C. Baxter Kruger (part 1) / So. The Word Became Flesh

Hey guys, this is a Sea I don't you know I didn't ask about the sea stuff see backster Kruger What is the sea for I forgot to ask? Yeah, so we got to talk to backster about all kinds of things. He's a Brilliant Absolutely brilliant Southern gentlemen from the state of Mississippi in the in the in the town that I lived in for almost five years Do you know Mississippi has lots of messes. I would always ISS ISS IPPI. Oh my god IPP ISS ISS I am that's backwards. You're welcome Yes, so this is a two-parter because because backster is a fire hose of Life and light and revelation we talked about the cross we talked about inclusion We spent a whole lot of time walking through John. Yep. We talked about pain. We did pain. We did the invitation to lean into Those painful places. Yep. We talked about the fallen mindset. Yes So backster talked a lot about Jesus coming into our darkness and Illuminating for us the things that we believe about God and one of the things I love about backster is that he is a storyteller So he really he he brings it back to just relatable stories and it's not all Heady yeah, heading knowledge. He's well read. He's incredibly smart He's read I think everything at least five times probably and so He said he'd come back and talk with us about other subjects as well, and I'm really excited about all right guys. Thanks. You're gonna enjoy this I got a I got a funny story for you backster, you know few years ago four years ago when I was unlearning this stuff that Western evangelicalism had had taught me and I was listening to all kinds of people My wife was just like can we just have a night where we don't listen to a sermon or a thing? Can we just like relax? But one of the voices that she really liked was your voice because she's from this town called Rocky Mountain North Carolina Yeah, she's like, okay, we can do we can do backster because he's got that southern draw He just has this way of talking that reminds me of home So both both in terms of the good old Southern little ones accent but also in terms of theology Yeah Yeah, I've had lots of people say very similar things that they said I've never heard anybody with the southern accent saying exactly what you're saying Most people most people in the in the Christian business in from the south are More on the fun metal five my folks moved from Canada pretty much to Jackson, Mississippi. So obviously lots of culture shock So we had a whole lot of that going on but on top of that it really was a tough town for us Don't know if that's where you want to start but Jackson was a tough. I would say if there's a Bible belt Jackson's the buckle Yep, or everybody went to church, but not everybody seemed to know the same Jesus. I remember when we started our ministry here and Friend of mine Bruce Walker Dr. Bruce Walker was in came into Jackson to see us and to do a conference here with me and I was driving around town. He said man, you have a church on every corner And he said to me said I in the world have you survived ear back She needs stop. He stopped. He said no, no, I get it. He said he said you either Really get tough and know and articulate what you're saying here or it kills you And you just it's just the perfect spot for I said yeah, I appreciate that buddy. Yeah Three four years ago, but it's interesting. I was just talking to my friend Christie because she and I've been real close friends for 30 years 30 years And we were talking about the difference between Then and now in terms of how people are able to hear What I'm saying and process it in a matter of moments and hours as opposed to years And I said part of that part of that is because people With our cultures in different places our Christian cultures in different places And we're open and we're looking and we're more desperate and we're looking for we're reading and we're saying that Jesus is making some grandiose promises here And we're open. Yeah, and we have you know, that's that's relatively new. Are you finding that where you are in Jackson? Is that you feel in that shift there? I definitely am but not in the same Way that I do most of my work When I travel is I mean I rarely speak in Mississippi. I Get I get invited to cook crawfish all the time Because I have a quite amazing if I do say so myself crawfish, but oh Man, well, let's let's start right there then because that was one of the things that I was introduced to when I in my time in Mississippi that that crawfish and they don't call it a broil. It's a ball. Yeah, B.O. I don't know how to spell it, but there's no I in there No, I am there and I remember my neighbor was throwing one and everybody in their sister was there and we came over and they they were Everybody's so friendly. That was one of the things that everybody waves, you know in Jackson and and and I remember Being introduced to that and so I'll ask you your your southern boy Obviously you suck out the heads right? Oh, I we're way more sophisticated than we are we're I have my recipes called Dr. K's gourmet crawfish and it is pretty pretty good. I came up with it about 25 years ago and Like I said, I get invited a whole lot more to do Crawfish here in long state than I do to teach But things have changed to the conversations I've had a lot of great friends here That have been very supportive of me personally. I mean very much understood what I saw and New what we were up against even try to make a go at stand-up and saying it and so I've never been alone Here I've always always had some really deep thinking reflecting Deep human beings that have been right with me Not many not many mind