Press On! - Edition II

Numbers - ironically, numbers were once such an easy issue for the Church.  In the early Church, according to scripture, “multitudes” responded to the good news of Christian redemption.  And, this was true even though that early redemptive message was quite challenging to the hearers.  As it actually still does today, the Gospel of Christ required them to go from being the masters of their own destiny, to becoming joyfully humble servants, surrendered to the Lordship of Christ.

  And, as they bowed to that redemptive requirement, over time, a greater truth emerged.  Turns out, this necessary humiliation, this servanthood, was, in fact, essential to the workings of the divine plan for the thorough renewal of the believer’s heart (character essence) and lifestyle realities. And, that renewal was key to God’s  redemptive end game: an intimate, durable, and mutually fulfilling God/man friendship fully substantiated in the Living Christ. 

   And, in fact, the transformative process which grows this “new creature in Christ” can only happen in that rarefied atmosphere of a profound humility before God.  We typically just refer to this special relational environment as “redemptive faith.” And, it is this context of profound humility which produces what an atmosphere of arrogance and self-determination never could – endurance.

 And, endurance is needed to get through this character and life transforming process.  This is no casual walk in the park we are talking about.   

 This is an encompassing adventure which involves a focused personal pursuit of a spiritual merger with the Living Christ by which His empowering character essence literally becomes integrated with that of the believer.  And, flowing out of this resulting symbiotic relationship then comes a divine overwrite of the believer’s value system which, in turn, yields a whole new body of life-altering divine truth.

  And, from this now fresh and growing heart-oneness with God, enabled and sustained by the empowering sufficiency of the Living Christ, springs that long sought divine prize.  It is that now very real, intimate, durable, and mutually fulfilling God/man friendship – fully initialized, and ready to shower both God and the believer with its every day relational blessings.

  So, this is that authentic redemptive journey which those early “multitudes” so willingly took on and successfully completed.  Indeed, this is that thoroughly renewing path, blazed by the work of both the Dying and the Living Christ, which not only frees the souls of believers from the clutches of the Darkness; but, it also frees them from their own disabling brokenness as well – just as God always intended. 

  Sadly, however, by this late hour in history and due entirely to the work of the Darkness, this authentic redemptive path has become much more obscured by other deceptive and misleading pathways.  And many now succumb to the charms of those simpler and less demanding paths.  And, the prevalence of those dark charms has actually had the effect of casting a long shadow of rejection over this true path.

  Thus many contemporary believers are now lacking that excitement and passion that fired those early believers to complete their redemptive transformation.   The reality is that the rank and file of the contemporary Church, and more specifically, the American Evangelical Church, under all of its banners, have become widely reluctant to move, in real terms, beyond simply the forgiveness of the Cross.

  But that wondrous Cross of the Dying Christ and the forgiveness which it affords, is but the trailhead of the redemptive path which God has actually laid out.  According to His authentic redemptive mapping, there is a final leg of this journey which reaches well beyond that Cross.  It stretches toward Christ's Resurrection and that empowering encounter with the Living Christ which transforms the believer in those very real terms.

  So, enabled and sustained by the shared vibrancy of the Living Christ as He lives within, the believer experiences this personal transformation.  And, it is, indeed, a journey which brings real newness to his or her heart (character essence) and lifestyle realities.  And, contrary to that now widely popular mistake – this trans-formative part of our redemptive journey is absolutely not optional.

 God is seeking to achieve a “thorough reclamation” of his fallen and badly broken human creature. And, He will not have that expensive, long sought, and God-prescribed end-result preempted by human reluctance, timidity, laziness, ignorance or any other such thing.  The divine redemptive design is firmly established.  And either we match its specifications or we perish in our own mistaken choices.

  And, overly simplistic and ridiculously easy is certainly one of those mistaken approaches.  But the pursuit of a thorough personal renewal in the power of the Living Christ is an immeasurably better one.  It actually brings God’s real approval and the believer’s true newness and safety of soul.

