Three Houses

The other day I talked about the church undergoing a great transition from apostacy to apostolicity.  In the days since that wording for what’s taking place hasn’t sat right at all because scripture is clear that an apostate whore will always exist alongside the true apostolic church. 

To say that He is calling a great many believers to come out of Babylon in these days is much more accurate than what I wrote suggests.  The false religion of Babylon entails sitting on the beast & holding a golden cup filled with the filth of her adulteries - worship of the prince of this world/idolatry (& his rule) & fleshly works.  We are only brought out from apostacy into apostolicity through being crucified, buried & raised with Christ daily.  (I’m seeing the daily nature of our salvation more & more…resting on yesterday’s laurels seems to put us back on whore ground today.)

The call both to come out & to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith sounds in me loudly these days.  It’s unspeakably precious when He allows us to see the light of where we actually are in our faith journeys in His light versus where we thought ourselves to be.  I might post more on these lines in the future…

Today I got a bike with more than one gear & Mirka & Jirka lent us their seat for Michelka.  I couldn’t keep up with Keith very well on the Czech hills with my one gear so we haven’t biked together for a few years now.  Going on excursions with him & tooling around town is going to be a lot of fun! 

I was at the doctor today for a 13-week checkup & by all appearances Baby #2 is doing well.  Doktorka gave a due date of Oct.18 & announced that, although it’s still quite early to say for sure, it looks to her like it’s a ….. .  Take a guess

The last few Thursdays we’ve been going to the salt cave to play with a friend Martina, little Kubik & Terezka.  Martina’s husband Petr is the minister at the Brother’s Church in town.  I’m enjoying her & their kids so much, as well as seeing some of the fresh signs of life amongst this part of the body in Tabor.

At the very same time I cannot ignore the groanings of the Spirit that they might freshly hear what He is saying across the global body in these days concerning the biblical DNA/blueprints for His church & for His precious deconstructive & reconstructive work there.  And I’m asking Him to know what my part is & isn’t. 

We are very clearly living in an even more amazing time than the reformation of the 1500’s in which the church is transitioning from apostacy to apostolicity as the Lord Himself tears down & builds, individually & corporately.  Sarah’s excellent recent post about the crisis in the (American) church hits on the tension of this time of transition.  

I’m seeing the central role of the restoration of the gospel of the kingdom in this process & its’ power to effect that for which He is groaning & travailing.  It is also the answer to the dilemma of how I am to be in relation to these friends.  Christ, the gospel is everything:)  Today though I had to repent of careless frivolity, of not being attentive to the weight of eternal significance in every moment.  

Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, that they may have power to grasp the dimensions of Christ’s love & that they may know it, has been on my heart a lot lately.  John 5:20 & 16:14 have come alive as such an amazing aspect of the active nature of how He expresses His love to us. 

“For the Father loves the Son & shows Him all He does.” 

“He [the Spirit] will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.”

This really ‘grounds’ His love in such a concrete expression!  As I begin to grasp this dimension & aspect of His love, I anticipate experiential revelation of it in the Hebrew sense of the word ‘know’.  I realize more & more that there’s so much I’ve known in my head that I don’t actually know at all because it’s not yet been actualized in me by faith & that just doesn’t cut it.  His grace is sufficient

Today we went to the notary to inquire about what it would cost us for them to help us set up an s.r.o., the Czech equivalent of a limited liability company.  Non-EU foreigners can’t buy property here unless they have permanent residency, which is at least 5 years off for us unless the law changes (as it frequently does), but they can buy something through an s.r.o.  We found out that there’s a lot of running around to offices & shuffling of important papers involved with setting up s.r.o.’s…in other words, something we’re already very familiar with

This weekend Michelka took her first steps - that is, initiated entirely by her:)  We’ve walked with her lots by the hands & between furniture but this was the first time (that I’ve seen) that she’s set off on her own.  Crawling’s definitely still more comfortable but I so relished the look on her face as she set out - such a great mix of wonder & delight in what she was doing.  Same goes for slowing down when we’re outside to walk with & watch little birds for awhile.  This kind of wonder at in things I usually entirely take for granted is so refreshing.  Children are good for the soul in so many ways!

For a few weeks now I’ve been meditating on the fear of the Lord & of His name daily.  Today I was impressed by how often it says that great fear was upon the people or that they were filled with awe & wonder in the beginning of Acts.  There’s such a strong connection throughout scripture between it & a deep awareness of God as the holy Judge, as in the incident with Ananais & Sapphira. 

This was the essence of the eternal gospel the angel proclaimed in Rev. 14, “Fear God & give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come.  Worship Him…”.  In Athens Paul’s message was that God has commanded all people everywhere to repent, for He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed.  Scripture is clear that that day is Today (Heb.3/4) just as much as it is the final Day of Atonement that seems like a never-never land.   

