Holy Week-One With The Cross~Difference Between Duty & Oneness

Holy Week ~ ~ ~ One with the Cross
For the Year of Our LORD, 3.20.2008

~or~


The Difference Between Duty and Oneness

Peace comes when you perform your duty thoroughly. The requirement is duty. You will be held accountable if that duty is NOT performed. Duty can become heavy and tedious, if the inner heart is not yielded. Duty is accomplished because you are afraid of the consequences if you don’t do it right. This is the case in paying taxes, paying bills, going to some jobs, and alas, in being in some marriages.



Joy comes when you WANT to perform that duty out of Oneness, out of a union that agreement engenders.. If you approve what the government does, then paying taxes feels good. If you agree whole-heartedly that nothing should be free, then paying bills seems sensible. If you enjoy your job and get great satisfaction from it, then you would rather be on your job than anywhere else. It gives you identity and helps define who you are, to others and to yourself. It gives you meaning for life. Then, that brings you joy.


Alas, though, if a marriage is performed out of duty instead of a loving Oneness, you may reap a quiet existence … if your partner is willing to accept duty as a replacement for Oneness. Joy may eventually develop… if your partner is willing to accept the terms of that kind of agreement.

But if your partner is NOT willing to replace Oneness with duty, then sadness will be your bed-partner. A heart hurt down at the deepest level is hard to be healed. To the partner accustomed to Oneness, duty is a bitter replacement. He/she won’t want it. Then, all past love becomes screened through the eyes of duty, and even that joy becomes tainted with sorrow. A lack of trust develops.

If the duty-partner refuses to deal with the necessity of returning to his first heart-felt Oneness, the union may limp along… after all, who can find fault with one who fulfills one’s duty? … but there will be a raw, unhealed sore festering in the marriage. The Oneness has been broken in the deepest recesses of the heart although not perhaps at the surface level. That unhealed place will funnel constant sorrow into the union.

It is like that with The LORD, too. HE+ calls us to Oneness with HIM+… a Oneness issuing from a heart of love which WORKS BOTH WAYS. As much as HE+ loves us… do we love HIM+ back that much? Are we performing duties but our hearts are fixated on ourselves instead of HIM+ ?

Are we fixated on what HE+ can give us instead of the closeness that HE+ wants? What do we want out of a marriage? Do we want gifts or closeness? Do we want areas of “no trespassing” signs in our marriage or do we want an openness of heart… in order to become One ?

Becoming one is what brings the joy in our first love; we realize we are not alone in heart. In order to have that oneness, we must agree to be honest and open in our hearts with one another. If a rough area is seen, then we agree to lovingly lay it bare. With each other, we work together on that part, through prayer, until it becomes clean in the eyes of The LORD. Then we have oneness with our partner and Oneness with The LORD.

If there is a “no trespassing” sign up in some area of our heart, that will hurt the other partner and break the fellowship, the unity, the oneness. It is imperative that the closed off areas be brought to the Light of CHRIST by the one who has the “no trespassing” sign up in his heart. No-one can do it for him. No-one can make him willing to touch that sign and remove the wall, the barriers… if he is not willing to have it removed. It is required, however, or the marriage roadbed will be full of potholes lurking around every bend and hidden in the shadows.

When we are at One with CHRIST JESUS, it works the same way. The “no trespassing” signs must be removed from our hearts towards CHRIST. HE+ will lovingly help us to bring these areas to HIM+ and commit them unto HIM+. If we yield the “no trespassing” areas unto His+ loving hands, HE+ will clean them out and make us whole again… more whole than we were before! We will go to new heights being One with CHRIST and our whole life will take on more meaning than ever before.

Now sometimes, in a marriage, duty masquerades as love. There will certainly be an argument if that mask is discovered! The duty-partner feels terribly offended that his duty is not seen as love. But in essence, duty is often used to hide the “no trespassing” sign.

We do that with The LORD, too. More’s the pity. Discipline and duty and even church participation are good works to do for HIM+, but they are not to be used to mask our “no trespassing” signs. They are not a substitute for ardent, passionate love of Our SAVIOR.

HE+ knows the difference.

We do too.

Worse, HE+ knows that we know the difference. What hurts is this: we are okay with the separation between HIM+ and us. HE+ is not.

So, His+ great heart grieves until we deal with those “no trespassing” areas which keep HIM+ out of parts of our hearts. And we, well, we have much less Life than HE+ intended.

Yes, it will feel like the cross. But, it will bring Oneness with HIM+. That Oneness will bring the Abundant Life that is promised in Scriptures. There is no other way to get abundant Life.