you but you don't need many no I Wonder I wonder back sir of part of that is in the age of information I mean, I know for me once I started really starting to rethink and just get acquainted with different Even different people on the faith outside of my penicostle or evangelical upbringing Like I didn't know that you could so call yourself a Christian and claim what some of these people were saying right and so for me there was There was kind of a relief. It was like wow It's okay to be asking these kinds of questions or it's okay to To think about things differently than I was raised so I wonder if that openness is because in our age of Of information where there's so much content whether it's social media or YouTube or whatever you know whatever I wonder if that's part of it. I think it almost certainly have to be but This information has been available Before sure so it's a combination of things. I think that the big ingredients are Number one is the recovery of the ancient gospel What I call the undiluted truth of all truths and that's been part of my calling and I'm with a lot of people But we've gotten gotten to know each other people like Paul Young for example And Brad jurors act in John McEurry and can't just a whole group of cacadie sturgeon whole group of us and That I know about it. There's many many more that I don't know about just yet I mean friends while the toy down in South Africa so the Lord has been raising up people who All of us were on our own we thought for a long time. We didn't see anybody else talking about it yet But that doesn't go anywhere Unless there's another parallel movement happening which is I just simplified and say it's the growing despair of good people And so when I wrote my book Patmos The first draft I was completely I don't know if you guys have seen that book But it's it's about a burned out suicidal Theologian from Mississippi who Expliquable I mean he's tried everything. He's been five different denominations and study the literature. He's been a therapy You know he's and he just doesn't work so he's at the end of the road be inexplicably time travels and ends up on the Isle of Patmos in meets the Apostle John and they just have an astounding Adventure but when I wrote the first draft of that book I was unaware consciously unaware That Aiden represents the Western church the main character the main character I mean he's that one in fact one of the editors The first draft told me back to we need normal drama at the beginning I mean aiden's got cancer. He's gonna die his wife's dying right something's happened You know and I said well I just need to rewrite the first couple chapters a little bit because of the dramas there And she she said what what it what would you say is the drama? I said Aiden is a good man He's done everything the preachers told me to do any suicidal. That's the drama I said everybody sitting in the pew everybody sitting in the pew is right hair breath away from eight and she goes, "Oh my gosh!" and they're thought about that. I said, "Yeah." So at the very beginning of the story, there's a little line that's tucked in the middle that said, "I have always known that Jesus is the answer to all of our eels." But that's not the question. The question is, "How?" So if you're pretending and you accept the pose, the Western Christian pose, or the Bible-built pose, then you don't want to be part of the conversation. And I'm not condemning. But man, there's a bunch of people who have seen through the pose that don't want anything to do with it and they have that question. I know Jesus has the answer. I don't know how. And here's this guy named Baxter's talking, he's making some sense. And he's not claiming to have it all figured out. He just says, "This is what I know. This is what I've come to see in my journey." And man, so that's generated our entire ministry of nearly 30 years. I was just talking with someone last week and literally suicidal has been following God for 20-plus years has tried to follow God through a punitive lens. And she basically was saying, "I'm going to walk away except for I can't because I've met him." So I know he's the answer, but I can't be a Christian anymore. I say, "Well, you can't be the kind you've been." I love Jesus on the road to Emmaus. He meets with these guys and he hides himself and acts like he doesn't even know who he is so that he can then reveal to them who he is outside of their understanding. They already had one context, one paradigm. And so I think that what's happening right now is so many people are living in trapped in this one paradigm, this one understanding. And I think there's a lot of Jesus showing up and revealing himself first and foremost to that heart place, well engaging the intellect, but first and foremost to that heart place because they say at the end, "Didn't our hearts burn within us?" I think what Jesus was doing on the road was he was teaching him how to speak the different language. He was shifting their thinking, they're coming at them from a different angle, coming at them with the intellect, but with the heart as well so they would get a revelation. The greatest revelation ever, Jesus crucified and risen, you know? I think that the heart is the key to that whole passage and for me, what I have come to understand is that Jesus, the incarnation is a movement of him of the one who has faced the face with the Father in the anointing of the Spirit, deeper and deeper into our humanity until he reaches what is called in the Testament, our flesh. So Jesus has pitched his tent there and he brought his Father in the Holy Spirit with him. So now the whole thing, if I