Was Jesus a Space Cadet?....part 8
Writer Author Jerry Lee Kay Sr.
Christian Article
:
Jesus Christ
- Fiction No
"Now when they beheld the boldness of Peter and John, and had perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13).
I was called out to a high pressure natural gas well in Oklahoma....and met a pygmy there, a spiritual pygmy that is. The well was in the process of being tied into a gas pipeline, but in the meantime it was being loaded into tank trucks and hauled to a plant for processing. This particular well was making so much gas the trucks were lined up down the roadway to get loaded and it was a hurry, hurry, type situation. I was called out because something went wrong, and although the well was flowing and filling up the storage tanks the trucks were loading from, they couldn't get the product to come from the storage to the truck. The man in charge had called engineers and all kinds of brain power to figure it out. When I got there they were all standing around scratching their heads, and suggesting many approaches to fix the problem.
I was introduced to the company man and in the intro. he was told I was a preacher. The first thing he said to me was, " I am a very spiritual man myself but I am not religious."
The 'very spiritualman' then asked me if I had any ideas that would get the ball rolling, he said he was in a real bind and must get this gas moving or he would have to shut the well down. I asked him to give me a minute and walked over to a truck driver in the loading area, I asked him what was up, and he told me the stuff was loading good then suddenly shutdown. So I walked around and looked things over, the well gauges and tank gauges showed to be full of product and a very high pressure. So I reached down on the ground picked up a Hugh pipe wrench, walked over to a valve at the truck loading point, raised the wrench over the top of my head and struck the valve with a blow that shook my teeth. Suddenly the truck started loading so fast I had to pinch it back and slow it down. Those valves have what's called a check valve in them to stop the flow if it starts coming thru the lines to fast, it is a safety feature that's built in.
Now the company "very spiritualman", got so mad I thought he would explode and let out a barrage of words that would embarrass the best demon in hell. He was calling the high dollar dudes that were called in to figure out the problem, things I never heard of, I even had to ask the driver what a few of them were...Come on and somebody say Amen!
After the company "very spiritual man" finished his display of power, he walked over to me and ask me to go with him to his favorite watering hole and let him buy me a beer. When I declined he said "Well I gotta go have two maybe four good shots of tequila to settle myself down"....Is Poppa a freaking genius?...the answer is no, it was just one of those things that was so simple, those folks were missing it....they were over complicating the thing. And I thought to myself, That's the way many are doing these days when it comes to the things of God. I wondered what kind of a spirit the company "very spiritual man" was of.
After the company "very spiritual man" drove away, one of his men walked over to me smiling from ear to ear, and said "Poppa you don't know what your missing, when that company "very spiritual man gets down to the juke joint and gets a bunch of that firewater down, he will conduct classes informing the other people there how very spiritual he is", and we both laughed out loud!..He also said, "No one here takes him serious about anything he says about how spiritual he is"....Then to my delight and surprise that worker quoted from memory James chapter 3.
My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. James 3:1-18 (KJV)......
Somebody give me a witness!
A nine year old girl named Savana that lives down the road from me was riding her horse one day and she spotted me sitting on the porch drinking coffee, She waved at me so I motioned to her to come sit with me for a spell. I asked her if she wanted a cup of coffee or maybe a cold glass of lemonade. She chose the lemonade and a piece of Juicy Fruit chewing gum.
We talked about the heat, the deer population this year, the drought, her new Red Bone puppy and other things that interest us country folk. We even started on the problems of the world and had a good many of them worked out, when she suddenly said, my daddy said you know God Poppa, is there anything to that?...I told her yes, I am acquainted with Him. She then asked me if God is from Texas or is He a Yankee?...I said baby just because one is not a Texan doesn't mean they are a Yankee. She said, that's not what my daddy said, He said "if your not from Texas, then your a Yankee". Then she asked me if God wore tennie runners or boots. I chuckled and said I am not sure, He may have both, and I will be talking to Him in a little bit so i'll ask Him. She said, Poppa if He got both, ask Him which is His fav...and ask Him Poppa if He wears jeans or walking shorts. She said, I seen a few pictures of Him and He was always wearing a bath robe and flip flops....My! My! My!...wadda ya gonna do with that?