This is definitely not a part of the gospel as it is predominantly preached these days.  I’m asking Him that holy fear of Him would fall upon me & upon His church so that those who don’t believe yet may also fear. 

It’s been a bit quieter around here lately since I’ve not felt inspired to write much.  But the last couple days I have begun to feel inspired to (try!) to write along different lines - to write smaller snippets daily (at least more frequenstly anyway:), as a kind of spiritual discipline in turning from Hellenist dualistic thinking in which life is divided into ’sacred’ & ’secular’ boxes to embrace the holistic nature of the Hebraic worldview.  (Sarah often writes about how much the Lord is dealing with her in this.)

I realize how much I still tend to poo-poo the ‘day of small things’ & separate the parts of my life into these boxes so writing something daily about my life as a disciple in the everyday seems like it could be a helpful discipline in acknowledging all of life as sacred…like going to the store now with Keith & Michelka for weekend groceries:)  We’ll see how this experiment goes!

A little over a week ago I got right fed up at being laid out on the couch like a sack of rotten potatoes in the afternoons with morning sickness & at how unfitting it seemed for a Christian to be moaning & going on ad nauseum about the ick. 

I finally got furious enough & determined that I was going to lay hold of the provision of Christ for this, saw Him having borne it on the cross & began to actively receive His grace & resurrection life.  What a marked difference He has made!  Some foods still turn me off but I’m enjoying the wonderful experience of being ‘above’ hints of nausea & the power of that form of death being rendered powerless over me. 

I’ve been relishing His challenges in this season to fully appropriate & apply Christ & His cross’s work in this way in the many very nitty gritty details of everyday life.

It’s been an exceptionally sweet week that’s just ending…

Tuesday our neighbours & good friends Jirka & Mirka celebrated the birth of their little girl, Debora Anna. 

Wednesday Michelka & I spent the afternoon with the minister’s family at the Brother’s Church in town.  Michelka was born 2 hours after their little Kubik so it’s fun to see them grow in tandem.

Thursday KEith went to Germany & picked up our visas on Friday morning

Friday my precious friend Lenka in Hradec Kralové & I got to spend hours together sharing while we played on the bed with Michelka & marveling at how we’re on such parallel journeys by the Spirit though we’re in different cities. 

Saturday the Mudřik family graced our house with their visit following Jan’s hockey tournament in town — sweet fellowship!  I’m increasingly blessed by Marek & how his gifting balances mine.

Thanks God for the gifts all these & other people are in our lives!

It’s been a bit quiet here lately… 

First is that I’m not inspired so much to write longer thoughtful kingdom & reformation posts lately.  Likely it’s in keeping with a kind of transitioning time & staying quieter seems like the right thing. 

The other reason is pregnancy & being plum tired & nauseated alot in these first weeks - 7 to be exact

This past THursday we packed the car full with our precious visa application documents & headed to Munich where we left them all with a very nice lady who will now send them back to Tabor so that the foreign police here can make a big book about us out of them.  When they finish that we’ll go back to Munich so that they can glue a sticker into our passports worth 115+ Euros that says “Visa”

From Munich we went to Augsburg & spent a night with our old college friends, the Balzers.  The following night we were in the German alps in Berchtesgaden, which is overlooked by The Eagle’s Nest.

This last weekend I was up in Prague Friday-Sunday for a Connect Europe core group retreat & it was definitely that for me, a very refreshing retreat.  Michelka stayed home with Keith & so outside of time with CE friends I also enjoyed some of my old favorite haunts in Prague, cafes where I’ve spent hours reading, meditating & receiving revelation.  She’s a really wonderfully laid-back little 1 year old but isn’t quite up for 2 hour stints at cafes yet!

It was really good to reconnect with these friends & to meet some new ones.  The two biggest themes that came out of the weekend seemed to be the transition the network is in (discerning the nature of it & navigating it) & the theme of covenant, having initially been brought to our attention through the Moravian vow. 

Deuteronomy 6:23 leapt out at me this morning as expressing the transition we’re in.  The two themes also converge in this verse because we enter & possess the land through the three covenants He has established for us (the Spirit, water & the blood).  There are depths of the water & the Spirit covenants that I have yet to plumb & appropriate in my daily walk.  It’s this that I commit myself to with these dear friends, the Band Of Brothers I’m presently walking most closely with to see God’s kingdom come in Europe as in heaven

“But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers.”

Our time back in CAnada visiting friends & family was very significant, as I posted about a bit earlier.  A few times people asked me how the mission was going & I always answered very clumsily in the attempt to express what’s all transpired during the last 3.5 years in CZ.  This week a more succint answer is forming, especially as I’m reading a segment in Nee’s “The Spiritual Man” called The Flesh & Salvation.  It’s me He’s been leading to repentance & for the most part I have been His mission field because I’ve needed to grasp the fuller work of the cross & salvation than I had previously.