didn't believe that, if I didn't believe that was true for every human being on earth, that Jesus is already inside them with the Father, with the Holy Spirit, if I did not believe that, I would never open my mouth. Because it would be then simply a matter of theological argument. And it's all we would do is argue and I would have to convince you that my position is right. But that's not what I'm doing. And that's not what I'm saying. And I know you're not. Is it that we're bearing witness to something that is already real that you don't know about? And that's when he's then burned the hearts. It's that Jesus refuses to enter into their theological framework. And he's because he's already entered into the deepest darkness and so on. So it's in his interpretation of the scriptures and in the breaking of the bread that the revelation of him happens inside their hearts. So if you start off with separation, and this is the whole point of the Batham's book, this is what Aiden didn't understand. He assumed that he was separated from God and he tried to get back in all these different ways. And they didn't work. And he just finally threw up his hands, but the discovery of Jesus Christ in you, not outside of you. And so otherwise, the gospel is real. And the ministry, the work, the cross of Jesus is really no different than the prophets. These reduced in the words, Jesus came, he preached, he died for us for our sins and some sort of external way. And he goes back to the vault and he says, Hey, I did the, I did my best. The vast majority didn't want me and that's just where it is. That's no different than any prophet in the in the store. But because Jesus is coming on the scene of human history, he said, I'm not a prophet who's been sent to argue theologically, I am the Word of God in him. You live and move and have your being. And I will make my way inside of your darkness. And I'm going to get to the very bottom of it so that there's no possibility of any part of you being left behind. And when I get to that place with my father, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is going to start turning the lights on. And we're going to have a conversation that likes to which you've never even heard of. And I think, I think that's what happened to Saul, Tarsus. Three times in Acts, it's narrated, he the narrated or it's narrated, that he saw a light and it makes you think that this is eternal. It's a light shining like the sun. It blinds its physical eyes. But in Galatians, he words this so beautifully, he said, when God, and he told my to father, who sent me apart from my mother's wound per Galatians 1 15 16, sent me apart from my mother's wound was pleased to reveal his son in me. That I might preach him indenations, indigentiles. Now, you you you read most translations. And most of them are going to translate both of those words. They're in in the Greek New Testament same word, they're going to translate them as a mom, but not all translations and not even all modern so-called evangelical translations translate along some of the end. So Jesus mission is is not to do something external, which purchases a ticket for us to go to a place called heaven, we die, whether we want to be there or not. His mission is to reach us inside our own broken minds and our delusion. And that's what the cross is about. That's what Jesus is doing. It's not about the wrath of God being poor. It's about human rage and human darkness and human bitterness being poor out in Jesus is submitting to that and in him the father submitting to that and in him the Holy Spirit that the three of them in the person Jesus is submitting to us at our most diabolical delusional worst. So now they don't have a relationship with that backster. So the Christian life is really learning, it's really learning. I just my translation my paraphrase of John 8, 12, the passage where Jesus said, I am the lie of the world. Yeah. The one who follows me shall never ever walk in the deep darkness for sure how the lie of life. My paraphrase of what I think Jesus saying is I am the reason that you're here. You have your origin and your meaning in me. Now, backster, if you will take sides with me against the way you think about things, I'm going to lead you to an experience of life, the likes of which you can't even conceive of right now. But take sides with me. And here's where we're going to start first backster. We're going to start first of the way you see my father because you really, really are way off on that. And then we're going to talk about how the spirit which has been the biggest part of my journey. Was Jesus teaching me about the whole spirit, but then it's it's even water. He says, he says, backster, I want you to take sides with me against the way you see yourself. Because you have no idea who you are. And not only that, but I want you to learn to take sides with me moment by moment against the way you see the ones you call your enemies. Because your enemies are not enemies. Now, you take sides with me. Now, if the church is doing that, if our goal is not to impose our glorious grandiose vision of bringing in a kingdom owned to the Father, Son, the Spirit's presence on earth, if our goal is to hear and see what Jesus desires, then we're going to walk outside and we're going to see things happening in creation. We're going to see things happening in the garbage collectors. We're going to see things happening in dogs, we're going to see things happening that we don't think are involved in miss it all. And that creates a whole new conversation. And off we go, I can go on. That is, that is so good. I'm working on an essay right now. I got, I