I could have gone off into the "deeper" things of the Spirit world and "the angle of the dangle" but that's not what she needed to hear, and most grown folks don't want to hear all that stuff either, including for real 'very spiritual Christian folk'. And the Holy Spirit whispered to me, "Be Careful Poppa What You Say, Your Talking to One of My Children". So I chose to tell her I didn't know everything about Him, but He shows and tells me new stuff everyday. I told her that's what I like about Him, He is a really interesting friend...She said, Wadda ya mean He shows you new stuff?..what kinda stuff?...I thought Go ahead and tell her about the 'angle of the dangle', tell her how you died two times and saw and talked with one of the Holy Ones of the Heavenlies, tell her how you were caught up in the Spirit...Go ahead and tell her the 'Angle of the Dangle' Poppa....
And the Holy Spirit whispered, "You may know something of the Spirit world but you don't need to be going around telling people that you are spiritual. Somethings you know are for you only, and those that spend their time trying to convince people that they are spiritual are not really spiritual at all, they are as carnal as one can be, feeding their ego, and seeking self glory".....
I reckon if we are not careful, "We can get so heavenly minded, we are of no earthly good, even to God."...
Just before she left, I asked her why she wanted to know where God was from?...Her reply blessed me and made my day. She said, " Because I never have seen Him in person, but I see all the things He has made and I feel Him inside of me sometimes,"
Goosebumps ran all over me and a tear came to my eyes!....I said, Baby you know my Jesus don't ya?...She said probably not as good as you know Him Poppa, but I know He's real!...And I asked the Holy Spirit...Do I?...And He said...No sir you don't know me or Jesus nor the Father any gooder than she does!....You may have a little more experience and years on her but...O' Lord Poppa gonna start shouting here if I don't stop!...somebody give me a witness!
Amazing isn't it?...How us grown folk, especially wannabe spirituals, can complicate the Holy Ghost. How we think He can't move on His own!...We think we gotta sing Him down, We think we gotta preach Him down, We think we gotta do some off the wall fortune telling and call it prophecy before He can move!....Lord! Lord!, Poppa stopping by to tell you He doesn't have to have any of that stuff, He can and will move on a little nine year old girl that only been to church a few times in her life. He can move on His own when He wants to, and how He wants to. You see beloved He is God and He don't change. He is the same yesterday, He is the same today, and He is gonna be the same tomorrow. Somebody say Amen!....Do you wanna know what spiritual is?That's what spiritual is!
Beloved the Holy Ghost preached me a sermon that day...He said, "You don't have all the answers Poppa and you never will, so don't act like you do....Don't go around talking in the King James language, or acting spooky...Just relax, live it, and teach folks to enjoy the good Life, the Life that comes from God" The scripture at the top of the page said it all,... "Now when they beheld the boldness of Peter and John, and had perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus"....Did you hear what that said?....They didn't have to tell anyone they were "Very spiritual men", it says they, the people there knew that they had been with Jesus.
So was Jesus a ding-a-ling, a false Messiah, a Space Cadet?...are you and I dreamers?...does this thing really work?...Are we wasting our time, money and energy?...should we look for another Way?..Where should we go?
There is absolutely no doubt that a man called Jesus lived and walked on this earth a couple thousand years ago. Even historians that have nothing to do with the canon of the bible mention Him. He was a man just as you and I are.The church says He was and is the anointed Christ, the Son of God....But lived as man while He "Dwelt Amongst Us". Is that possible?...Did He have something we can't have because He was God?...Or did He find a way to connect with His Father that is available to us, and is that what His message was, and is, to us...and can we live in such a place?
My question to you is, besides being the anointed Savior of mankind what was His mission?...Man, until Jesus came to earth and preached His message, lived under a law that they could not perform...and sad to say many Christians are still doing so in this late hour!...
There was a cattle rancher who thought religion as something only for wimps. The local pastor had visited him a number of
times but got nowhere against the tough old cowboys spiritual stubbornness. In fact, the last time the preacher had dared approach the ranch house, he had been run off with a shotgun.
The rancher had always taken care of himself. He didn't need any sidewalk sissy religion stuff to make a go of his life. and that is what he taught his three sons, as well. He contended that he had tried the church, and all he could see there was bickering, backbiting, church splits, and arguing about doctrine, theology and the like!...He said he had created God in his own image, that's what the bible says, right?...And he loved to quote Philippians 2:12...."Work Out Your Own Salvation."