I understood Christ bearing my sins on the cross as well as the power of my sin nature that commits sin having been crucified with Him, but I had not yet seen the other side of my sinful nature as also having been crucified with Him - the part that is able to perform seeming “good” apart from Christ. 

Watchman Nee described so well what I’ve been coming to see in these often painful years…

“We can find many believers around us who are by nature good & patient & loving.  Now what the believer hates is sin; therefore if he can be delivered from it & from the works of the flesh as described in Gal.5:19-21, then he is content.  But what the believer admires is righteousness; therefore he will try hard to act righteously.  Yet here lies the danger.  For the Christian has not come to learn how to hate the totality of his flesh.  What deceives him is that the flesh not only can produce sin but can also perform good.

“Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” (Gal.3:3).  God’s children in Galatia (and me!) had descended into the error of doing good by the flesh.  They wanted to be perfected by their righteousness.  They had truly made an arduous attempt to do good, but the apostle shows us here that the righteous acts of the flesh & the works of the Holy Spirit are worlds apart.  The good of the flesh is not one bit more presentable than its’ evil, for both pertain to the flesh.  If its’ self-righteousness is not destroyed, unrighteousness shall surely follow.  Any good of the flesh which revolves around self is an abomination in the sight of God, for it does not proceed from the Spirit of the life of the Lord Jesus but is of self & glorifies self…”

Pride, self-conceit and a critical & judgmental spirit are then right behind, speaking from experience.  I am slowly waking up to this wonderful news that Christ also bore this aspect of my flesh that persists in trying to do good outside of His life by the Holy Spirit.  Thankfully Nee carries on & addresses how the Spirit helps us to apply this truth of the cross & His life by faith in everyday life.  That - & God help me, not of myself! - is what I’m giving myself to these days…

These days I am inquiring of the Lord a lot on a matter that could seem very niggly but since He first began addressing it almost half a year ago the burden for this understanding has increasingly intensified. 

I’m seeking understanding of our make-up as human beings - in particular, the difference between the heart, soul & spirit.  It first came up because the Lord put His finger on how much I’m relating to Him with my mind & it seems apparent that we believe in our hearts (ie: Rom. 10:8-10 & 2 Cor. 4:6).  I’ve realized though that I don’t actually know where heart, soul & spirit are in me or what they actually are & they’re all mixed up somehow in my understanding.  Like I said, this may seem niggly but I’m seeing that the difference in their roles & functions within us have practical implications for daily communion with Him & ministry out of that. 

I’ve read some in Watchman Nee’s The Spiritual MAn but his main thesis seems to deal with the spirit, soul & body without mention of this aspect of the heart which I’m after.  If anyone has insights to share I’d love to hear them!

I should post a bit about what my time in CAnada was about spiritually. 

Within the first days in Vancouver a theme was beginning to emerge.  It kept coming to me that I know I’m wanting to repent from dead works & law-oriented religion & to enter the kingdom of God land I’ve begun to see but I am presently somewhere between these two very different worlds —- in fact what I’m hearing is “in the tomb/grave” — & so I need to be quiet (huge conviction) & humbly receive the kingdom.

Through a few little words Sarah spoke during our visit & the book Singleness Of Heart, God began to reveal the immense divideness of my heart - much self-justification (works) & self-congratulation (pride) - & how closed I’ve become to His mercy & grace. 

Then again in Saskatchewan He addressed these things in a deeper measure still while I was at my brother Truitt’s, a gift for which I am unspeakably grateful.  Through another book, The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee, God began to reveal Christ & the completeness of His work on the cross as the provision for me crucified with Him.  Beneath this deceptively boring title lie treasure troves of revelation such as I’ve never had eyes to see before. 

“There is one thing that must be touched, and that is the very life of the man, not merely his sins.”

There are many things I’m needing to appropriate by faith in response to what I’m reading but this seems to be the starting point, the reason for which I am presently in the grave.  In a recent post about repentance Sarah said it very well:

“I am the problem with Western Christianity as we know it today. Bottom line. This blog has evolved. It’s less about the church and more about my personal process of being transformed.”

Michelka & I’ve both had 2 solid sleep-through nights again:)  Thanks God, that means we’re feeling perky enough for all the many jaunts to various offices to get the required documents for our visas. 