 But it is true that the contemporary Church is now struggling with this larger idea of redemption in the pew, the pulpit, and in the administrative ranks of the Church.  We would all like to believe that our redemptive message is accurate and sacrosanct - immune to the ebb and flow of life's treacheries and pressures.

 And, as ministers of God’s redemptive truth, we would hope that any reluctance of contemporary congregations to hear and respond to the greater challenges of the authentic redemptive journey would not quell our willingness to energetically proclaim them.  But is all of this actually true?

 In this time when the Church is widely numerically challenged in key places: conversions, membership, attendance, and the connected finances etc., might we now be bowing to the tyranny of those growing numerical pressures?  These pressures are very real in the modern Church.  And, they do have a far reaching and often excruciating influence.

 For example, if this more challenging but truly authentic message has now widely become more than this contemporary Church is willing to embrace, might we then simply resort to exploring less challenging truth (which is also of greatly diminished import)? Or, might we become willing to morph our pulpit ministry into something more like helpful life-couching? And all of this, in the interest of surreptitiously protecting our numbers and our continuing ability to sustain and/or grow them.

 Or, might those numbers based pressures drive us to allow less altruistic concerns to begin to weigh in on our thinking and behavior? So, maybe a numbers threat to our personal validation, credibility, job security, or our prospects regarding that ministerial “ladder climb” might begin to have some impact.  Perhaps we might then begin to soft-peddle or just avoid this more stringent message altogether, in the face of less receptive modern congregations. 

  As a Church administrator, might we be tempted to shade the truth a bit?  Perhaps it would seem ok if it made our denomination more attractive, and thus more, "embraceable" by the larger world and/or perhaps the growing shallowness of our constituency?  

Or, maybe, in this case, we would start to refrain from "defending the faith", i.e. from ever critically juxtaposing our authentic message of redemption with its heretical competitors.  And this, so we could maintain our personal and our denominational image as thoughtful and attractive men and women of peace – thus, alienating none (except our own integrity), all in deference to the numbers and the perceptions they demand of us.

  But, be all of that as it may, the actual reality is that in most every church in the land today, there are now those who are dangerously under invested in their own redemption – and blissfully happy to be so.  Truth be told, a great many among our modern multitudes now demand that this Living Christ-fueled renewal process be, at the very least, toned way down.  And often, the greater preference is that it be left entirely unmentioned. 

 And, this preference for shallowness has, indeed, now become broadly embraced across the American Evangelical Church as being the acceptable norm.  And. in some cases, this is occurring in spite of our long enshrined doctrinal positions to the contrary.  And, in fact, it is this widespread and completely deadly mistake which has also set up a presently raging negotiation within the modern Church. 

 But this is no mere heated back and forth between differing theologians.  This is a life and death involved confrontation between the divine Truth Giver, the Holy Spirit, and those deluded, wayward, and/or terminally misguided hearts within this contemporary Church.  And how could it not be so?  Jesus described the role of the Holy Spirit this way. “He will guide you into all truth.” 

 So, when and wherever the Divine Spirit encounters this deadly predilection for shallowness and under-investment on the part of believers, be it in the pew, the pulpit, or the higher administrations of the Church, what else would He do?  What else can He do, but take adamant issue with such?   So, He begins to intensely negotiate with that believer in his or her heart. Again, He simply cannot do less.

 And, at such a point, the Spirit’s whispering voice makes every effort to convince the believer to embrace and/or proclaim this real and thorough newness of heart and life in the Living Christ.  Nevertheless, these Holy Spirit interventions, however they turn out, ever remain just that, a negotiation.  

They are necessarily never irresistible demands.  The believer’s level of devotion is always left to decide the outcome of these loving confrontations. And, many do actually resist these urgings by the Divine Spirit.

 Obviously, believers can, indeed, grieve the Holy Spirit with our willful stubbornness.  And, this is certainly a possibility in these redemptive negotiations.  But if believers refuse, or suppress, or in other ways seek to escape the Spirit's loving encouragement to lean into this Living Christ-empowered completion, they will absolutely have to do so repeatedly.   

This is true because their soul hangs in the balance.  So, the Spirit is ever faithful to return again and again to attempt to achieve this crucial enlightenment.  

