Showing posts with label Empty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Empty. Show all posts

3/18/2016

ARE YOU EMPTY ? --- Passover Meditations for the Monastic-At-Heart ... THE SEED




Are You EMPTY ?

We Try to Fill the Emptiness of our lives with everything... Except JESUS

We work.

We go to school.

We marry and raise children.

We pursue careers and advancements.

We buy. We sell.

Sometimes we buy a BIGGER house, lots of rooms to renovate into the current styles and LOTS of yard to manicure.


We rent, too, and thus we re-locate a lot.


Then again, we sometimes move to a little apartment in order NOT to manicure our living quarters and expansive, growing yard.  We avoid  “that kind” of busy-ness.

What does any of it accomplish?

Other than basic --- and I do mean BASIC --- necessities for our health and care of those we are responsible for, what does this constant involvement in this temporal world accomplish for our souls  ?

Nothing ?

Wrong.

WORSE than nothing.

We stay busy and concerned with all manner of temporal matters which touch our lives and of which ( we think ) we have control ( i.e., as many options as our money will buy or our lender will allow.)

Then we are in debt.

What has been accomplished ?

Nothing.

Actually , worse than nothing.

After the last room has been renovated, the last bloom planted, fed, and trimmed back, and the last loan has been paid off... we are still empty, devoid of REAL Life in the inner man. … emptier than ever before !

Our lives, unfortunately, have become emptier and emptier of REAL life. Things of this world DRAIN us of that real life.

Why is this so ?

Inanimate objects simply have NO life in them. The more we pursue them, the emptier we become.

Man's life DOES NOT consist in the abundance of things he possesses, or THINKS he possesses, or Things that POSSESS him.



More significantly, they HINDER us from accessing true Life. They clutter and impede our pursuit of REAL Life.

Life, as we see it, is not tangible. It cannot be touched. It consists of "something" NOT visible or touchable... like love. 

Love is not something that can be seen with the eye, touched with the hand, or bought with money. If demanded or grasped, Love eludes the Demander and Grasper.

Life --- REAL Life in the inner man --- is like that too. It cannot be BOUGHT with money. One cannot "demand" Life nor greedily grasp it at will. 

The effects of having REAL life bear witness to it, but truthfully, LIFE which operates in the inner man cannot be seen with the eye nor touched with the hand.

REAL Life comes from JESUS the LORD.  There is no substitute for the Life HE+ brings in the inner man.

HE+ changes us from being a dead soul into a living spirit when we share His+ death.

Yes, share His+ death.

We will never have a garden if the seeds remain huddled together in a dry packet.

Each and every seed requires moisture before it will sprout.  Either in soil or in a sprouting jar, the seeds need moisture. 

They absorb the moisture even through their hard hulls or coats and swell INTERNALLY. 

Then they send a shoot, a sprout, through that hull.  If in soil, the sprouts will continue on to grow into little plants and the hulls will fall away and dissolve into the ground, their job being completed.


Now... what if the hulls REFUSED to function as all hulls are supposed to do... and instead, harden themselves as best they could ? 

What if they secretly AVOID coming in contact with any moisture ( sigh --- What a job! ) ?

What if they gather about them all manner of rocks and stones and bits of plastic, trying to prevent their demise?

We laugh…

knowing seed coats never function like that. They do not function like that because their Creator  DID NOT GIVE THEM A CHOICE.

But, we humans DO function like that because GOD did indeed give us a choice at our creation.

We dig in our heels and steadfastly avoid anything that might water the Word+ of GOD which we inadvertently have heard.

If our consciences DO rise up and bother us, we drown those well-meaning voices out in busy-ness over our concerns of the day. 

We gather pieces of rock and stone and bits of plastic all around us to prevent our demise, refusing to look at Truth.

The Truth, that is,
that all flesh will die.

This TRUTH has been screaming at us since we realized that our puppies and kittens and goldfish are not breathing or moving about any more.  They cannot communicate with us in any way. They are dead and will have to be buried else they stink.

But now, as adults, we pretend that by hardening our hulls, by gathering stones and bits of plastic about us, that our outer man will not perish like all flesh.

JESUS told us differently. HE+ said it in many ways. 

HE+ said,

I+, 
I+ AM the Way,
the Truth,
and The Life.

No man comes to The FATHER
except through ME+.


HE+ was not bragging.

HE+ was simply stating a fact of life ... a very IMPORTANT FACT.  And if we will accept it, THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT of both Life and Death found in the Universe !

JESUS is the Way.  HE+ is the Way to live in this temporal world so that we avoid filling our lives with EMPTINESS.

JESUS is the TRUTH. HE+ Who+ never lost His+ integrity in sin tells us how to come to The FATHER for REAL Life.

JESUS is the LIFE.  HE+ died so that we might live.  We die to Self and live unto JESUS CHRIST in order to be given REAL Life ... both here and beyond the grave.

What shall we choose ?

To die to Self and have REAL Life with JESUS ? 
--- Or ---

To cling madly onto "our" little world
inside the hull ... which will be taken from us
at the appointed time.

You see, the seeds can NOT keep their hulls intact once moisture touches them in a jar or in the ground. 

Likewise, we can NOT keep our hulls intact, our outer coats pristine, once we are placed in the ground. They dissolve, just like the seed-coats.

Nor can we keep them once the Water of the Word+ affects them. 

We either sprout, are planted,
and grow, bearing fruit,
as our Old Hull falls away

 --- OR ---  
we ROT and DIE in our SINS.




JESUS said,

I+  
I+ AM
 the WAY,
 the TRUTH,
and the LIFE;

no man comes to The FATHER

except through ME.+

 
Are you EMPTY ?

Then YIELD your Life to JESUS, die out to Self, and you will bear fruit in HIM+. 

EMPTY ?

You won’t be empty… 
IF  you are bearing Fruit.

+  +  +