Prelude to "The Great Life"

Christine and I have spent the past several months working on a batch of new songs that will be part of a project we are calling "The Great Life." This project is likely to be our most ambitious yet - at least from a spiritual perspective. Sweetbird is an evolution - it is a spiritual work in progress. The Lord is leading the way. We are merely passengers in His vehicle.

Recently, I came across a book by T. Austin-Sparks titled "Spiritual Sight" that talks about what it takes to begin to live the life the Lord wants us to live - what I call "The Great Life." We all must start at the beginning. However, many people don't know where to begin. So what is the beginning of the Christian life? In a word, it is a seeing.

As Sparks says:

"Seeing governs the beginning of the Christian life. It must be a seeing. The very logic of things demands that it shall be a seeing; for this reason, that the whole of the Christian life is to be a progressive movement along one line, to one end. That line and that end is Christ. That was the issue with the man born blind in John 9. You will remember how, after they cast him out, Jesus found him, and said to him, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" and the man answered and said, "And who is He, Lord, that I may believe on Him?" Jesus said unto him, "Thou hast both seen Him and He it is That speaketh with thee." And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshipped him. The issue of spiritual sight is the recognition of the Lord Jesus, and it is going to be that all the way through from start to finish."

Sparks goes on to say: "We may say that our salvation was a matter of seeing ourselves as sinners. But had it been left there it would have been a poor lookout for us."

There are many people I have encountered over the years that seem to be stuck in what I call "sinner and salvation mode." These people have a very superficial understanding of "The Great Life." They know their hearts are wrong and they recognize Jesus as Savior. But, sadly, He is not Lord. I would venture to say that 99 percent of Christians I have met consider Jesus as Savior but not their Lord. And therein lies the major problem with Christianity. As Sparks notes, if Jesus is only our Savior, we don't have much of a future. In other words, if you want to live "The Great Life," Jesus must be Savior and Lord.

How does Jesus become Lord? How do we begin "The Great Life?" As Sparks correctly points out, the whole matter is summed up into seeing Jesus. What happens when you really see Him? Well, let's consider, as Spark does in his book, what happened to Saul of Tarsus. Saul is a great example of a life transformed by the heart of Christ.

As we know, a lot of things happened to Saul - mighty things which nothing else would have accomplished. For example, says Sparks, you would never have argued Saul of Tarsus into Christianity; you would never have frightened him into Christianity; you would never have either reasoned or emotionalised him into being a Christian.

To get Saul out of his religion (Judaism) there needed something more than could have been found on this earth. He saw Jesus, and that did it. After he saw the Lord, he became an emancipated man. Later on in his walk down the narrow path, when Saul is right up against the great difficulty of the Judaisers, tracking and following him everywhere to disturb the faith of his converts, to wreck their position in Christ, and they are inclined to fall away, if they have not already done so (we are talking about those converts and churches in Galatia), he once again raises the whole question as to what a Christian is, and focuses it upon this very point of what happened on the Damascus road.

"The Letter to the Galatians," says Sparks, "really can be summed up in this way: a Christian is not one who does this and that and another thing which is prescribed to be done; a Christian is not one who refrains from doing this and that and another thing because they are forbidden; a Christian is not one at all who is governed by the externalities of a way of life, an order, a legalistic system which says, You must, and You must not: a Christian is comprehended in this saying, "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me: (Gal. 1:15-16). That is only another way of saying, He opened my eyes to see Jesus, for the two things are the same."

Sparks continues:

"The Damascus road is the place. "Who art Thou, Lord? I am Jesus of Nazareth". "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me." That is one and the same thing. Seeing in an inward way: that makes a Christian. "God… hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). "In our hearts": Christ, so imparted and revealed within, is what makes a Christian, and a Christian will do or not do certain things, not at the dictates of any Christian law, any more than Jewish, but as led by the Spirit inwardly, by Christ in the heart. It is that that makes a Christian, and in that the foundation is laid for all the rest, right on to the consummation, because it is just going to be that growingly. So the foundation must be according to the superstructure; they are all of a piece. It is seeing, and it is seeing Christ."

"This," says Spark "is a bold statement upon which a very great deal more might be said. It is a challenge. We have to ask ourselves now, On what foundation does our Christian life rest? Is it upon something outward; something we have read, something we have been told, something we have been commanded, something we have been frightened into, or emotionalised into; or is it based upon this foundation. "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me"?

The beginning of "The Great Life" comes with seeing the Lord. When we see Him, we can begin our journey down the narrow path.

May you truly see Jesus and may His heart reign supreme in your heart.

Agape,

Steve

Field of Dreams

I've been thinking about the movie "Field of Dreams" recently. It's one of my favorite movies. The movie is taking on more significance in my life as I walk the narrow path with Jesus. Over the past several months, the Lord has awoken me very early in the morning (between 3 and 4 a.m.) and spoken to me. I can hear Him very clearly when He speaks. Typically, He speaks to me in simple sentences. I'm always startled by what I hear and I never understand what He tells me until later. The best way to describe what's happening is by reference to the movie "Field of Dreams."