But unfortunately, something else is also true.  Our willful stubbornness can also be as perpetual as His faithful effort - a reality which can seal our eternal doom.

So, at this late redemptive hour, the pews, pulpits, and Church administrations all across this contemporary Church are now alight with the intellectual and emotional sparks of these intense, life-and-death, personal negotiations with the Divine Spirit.  And, countless under-invested souls within the Church do, indeed, hang in the balance.  

Nevertheless, the nature of God's ultimate redemptive aspiration never wavers.  It ever remains that divine intention to bring to pass that every day reality of a durable and mutually fulfilling friendship with the believer, made strong and consistent through that unique symbiotic merger with the all sufficient Living Christ. 

So, the ultimate redemptive end game simply cannot merely be forgiveness.  Again, this wondrous beginning benefit must necessarily evolve into this Christ-empowered transformation of our heart (character essence) and our lifestyle realities to facilitate that heart-oneness with God so indispensable to that consummate divine friendship.

That intimate friendship is what was lost in the Garden of Eden all those eons ago.  And, that friendship is what the redemptive work of Jesus is now putting back one person at a time, and in a much better and more substantial way.  Ultimately God will simply not settle for less.

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven.  Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew [In the Greek: Genosco - a deep and intimate knowing] you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" ~ Jesus   [Brackets added]

Numbers matter in the Church.  But redemptive truth matters more.  The simple reality is that redemptive truth actually defines the numbers and never is the reverse true - in spite of our cherished delusions.

Press On!

The whole impetus of our maturing faith is for the believer to personally grow into a beautifully intimate, truth-based friendship with God.  And, indeed, this desperate hunger for heart-oneness with Him is actually the birthmark of the redeemed. And, the redemptive work of both the Dying and the Living Christ are ultimately all about this simple purpose of bringing believers to this mutually fulfilling level of the God/man friendship.

And, the divinely designed process which brings the believer to this end through Christ is breathtaking in both its effectiveness and its scope.  So, the simple purpose of The Re-Awakening Series, a very unique, fiction/ nonfiction, two book set, is to keenly refresh the big picture of this authentic redemptive journey. 

Why? And, why now?  Because by this time in history, the redemptive road has proven to be, not only long, but also, very treacherous for mankind - entirely due to the work of the Darkness.  As a result, the present Church is now increasingly living well beneath the privilege afforded to believers by the Living Christ.  And, this growing shallowness is quickly becoming the accepted norm all across the American Evangelical Church.    

Thus, it is my profound honor, through the books of this succinct series to freshly and compellingly expose the true, God-designed redemptive path.  This is that authentic path which absolutely liberates humanity – not only from the clutches of the Darkness, but also from our own disabling brokenness.

The driving motive behind these books is a simple one.  It is just the desire to see present generations more widely experience a personal redemption which brings an unbounded, Living Christ-empowered newness to both their character essence and their lifestyle realities.  And, all of this is so they might experience the unfettered  companionship of God – and all of the blessings which flow out of  that. 

But the "elephant" in the room, which we simply cannot afford to ignore any longer, is this widespread neglect, across the Church, of the believer's truly transformative completion in the Living Christ. At this closing hour in redemptive history, it is imperative that we  correctly address a dark truth.  This truth, that the non-pursuit of one's Christ empowered completion through a Spiritual merger with Him is not only unsatisfying for both God and man - it is also a deadly mistake for one's soul.  

A joyous, intimate, and heart-matched friendship with God, consistently sustained through the believer's symbiotic enablement by the Living Christ.  This has ever been the God's redemptive end game and the true specification for eternal life.  

   Devil Whispers: (Fiction 167 pgs.) The First Book

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  ~ The Apostle, Peter

The simple reality is this.  Satan is as real as God.  And, he is very intelligent in a thoroughly darkened way.  And, he has now had eons of time to use that tortured intellect to develop many consummate tactics of deception. And, indeed, he has done so. Furthermore, he has also taught these treacherous tactics of spiritual warfare to that hideous legion of demons which follow him – also very real. 