Let us go on with CHRIST. Let us take down the “no trespassing… this is mine!” signs. Let us become One with CHRIST. Then… and only then… will HE+ show us how to become One with each other.

In the Name of The FATHER, The SON+, and The HOLY SPIRIT.
Amen.
+ + +

HOLY WEEK ~ Day Three Following Palm Lauds of Our Savior

Holy Week ~~~ HE+ Set His+ Face

For Day Three Following the Palm Lauds of Our LORD

For the Year of Our LORD, 3.19.2008

And it came to pass,

when the time was come that HE+ should be received up,

HE+ stedfastly set His+ Face to go to Jerusalem.

Luke 9:51

Hallelujah, my FATHER, for giving us Your SON+,

For sending HIM+ into the world to be given up by man.

Knowing we would bruise HIM+ and smite HIM+ from the earth...

Hallelujah, my FATHER, His+ death is my birth;

Hallelujah, my FATHER, His+ Life is my life.

Amen and Amen.

+ + +

(This is an old Charismatic prayer group song from the 70's... possibly from the Word of GOD Christian Community in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Feel free to send me more accurate information... it's been 30 plus years ago that I heard this plaintive song.)

HOLY WEEK ~ Day Two Following Palm Lauds of Our Savior

Holy Week ~ ~ ~ The FATHER’S Voice

Day Two, following the Palm Lauds
For the Year of Our LORD, 3.18.2008


And Jesus answered them, saying,
The hour is come,
that the SON+ of Man
should be glorified.

Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except a corn of wheat
fall into the ground and die,
it abideth alone:

but if it die,
it bringeth forth much fruit.

He that loveth his life
shall lose it;

and he that hateth his life
in this world
shall keep it unto life eternal.

If any man serve ME+,
let him follow ME+;
and where I am,
there shall also My+ servant be:

if any man serve ME+,
him will My+ FATHER honor.

Now is My+ soul troubled; and what shall I say?
FATHER, save ME+ from this hour:
but for this cause came I unto this hour.

FATHER, glorify Thy name.




Then came there a Voice from heaven, saying,
I have both glorified it,
and will glorify it again.

The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it,
said that it thundered: others said,
An angel spake to HIM+.

John 12: 23-29


O Blessed LORD , help us to hear Our FATHER’S Voice at all times... and to know the difference between HIS Voice and the thunder of this world. Amen

HOLY WEEK ~ First Day Following Palm Lauds of The SAVIOR

Holy Week ~ ~ ~ First Day after Palm Lauds
For the Year of Our LORD, 3.17.2008

She Hath Done What She Could

After two days was the feast of the Passover,
and of unleavened bread:
and the chief priests and the scribes sought
how they might take him by craft,
and put him to death.

But they said, Not on the feast day,
lest there be an uproar of the people.
And being in Bethany
in the house of Simon the leper,
as he sat at meat,
there came a woman
having an alabaster box
of ointment of spikenard very precious;
and she brake the box,
and poured it on his head.

And there were some
that had indignation within themselves,
and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?
For it might have been sold
for more than three hundred pence,
and have been given to the poor.
And they murmured against her.

And Jesus said,
Let her alone; why trouble ye her?
she hath wrought a good work on me.

For ye have the poor with you always,
and whensoever ye will
ye may do them good:
but me ye have not always.

She hath done what she could:
she is come aforehand
to anoint my body to the burying.

Verily I say unto you,
Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached
throughout the whole world,
this also that she hath done shall be
spoken of for a memorial of her.
Mark 14:1-9

“She hath wrought a good work on ME+,” Our LORD said. The LORD received it. Seeking The LORD, let us go and do likewise, working a GOOD work upon Our LORD. What sacrifice would please HIM+ ? A further support of missions? A dedicated time of quietude every day? A visiting of a widow? Opening our home to an orphan? Having a feast or holiday and inviting those who cannot repay us?

She did what she could. She did it to show her love for HIM+. She gave HIM+ what could have been sold for great gain for herself. She was disdained by those around her as she did this. She anointed HIM+ for burial ahead of time. In so doing, she joined HIM+… in her small way by her sacrifice… in death.

Seeking The LORD, let us go and work a work on HIM+ that HE+ will find pleasing… regardless whether it is hidden from or visible to the eyes of man. It is certain that the eyes of the invisible will see it.


Let us join with our Anglican Brethren and lift this prayer to Our LORD:

Almighty GOD, Whose most dear SON went not up to joy but first HE+ suffered pain, and entered not into glory before HE+ was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of Life and Peace; through the same Thy SON JESUS CHRIST our LORD, Who liveth and reigneth with THEE and Thy HOLY SPIRIT, one GOD, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer, 1979, Traditional Collects, p. 168)