got about five books I'm working on, but the essay is already becoming a small book. But it's basically on the, the reason the meaning of the death of Jesus in John's gospel. Wow. And it's all about that. John says the word became flesh. And it should be, to me, it should be translated not and the word became flesh, but so. And the reason the word became flesh is because the word is the creator. And the word has been present not absent in creation and to human beings. And all the world was created by him through him. And he was in the world. The world knew him not. And he came to his own people. That is the Jews and the Jews rejected him. So then what is the word to do when what is the son to do when his bride has so lost her mind that she runs for cover from his site and is fallen in love with the darkness. So, so the word became flesh. It gets inside the delusion. Yeah. And so, and now he's inside the delusion, hate the Holy Spirit's turn. This is why Jesus is so confident. He knew that it was finished. And beautifully in Brian Simmons, translation of the New Testament called the passage. Oh, man. And there's this little snippet where it says Jesus on the cross and he cries out, "It's finished." Yeah. It's tetalestine and Greek and it means it's finished and complete. But he brings out the nuance of the air mayor. He said the same word that is translated, finished, complete, perfected is also translated bride. And he translates, so he translates this passage, it is finished comma, my bride. Why? In other words, I am now inside your delusion on the inside of your thinking and we're going to have a new conversation and it doesn't matter to me how long it takes. Because I'm not interested in external proposal, your performance. I'm interested in you being set free in the roots of your soul. And you're going to do that when you discover that I'm already in here and I got here because you voted on killing me. Christ in me the hope of glory, that is the good news. It's to be preached from the house top. Man, that's the gospel. You can look at anyone and you can see Christ in you as the hope of glory. When you live from this place, when you live from our inclusion, when you live from our oneness that you actually can live from his affection like Jesus did. I've a phrase at my house that family is the long game that Jesus came to show us a father and that family is the long game. It's it wins, love wins, if that makes sense. Well, let me tell you a couple of stories about this. I'm now a granddad. The care lines are first, she's four and Cooper is your second and he's two. And about six, eight months ago, I got up in the morning, made a couple of coffee and sat down, was reading in my chair and I didn't know they were even coming over. Yeah. And I heard the garage door open which is behind me and I turned around and looked and I saw that it was Laura and Cooper came in first and he saw the back of my head in my chair. And he came flying into the den and he saw me there and I was with the books, so he grabbed the book and he called it in my lap. Is it read, read? And so by the time I opened that book, Caroline realized that I was reading the Cooper. So she goes and grabs this little pack of books, five small books and she jumps up on the right side and of course they begin to fight over which one we're going to read first and I sat there and literally tears just forna in my eyes. I thought you think you just think about this factor. Here it is right in front of you that it never crossed their minds that they were not wanted and delighted in. Yeah. But what what would happen? What would happen if they begin to get misinformation about dog? That's what they call me dog. That dog doesn't like us. He doesn't. He doesn't even want us in his house. In fact, he's disgusted with us. So Laura says, hey, we're going to see dock and gg and they both trigger. And they both plot and they're little lives about, okay, we're going to walk in the house real quietly and they were going to run back to the back closet and maybe dog won't know that we're there. And say, that's the fall. Yeah, that's the fall. And the kingdom is it never crossed their mind that I didn't want them that they were not adored and delighted in. And so they didn't do the most free thing in the world. It's crawling all out. Well, we've got a doctorate of God in our hands that the last thing anybody thinks is going to happen when they get to heaven and say, go run it to the father's lap. They're just hoping they can hide behind the blood of Jesus and he and the father never knows they're there. You know, it's heart. No, no God created us out of his, his abounding philanthropy and the goodness and he didn't do it grudgingly and he's not. And so he's like, no, no, so the reaction of the father, son of the spirit in Genesis and their present in Genesis three, if you pay attention, the reaction to the fall, to the delusion, to the I am separated from God, delusion that the evil one perpetrated. It's very simple. No, no, no. Not on my watch that I create you to hide in closet. And you're going to come out of those bushes and so we're going to start here. I know what you're thinking. I know what you think about me. You've already invented a new God in your mind and your delusion. But here, let me close you so you can come out of the bushes and we can begin to have a long conversation. But eventually, eventually, this is not going to be an external conversation because I'm sitting in my son and he's going to go in and he's going to get inside of your interpretation, inside on the other side of your greed. And then he's going to bring you and this