So the pastor was mighty surprised one day to get an urgent call from the ranch. Could he come out right away and have prayer with Tom, one of the rancher's sons?...Rushing out to the ranch house he found the doctor leaving. "Snakebite," said the doctor. "There's nothing more I can do."...The rancher welcomed the pastor with uncharacteristic warmth and pulled him quickly through the house to a room where Tom was writhing on the bed. "Could you say a prayer for him?" asked the worried father. He took off his hat, and knocked the hats off Dick and Harry also, who were standing on the other side of their agonizing brother. And there, in the dimness of that bedroom, the preacher began to pray over Tom: "We thank you, Lord, for sending this rattlesnake to bite Tom, for this is the first time in his life that he has admitted that he needs you. And Lord, we pray for two more rattlesnakes to come along and bite Dick and Harry, so that they, too, might receive this blessing. And then, Lord, we pray for an especially big and ornery cuss of a snake to come along and bite the old man, so that he, too, will know what it means to need You and know You!".....My!My!My! what kind of prayer was that? He was a sure nuff country preacher right? But the idea is clear. Life begins at death..dying to the trappings of the life around us..some of them may even be religious trappings, maybe even the ministry we are caught up in, and or the opinions of what "They." may think!...Dying to the little things that keep us self-absorbed; dying to ourselves in order to find the things that really make us alive......Dying to the "God we have created!"...
Isaiah chapter 50:11...Says it best..."You who kindle a fire and encircle yourselves with sparks, and walk in the light of your own fire and of the sparks which you have kindled, you shall lie down in sorrow".......
I worked for an oilfield company out of Alaska for a while and experienced some really harsh conditions and very hard lifestyles. Here is one for you that is not for the fainthearted. In the arctic, when the long nights come and the cold grows colder, the wolves prowl, looking for food. Their hunger is a terrible thing, and anything that moves, or is warm, is their food. Hunger sharpens their sense of smell. They catch the scent of blood carried by the wind for miles around. But the eskimos understand the wolves, and they have found a way to deal with them. They melt small patches of ice, then set the handles of their hunting knives down in the water which quickly hardens into ice again around the handles, until they are set as firmly as if they were placed in concrete. The blade of the knife is all that is visible, its double edge honed to razor sharpness. All about the ice fields, the Eskimos place their knives and tip them with the blood of seal or walrus, or even, for want of that, their own blood. Then they go home and wait.....The wolf pack catches the scent. They gather around the blades, and as they ravenously lick at the blood, their jowls drooling, it seems to them they are lapping at a delicious everlasting fountain. Faster and faster their tongues work as the supply of blood grows, and greedily they gulp it down. Finally they are satisfied, and the blood that had been so delicious is now in their bellies. It is their own blood, and they have eaten themselves.
Terrible? Yes, terrible!...You see, this story of the wolves is also a story of what can happen to a nation, a people, a religious movement and even to an individual. Christ said He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He and He only is the strength and nourishment of life, if we live outside of that Way, outside of that Truth, outside of that Life, the wolves shall begin to howl in the depths of our souls, in the depths of our churches, and like the wolves, we will allow ourselves to consume ourselves.
I wonder how many of us are unaware that He brought to His people a place to go, a place to abide, the same place that He lived, and walked in... I wonder how many of us know that this is really His message to us...I wonder how many of us that do know of such a place are afraid to go into that secret place and allow the Holy Spirit to show us the mind of Christ?...I wonder how many of us even knows what the mind of Christ is...I wonder How many of us are afraid we may be labeled a "Space Cadet" if we did decide to go there..I wonder how many of us have heard the howling of the wolves in the depths of our souls because of it.
Most of the people I have been a pastor to, or been Councilor to, and preached to in nearly fifty years of ministry, people that are passing themselves off as ministers, Pharisees, and Sadducee's of the law bound religions, don't know enough about God or the Mind of Christ to fill up a thimble! But they call themselves "Very Spiritual Men".
A singer that calls herself Charlene sings a song titled "Never Been To Me"
(I've been to Georgia and California, and anywhere I could run)
I've been to paradise, but never been to me
(I've been to Neice and the isle of Greece while I've sipped champagne on a yacht)
I've been to paradise, but never been to me
(I've been to cryin' for unborn children that might have made me complete)
I've been to paradise, but never been to me
(I've been to Georgia and California, and anywhere I could run)
I've been to paradise, but never been to me
I listened to that song and thought, How many of God's people much less the people of the world have never been to the real them?...How many of us have never allowed the Holy Spirit to take us to the depths of our inner man?..Jesus said, "I am the light of the world" (John 3:12). He was speaking of the same world John was....the world within...not some nebulous, vague something-or-other out yonder somewhere...but the real world of the inner us. He knew that in the final sense every man's walk is made within, and every choice is an inward choice....Listen to me carefully Now!