Mis-reading the expiry of our resident permits has proved to be a costly mistake though.  We’re having to fork out a lot for all these documents & rubber stamping and besides that we’ve lost all the time here that we previously accrued (3.5 years) towards the 5 years we needed to be able to get permanent resident permits - with which we would never have to do all this ever again!  But alas, our mistake takes us right back to square one again…  I get the feeling I’m supposed to be learning something from this

We’ve had an interesting few nights here getting our clocks reset again, up for 1.5 or so hours the last three nights so I’m curious if tonight’s the night Michelka gets back to sleeping through?!  We were three big weeks & counting til the time change…

In Canada Keith & I discovered that our visas expired Jan. 8 & not Aug. 1 like we’d thought (mixing up 1/8 & 8/1) so now instead of merely having to extend them we’re having to re-apply.  Thankfully since we last went through this whole process offices have been set up where you can go to get a good number of documents all at once.  Still, we were at the foreign police & in Prague today getting a few ticked off.  In the process we found out a whole lot of other “interesting” info but we’ll see if the story’s the same when we go back to the police on Friday.

We’re home & the flights back went soooo well!  Michelka is definitely a fun little travel buddy.  I enjoy flying with Keith a lot & missed him.  There’s definitely something about constantly taking care of a little person though that makes a longish international flight pass like a wink.  Keith surprised us pretty good & showed up at the airport with the car that he bought last week on his birthday:)  I’m enjoying experiencing life here again with the fresh eyes you only get by being away for awhile.  I seem to have needed that already more than I had realized.

I hadn’t really expected to leave off posting this whole time in Canada but that’s how it’s turned out!  We’re packing up today for (almost) the last time after so many times of traveling from one place to the next.  Michelka
& I settled in & saw some old friends in Vancouver before Keith arrived on December 14th.  A very sweet highlight was meeting Sarah for the first time in person after having read her blog for awhile now.  We spent 5 days there & then flew to Manitoba with Mom & Dad Enns to be with Keith’s sister Trish & her boys.  Then on the 25th we flew to Saskatchewan & spent time divvied up between my Mom & Dad’s farm, my sister Kirsten’s farm, at a resort in the beautiful Cypress Hills & in Saskatoon at my brother Truitt’s.  So many good visits with so many special people!!  This afternoon we’re driving to REgina with my folks & we’ll stay overnight there (& hot tub a bit!) before we fly out tomorrow at noon. 

Wow so here we are in Canada on the other side of the pond again after 3.5+ years. It’s wonderful to visit again & experience so many things that are familiar but very foreign already too, like how familiar people are with complete strangers. I am so keenly aware that my citizenship is truly in heaven - it’s very interesting, this sense that home is wherever He sends me & is without any loyalty/attachment whatsoever to any given country (though feeling a profound call & therefore supernatural love for CZ & Europe).

The flights here were absolutely great. I wondered how it’d be in confined spaces for so long but it was a big fun adventure! The first two nights Michelka & I got up & threw ourselves “Welcome To Canada” parties between 00.30 & 2.00 a.m. because we both couldn’t sleep…whispering & having juice & snacks by candlelight Last night was a good full sleep so today we felt ace & took a beautiful walk with Mom & Dad E. by the seawall followed by Starbucks…ahhh the ocean, coming from land-locked Cechy!

For over a month now God has been drawing my attention to His glory & has prompted me to spend a good deal of time meditating on it.  This has been most interesting.  According to Isaiah 43:7 we were created for His glory & so because a most primary purpose for our existence is to give Him glory it stands to reason that His glory is an important thing to have a revelation of!  Christ & Paul both were obsessed with the glory of God, forever. 

The more I meditate on this the more I see how central God’s glory is.  And I am realizing that it’s another one of those “Christian” words that has been quite stripped of its’ meaning & substance for me because of its’ familiarity.  The word repentance has become so dear to me because of the fresh revelation I’ve had of its’ substance.  The same thing seems to be happening with the word glory & I eagerly await an experiential revelation & substance of this word in my life.  The scripture that is becoming pivotal in my meditation on His glory is a phrase from 1 Peter 4:14  - “…for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.”.  I am most interested in the clear & significant relationship & interplay I am beginning to see between His kingdom, power & glory.

I am at war. 

I am at war with the flesh because the flesh is and has always been at war with the Spirit.  I am at war with my flesh, with the flesh because God has revealed & exposed it & its’ presence & power in my life.  I have begun to hate & wage war on it with a vehement hatred; it keeps me from the knowledge of God by the Spirit.  I have no confidence in the flesh &, as was the case in Paul’s life, that means that I now see how many good things are the enemy of the perfect - what is of the Spirit.  ”Worship” & a lot of “worship music” are some of the best examples of the flesh disguised under the guise of a “good” thing.

Not incidentally, this was also Petr Chelčický’s main thesis in ”About The Spiritual Battle”, which he wrote to the Táborites when he took issue with their waging carnal warfare.  Translating this work, I relished his depth of insight into the fact of the flesh & the devil as enemy #1.

Due to things God has been drawing to my attention the last months I believe that this battle & the capability to discern flesh & the works of the devil from Spirit will actually become a matter of physical life & death (as it already is spiritually) in the not too distant future.