is important. This is critical in John. A lot of people talk about Jesus as a revelation of God and that we learn about the Father from Jesus. Yes, yes, yes. But that's not even the best part. What Jesus gives to us is not true information about his Father. He gives to us his own fellowship with his Father, his own union with his Father, his own union with the Father. So the Holy Spirit is not coming to bring it in there. But the Holy Spirit is coming to reveal Jesus in us so that we can see the Father with Jesus' eyes. We can truly repent and believe. And if I, oh man, are you telling me that I have been completely wrong about you, my entire life? Is that what, yes, yes, that's what this is about. Religion is the, it's not just the opiate of the masses. It's the delusion of the evil one. Once you, once you state you're separated and God the Father, he's got, at the very least mixed emotions about you, if not just plain out disgusted. And he's watching, he's watching you like a hawk from the infinite distance of a disapproving hawk. Then you, you got the masses. They'll do anything you tell them to get. Now, we've been doing that so long that we've run out of preachers. We run out of messages on what to do. And good, and good people look around the room like, and this is what I saw happen with the shack. The crisis that came from the shack was simply this. I could see what we call a little blue-haired church lady in tennis shoes going into the pastor's office with the shack in the hands of preacher. I've been listening to me for 25 years and I've never experienced anything like this man to change. Now, that's the crisis. That's the crisis. You've been pedaling, what you've been pedaling, we've been following, and it has to let us go. I want what that guy got. Yeah. I want what he got. Is that what you're doing? Separation. Separation is the foundation of all religion. It's what I've tasted and I taste it in and out. I'm sorry, you had a question. You're good. Keep going. But it's that separation is the, for me, it's the birthplace of all religion and it's so much in the church. It's the, it's the leaven and the dough. It seems like it's, it's taught time and time again. It's the starting point and it's, it's a lie. It's such a lie. Yes. And when I first started talking about the life separation, people looked at me. It still do, but not in my bunch of people don't. But they looked at me like I had lost my mind. What are you suggesting? Yeah. And I'm like, it's right there in the gospel of John, verse three. Wow. I said, if you ever, I challenge them and I challenge them all the time. Tell me if you've ever heard of sermon or a series of Bible studies on the fact that Jesus Christ is the creator. And they're like, yeah, yeah, what I said, no, not God the creator. I'm not talking about God creation. I'm talking about what John says and what Paul says. Is it Jesus Christ? Is the one, is the God in and through and by and for whom creation came into being and according to John Calvin and all the perennial witnesses? Yeah. And it was sustained by Jesus. So what you're doing when you say you're separated from God is you're making John and Paul out to be liars at a fundamental level. The problem is not separation. The problem is alienation of mine. We are delusional. And Jesus has become to the bottom of that delusion so he can turn the lights on. And I tell people, I had an experience about a year and a half ago where I had to go to the psychic unit. I was a visit friend and she recognized me. Call me by name, but that was it. Everything else she said she thought she reasoned was completely detached from reality. And she got angry with me because I wouldn't participate with her in her delusion. She was throwing things at me. She was throwing things at the nurses. And I left there driving home and I said, that's the fall. That's the fall. Too fast to fall. How do you deal with that? You just say your sins are forgiven? Are you saying no? I'm going to go figure out a way to get inside. So the whole biblical story is my friend Bruce Walker, who likes to say it's a love story. It's a greatest love story in history. It's about the groom and his bride and bride is delusional and he said no. I'm going to find a way inside. You're going to see what I see. You're going to work this out. So that's the whole story of the Old Testament and the New Testament and the coming of Jesus. And that right now in history we have millions of people who are sparing sitting in the pew if they're in the pew anymore because all the externals and all the do's and all that stuff that they've been told to do, it hasn't changed anything. I'm taking the breath away. It hasn't inspired them. It's done nothing for them. And so they're ready to hear. So now it's just like wow. And I'm telling you, I've been in rooms who are in the 300 or 400 people who are gathered that were on the edge of their seat before I got there. This is like you got to be kidding me. They had seen it. They have discovered Jesus inside of them. They want to know more. They want to talk. about it. Can you imagine trying to limit a Sunday morning service to one hour with when you got a hundred people in the room that have met Jesus 50 times that week? I mean everybody wants to share what they've been they've experienced. They want to share how Jesus met them in their despair or hey met them on the base floor. I met them in three o'clock in the morning changed in diaper. Hey guys I'm interrupting this podcast for just a minute so I can invite you to partner with us by giving to a family story. A family story is a 501 a non-profit and it's our ministry and it's