaps it was Bono (yes, the U2 rock star) who recently said it best: “Religion can be the enemy of God. It`s often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship.”
Considering that sense of the word religion—what men make up about God when he is not allowed to speak for Himself, for whatever reason—religion does keep people from the real GOD and we have no apologies for pointing out the contrast! Religion is a system based on law, sin, guilt and fear, but Jesus died on the cross to change the system. Our new system is one of SPIRIT which functions BY GRACE! Man has always been seeking his source, but religion hands out “NO” answers (or sometimes, “Yes, but….only if you jump through hoops of conformity” answers). God however, sent from heaven in the form of Jesus, one all-encompassing divine YES!
What is it you desire in your deepest heart? What is the quest at the deepest part of your being? In Christ, the answer is YES—perhaps not a magic, instant yes, or a yes that is an exact fit for your sometimes convoluted expectations, but a broad over-arching YES to your destiny, your prosperity and all God’s best for your life! Can I have…..? (fill in the blank with anything that is a genuine desire in the spirit) YES! It is not just our wish--it IS Scripture: “For all God's promises are "Yes" in him. And so through him we can say "Amen," to the glory of God.” II Corinthians 1:20
And that kind of bold confidence makes “religious” people angry. They want you to work for it like they think they have to do! They want to monitor your behavior and use guilt as a motivator. They want to sprinkle caution signs everywhere, just so you keep an element of fear in your relationship with God for protective purposes. But that is the issue at the crux of it all: FEAR! When people have only heard about the Father’s YES, and have not EXPERIENCED it, they still retain an edge of fear in their lives. You cannot mentally assent to the goodness of God—you have to give your heart to the experience. The only way to know the Father’s YES is to experience his goodness spirit to Spirit—to experience the perfect love that absolutely casts out that performance-based fear! (I John 4:18) That is what the spirit of God pours out every time.
When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God answered by allowing his GOODNESS to pass before him! God is the supreme ruler of the universe, the ultimate unchallenged power, but the most amazing thing that we notice when we experience Him (which we sense first in our spirits, but it readily spills out into our emotions and even our physicality) is that His power is never separate from his intense and overwhelming love and desire to share Himself with us! As the best of Fathers, His love is the motivating factor for all he does and He gives Himself away. He IS love—a love that says YES to the deepest desires because He actually is the source of those desires. (And be assured that silly or harmful “desires” are not the deep ones—they actually arise as poor substitutes when the deep ones are unmet).
The word “abbey” comes from the word abba which means “father.” You might remember it from Romans 8:15-16 “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba,Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”
So, an abbey is meant to be a place of God’s Fatherhood demonstrated. In this world of dysfunction where fatherhood has so often been absent or undependable, God is pouring out a healing grace that affects all aspects of life. We are not just experiencing the meeting of needs, but we are experiencing being “re-Fathered” from above! It is not just a place of YES, but a place of the FATHER’S YES, where all fulfillments are attached to His good heart! His blessing is not just material—it is much more! As God said to Abraham in a vision, so today we hear the same from the heart of the Father God, “I AM your shield and your exceedingly great reward.”