 As a result, humanity has now long suffered under constant psychological assault from this “Legion of the Darkness.” For example, we have been slaughtered by the millions in the wars which Satan’s heartless demons slyly cultivate through their human dupes.  And similarly, we are also regularly convinced to see evil as good and good as evil – thus wrecking our spiritual lives, our bodies, our relationships with both God and man, our life quality, and the good order of our world.

So, we ever bleed and find ourselves trapped in a mire of endless social confusion.  We struggle, both within and without, with chronic chaos of every sort. And, the Darkness continues to convince many of us to push away our benevolent Creator and our Savior.  And, as a result, our souls perish en masse. And, on and on it goes.   

And yet, as a species, we remain far too unaware that these chronic, inter-generational devastations are happening by demonic design and through their very deliberate efforts.  We just don’t seem to widely make the serious connection that they are being psychologically cultivated by the satanic economy.  

And doubtless, this is largely due to this simple everyday reality.  Satan's devilish ranks are able to shield their own culpability from view by hiding behind the foreground visibility of the dupish human instruments who serve them.

Nevertheless, the satanic economy is a very real part of the redemptive big picture.  Thus, these enemies of our soul and their treacherous tactics should also be carefully scrutinized and exposed as the apostle indicated above. But, indeed, they are illusive.

So, it is because of this hard-to-see / hard-to-grasp nature of the demonic underworld that I chose a fiction format over a non-fiction format for Devil Whispers.  Some things (and certainly this demonic thing) are just better dramatized than merely factually described. 

Every evil work of the Darkness confirms its slippery, slithery nature. So, the light is just much more easily shined on these invisible demonic pot-stirrers and their treacherous work through the greater liberties afforded by a fictional approach.

But, in fact, I wish there were a book classification called “non-fiction, fiction.” If there had been, I would certainly have chosen it to classify this book.  DW is essentially (and even in much of its detail) an accurate expose´ of the satanic economy.  So, when finished with Devil Whispers, it is all but guaranteed that Satan’s normally very ethereal “Economy of Darkness” will have a much more concrete feel in the reader’s mind than was previously so.

 Spiritual Dynamics: (Non-fiction 161 pgs.) The Second Book 

The two books in this series (or set, if you prefer) can be read individually and/ or in reverse order and they will still render good benefit.  But they are much more beneficial when read together in the intended order:   Devil Whispers first, and then Spiritual Dynamics.

It works like this. Devil Whispers, is essentially a wide-framed, fast-moving historical documentary portraying high-points in the human experience in an all-encompassing way.  Which is to say, those key events are shown in both the physical and the metaphysical dimensions as they actually do occur - i.e. simultaneously sharing a cause-and-effect inter-connection. 

Spiritual Dynamics then follows as a clear and accurate commentary to factually interpret, in plain language, this bi-dimensional reality in which we all exist. But given the import of the subject matter addressed by Spiritual Dynamics, you will probably be surprised by the tone of its approach. 

It is not written in a heavy theological brogue.  Nor does it read like a doctoral thesis. And, it does not employ an oppressive, “thou shalt” overtone. 

Rather, this book is very purposely written in a more everyday language and a fairly light inflection to facilitate a more relaxed flow of its vital and valuable explanations. And, regarding those insights, Spiritual Dynamics is truly a fresh step forward as an explanation of God’s thoroughly life-renewing redemptive process.  Indeed, this book has a tremendous capacity to broaden the reader’s practical understanding of the full scope of what God is really up to in Christ.  SD is truly a stimulating personal or group study text.

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”  It is a simple and biblical concept.  And, Spiritual Dynamics shows the reader precisely how, through both the Dying and the Living Christ, to correctly and fully engage this idea.  And, in so doing, it enables the reader to experience the sheer joy of an intimate, empowering, and completely fulfilling divine friendship every single day.

Obviously, wrong roads lead to wrong places.  Spiritual Dynamics is like a literary GPS serving but one simple command input - this command,  “Take Me Safely Home.”

 The Re-Awakening Series by Larry Burnett

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