what allows for me to produce this podcast and other regular content. We've been living this faith journey for a long time but 2014 was when we officially stepped away from the traditional pastoring approach to full-time ministry. It's been fun this journey's been wild and this last year was no less faith-inducing with COVID affecting travel and speaking and it's been good because hey we started a podcast. Our passion is to create content catalytic for an encounter with the always good transforming reconciling love of our Heavenly Father. And so our heart through this ministry has always been that through speaking, writing, film and music we're relentlessly sharing the goodness of our Father, the good news. You're given goes directly to support this podcast as well as written content, discipleship content, teaching small group messages, articles that we release weekly and also the book I'm writing. I'm excited about what I'm chasing down right now. We appreciate all the support whether it's sharing, writing review, following us signing up for our email list or financially. We just love being on the journey with you. If you want to give to a family story you can go to a family story.org, a family story.org and click on the give button. All right thanks guys let's get back to the podcast. I've heard a lot of your stuff back during your really rooted and kind of church history and how we got here. But where, where did we go or where did we start believing that the lie of separation? Because if you I mean if you read Athanasius or some of these early church fathers they they weren't diving with some of that stuff or any of that stuff. And so can you talk a little bit about historically where we kind of went or I? Yeah, the short version is that this is the fall in Genesis 3. Yeah. But it says in verse 5 I think that God knows that in the day that you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was disliked eyes and desirable to make one wise. So there are two lies implicit in the temptation. One is that you're not already like God. Right. Right. So you're separated from God. And second is the next lie is that you're not already wise. We were never designed to be wise, to be righteous, to be perfect, to be holy on our own. Yeah. There's only one circle of life, one circle of holiness, one circle of wisdom and that is the circle of other fathers and spirit. We were designed to participate with them in their wisdom and in their righteousness and in their perfection. And their perfection is their perfection is a perfecting perfection. In other words it takes us up as we are as human beings. As my friend Katie Scurgie likes saying the paradox of our humanity. And so he's lying saying you're separating and you've got to become wise and you've got to become like God. So that's the origin of the life separation. And then from there it takes on two as far as we in the Western concern. It takes on two monumental dimensions. One is in Greek philosophy the other is in well first in the Hebrew tradition which ends up being through the whole history of Israel ends up being the Pharisee. The Phariseeism. Only a select few are included and you've got to work your fingers on the phone. But in the Greek philosophical system which is very complicated and I'm being grotesquely generalized here but I think that the fallen imagination of the fallen mind reaches its pure philosophical expression in in in narcissism. Yeah. In which is a blending of Greek philosophy in a whole lot of other things. But the idea that we're separated we have to get back somehow. Yes. So those two were to come together to infiltrate Western Christian thought. And so we're reading the entire story from the assumption of separation and it's like it's like your accent you don't hear your own accent. You don't you don't see your own assumptions. But there have been notable protests all the way through the Western tradition. So it's not it's not like we've been lost in the beginning and that was that was just the it. No. There have been great protests. In the early church in particular in Isaiah what you have is the gospel emerging out of the Judeo part of the Judaism's. Yeah. Because there's lots of variations on the thing there. But the gospel is emerging out of this and it goes all the way back to Abraham and to the Oaks of memory and to the to the Father Son of Spirit that they that Abraham met and talked to as human beings in that story in Genesis 18. It goes back there in Isaiah is saying no it's just the truth. Jesus is revealed to us that God is Father Son of Spirit always has been always will be and this is not just a bit of theology this is now our hermeneek this is our non-negotiable we're not going to deviate from it. So you got that coming to clarification in Isaiah and I think in the Western mind from very early own but I think this is what happened in in the Greek philosophical tradition or in not just that tradition but you have in the Western mind what's a separation of knowing and head knowledge. Right. And I'm working on a book of stories right now the story that I just finished last night was about a young poet named Avalon and she was just well and pretty stuck but she was trying to write this poem she couldn't write it and she ended up she was working on a typewriter she was older before computers she ends up with like 30 or 40 wired up piece of paper around the feet and she just gets and then suddenly a question comes to her. How do you know that those that you have rejected and thrown on the floor were wrong. Right. Right. How did you know that they were wrong? What made you so gradually in the story she meets