If you've seen the movie, you know that Kevin Costner's character (Ray Kinsella) hears a voice that gives him cryptic instructions. He has to piece together what he is hearing like a child doing a puzzle. First he tears down part of his cornfield - which he and his family depend on for financial support - and builds a baseball diamond complete with bleachers and lights for evening games. People think he his crazy (think of Noah building his ark and what people thought of him).

Hearing that voice again, Kinsella then goes on a wild goose chase across the country, finally ending up in Boston with Terence Mann, a famous author and 1960's reactionary (played by James Earl Jones) sitting in Fenway Park watching a baseball game together. It was there at Fenway Park where they both see the sign telling them what to do next: "Go the distance."

And off they go, in pursuit of something they know is real, true and important, but exactly what, they do not know.

Finding their way back to the Iowa cornfield and the newly constructed baseball diamond with a young baseball player ("Moonlight" Graham) they picked up along the way who was hitchhiking, something magical happens: Baseball players from the past - legendary players - appear out of the cornfield and begin playing baseball. The believers - which include Mann, Kinsella, his wife and daughter - can see the ball players, but the non believers cannot. Those who don't believe think the whole baseball thing is a sham. Ray's brother-in-law counsels him to shut the field down and declare bankruptcy. But Ray believes the voice he heard: "If you build it, they will come."

It is only when Ray's daughter falls off the back of the bleachers and chokes on a hot dog and is brought back to life by one of the ballplayers that the non believers can see what's been going on.

Love made it's appearance and everything changed. Profoundly! People could see what they couldn't see before. It's a very powerful scene in the movie.

The movie ends when Costner's character sees a younger version of his dad on the baseball field. The two look at each other, and Ray asks his dad if he wants to play catch. The lights go on, and son and father are out playing catch on a baseball field in the middle of cornfield. Love is everywhere. In the final scene, rows and rows of cars are driving to the ball park to watch the players from the past play baseball.

Ray built the stadium, and people came to watch, just as the voice told him.

I feel a lot like Ray Kinsella. About one week ago, I was awoken by the words "Open the door." I was sound asleep, but I heard the Lord clearly. It was 3:15 a.m. in the morning and all was quiet. I wrote the words down on a pad near my bed. I had no idea what the words "open the door" meant.

In the days after the event, I kept asking the Lord to reveal the meaning of the words. All I got was silence... until today. It's Sunday and I typically spend the morning reading Spiritual materials. I happen to have printed out an article by T. Austin-Sparks recently but hadn't had a chance to read it until today. Just before picking up the article, I had said a prayer to the Lord - a powerful prayer. I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit as I prayed. After the prayer, I picked up the article and here's what I read:

The Deliverance of Souls

by T. Austin-Sparks

An Exodus Accomplished

Reading: Luke 9:27-36; 2 Pet. 1:16-18; John 18:33-37; Col. 1:13.

"There are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God."

"My kingdom is not of this world."

"...who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love."

"Behold, there talked with him two men, who were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem."

It is not fresh knowledge to you that that word translated 'decease' in the Revised Version, elsewhere 'departure ' or' death', is really the word 'exodus' - "spake of his exodus which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem". So the Cross is spoken of here as an exodus, which is simply a way or a going out, and the word itself, of course, immediately carries us back to a book which goes by that name, and records the going out of the people of Israel from Egypt. What the exodus was to Israel, the Cross was to the Lord Jesus and is for us - a way and a going out, but a going out through a definitely prescribed door, and that door the door of death. That was the only way out for Israel - through the door of death. It was the only way out for the Lord Jesus, and it is the only way out for us...

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Having read this passage, I sat stunned. I thought to myself: 'The only way out for us is the door of death.' And then I thought of the words the Lord gave me last week: 'Open the door.'

I realized instantly that the door the Lord was instructing me to open last week at 3:15 a.m. in the morning was the door of death. This is the only way forward. Eternal life is only accomplished through death on the Cross. As Sparks said in his piece, it was the only way out for Israel and it was the only way out for Jesus.

And it is the only way out for us.

So I must open the door of death. How I do this, I am not sure. I have never seen the door of death, but I know it exists (everything the Lord tells me is true) and I also know that I must open it. I have asked the Lord for assistance and trust He will guide me. I know the door isn't a physical door - it's a spiritual door that my surrendered heart must pass through in order to continue walking the narrow path with Him.

I've come to realize that walking the narrow path with the Lord is a mind blowing adventure, akin to the experience Ray Kinsella had in "Field of Dreams." I'm sure there are a few people out there who think I am crazy, just like Ray! I guess that goes with the territory. I do know that there is a powerful entanglement that defies scientific explanation. It's real, but I cannot prove it. I can only write about my experiences and follow the Lord's instructions. In the end, that's what obedience is - following the Lord's instruction.

I have no idea what lies ahead, but I do know that I must open the door of death and walk through it.

May you find the strength to preserve in your walk with the Lord and may your faith never waver.

Agape,

Steve