"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should
betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." John 6 (KJV)
Who is this man called Jesus and what is He really about?...Who is this Way?...Who is this Truth?...Who is this Life? And how do we relate to Him?...He for sure is not like other men, knowing Him has made major changes in millions of peoples emotions, actions, and thoughts. The reason we often times struggle with it is because of our perception of Him. Some say that "he's just a
man." If Jesus is just a man, then why does He captivate us so and cause us to evaluate ourselves to the depths of our souls? Such questions about Jesus and the impact of His ministry, death, and resurrection have been asked for two thousand years.
When Jesus and his disciples had come to Bethsaida, they sought out a place to pray privately. At some point during their prayers, Jesus suddenly asked, "Who do they say that I am?" I think He was seeking an opportunity to challenge the disciples to clarify their own commitment. "Who do they say that I am?"...The disciples replied with this, "They are saying that you are John the Baptist. They are also saying that you are Elijah come back to life and, if not Elijah, then one of the other prophets.".. Whatever they were saying, it was clear, he was the talk of the town, or as they say now days...he was on the trending list.. He was not being ignored. He was not being referred to as a mad-man or a here-today-gone-tomorrow sensationalist...But notice this, neither were "They" saying anything about his being the Son of God. The thought apparently had not occurred to them. Similarities between Jesus and prophetic figures of the past were easily seen. The disciples replied to His question on the basis of what they had heard and observed.."(They) are saying that you are John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets."
"They" say that the next President of the United States is going to be a woman. "They" say that the next winter will be one of the coldest on record. "They" say that two heads are better than one. "They" say that if a rooster crows late in the day, rain is on the way...Surely you have heard of "They." It is almost certain that at one time or another you have referred to "They" when relating some bit of information in the course of a conversation. "They" say! "They" are always saying something. And it is not enough that they are always saying something, "They" are always doing something. "They are wearing a lot of browns and blues together this year." "They are really catching fish on the Lake, about 10 feet away from the bank, using crickets for bait." "They are wearing such-and-such jogging shoes now."...Who in the world is this faceless, all-knowing, oft-quoted body of experts on virtually every subject? It is not really necessary to reach for their names or strain to see their faces. Regardless of who they are or what they look like, we know that "They" exert a tremendous influence upon what we say and do. "They" have a great deal to do with the shaping of public opinion. As a matter of fact, "They" may sometimes be public opinion. And sad to say more often than not "They" control the church, and often times "They" are trying to control the Holy Spirit...Somebody say Amen!
"They Say"..He was a Pentecostal, "They Say"..He was a Methodist, "They Say" He was a Baptist, "They Say" He was a Catholic, etc.etc...Jesus pressed the matter further. "But who do you say that I am?".....Come on and preach with me for a little while!
No more reporting popular comments. No more monitoring of public opinion. No more repetition of common knowledge. No more denominational views and interpretation. The time had and has come for personal conviction to be said out loud. Jesus needed to hear the disciples express it. The disciples needed to hear themselves express it. The spotlight was now turned up to super bright, not upon "They," but upon the disciples personally. "Who do you say that I am?"
"And he said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority. But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:7-8).
Notice again what the Master said here.."Not... 'times or seasons'... But ye"...Jesus turns the whole question of the move of God into a matter of people. The old dispensation started with a man. Adam was God's key to everything in the creation. And here, in the book of the Acts, we have the beginning of the new move and the new creation, and it is focused again in a Man..the Son of man.. and in men. The key to everything in the reading of this scripture is.."But ye"... The disciples were interested in something real, something they could see for themselves, something they could touch, be a part of, and in which they would have a place in the kingdom of Israel. But the Lord said, 'No! No! No!, it is not teachings, nor truths; not a movement, or a kingdom.'... All that would follow, but only after these men were ready on the inside. Not struggling to be somebody!...Help me Jesus!..I need a witness!.....continued..
God Bless You
Poppa
Editor's Comment:
About the Writer Author
State:
Texas
Country:
United States
Email:
jerryleekay@suddenlink.net
Website:
www.jerryleekay.net
Profile:
Click here!
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