a man who is a chef and he gets to talk about in great inventing a new sauce and they both kind of come to realize my gosh that means that there are two knowings in us. There's the knowing of the intellect where we're processed and rationalized but underneath that deeper than that more rational that is the knowing of the heart of the knowing of that at that point of intersection between the Father's Son and the Spirit in us and that knowing is challenging our mind is challenging our existing recipes is challenging our existing poetry and in so far as we will in the listen we're going to end up with 30 pieces of paper on the floor and eventually we're going to end up with the poem eventually he's going to end up with this great sauce but we have we have ignored especially since the enlightenment we have ignored the heart knowing in in Western Christianity and it's become a dry rational I'm a theologian I spent my life studying theology but I'm never I'm not really a theologian yeah I'm just a man that grew up in a small southern town that heard and you shall know the truth the truth just sets you free and I thought I want some of that so the end the end game for me has always been the freedom yeah yeah I became I became a theologian because I realized that I didn't know what the truth was yeah I think one of the I read your is it the great dance the book he wrote yeah one of the things when you described faith is you talked about how it was it's about discovery right and about how faith is and and I think that is a really big piece that is just so integral and important because you know we are I think sometimes people ask well if it's if we're included and if we've been brought into this relationship and if we're essentially starting at the end what's the point and I think when I I heard you talk about that discovery is is so important when we talk about faith I don't know if you're familiar with Jason Upton but Jason Upton has this line and he says kids when they do things they do it for human discovery but when they're adults they do it for human approval and so this distinction of discovery versus approval or versus having to do something I remember when I first read that in your book it really just stood out to me I got a great story about faith that I learned from Thomas Erskin who was a 18th and middle 1800s in Scotland he wrote a book called the the unconditioned. Freedness of the gospel, which is one of my all-time favorites. He was a lawyer in a landowner, so the church couldn't really do. He tells the story and this is a greatly imbentless version run through the mind of a southern boy. But a wife and her husband, they have one son, and he decides to join the Royal Navy and it's during World War II or one. So Alfie goes, and he's right son of Susan mom as much as you can. And one day she gets up and she's making her way to the kitchen to get a cup of tea and start her day and she sees in the in the male slot in the door, a piece of male that's yellow envelope that's hung up, and she goes over and she gets it and she looks at it and it's from the Royal Navy and she opens it up and she says, "Dear Mrs. Jones, the HMS enterprise," let's call it, was sunk off of the coast of so-and-so. All souls are lost and we're terribly sorry for your loss. And so she just goes into a spiral as you can imagine. And weeks and weeks then she won't get out of bed. Her life is over. Her husband can't do anything with it. The house is the mass yard is the mass. Her friends quit coming by and probably a month and a half goes by this two months. And so she gets up one more and she'll get a glass of water and she just wants to be dead. And she noticed that there's another letter, same envelope and she sees it. And she's like, "Can't you people just leave well enough alone?" And she turns it over and she recognizes the handwriting on the front of her son. Right. So she rips the letter open. She reads his mom, "Our ship sunk, but I swam to an island and they finally found me and I'll be home in two weeks. I've lost a lot of weight so I'm getting a kitchen." So instantaneously, her inner world or her outer world, she calls her husband. She calls her friends. She calls people to get the house cleanies and the parties that plan and all. So you see the story and it helps me, it helps to make the distinctions that are important. The son was never dead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She believed he was dead. Yeah. And the resulting psychological or inner world implications begin to work themselves out because of what she believed. Right. When she began to believe that her son was alive, she wasn't making him alive. Yeah. That's good. She was responding to the truth and it was steady or free. Yeah. So the distinction is between the announcement of the gospel is that you, indiscriminately, anywhere that I go, you are included in this. Jesus has found you in your darkness. You are not separated. You can ask him, are you in me and you will hear him answer. So when we believe it's not making something true, it's beginning to discover the truth and the implications of that, the psychological healing. It's just like if Caroline and Cooper believed that I was mean. Right. Yeah. And suddenly they begin to realize, oh no. Oh no, he's not me. Well, they don't need to go high. So you hold together and this is John. I mean, some people see John as the gospel of belief. He never uses the word faith. He said, it's a verb. Right. He's constantly summoning us to believe. But he's saying believe what is believe the truth. Believe that the reality that was true before you knew about it. And that's what it means. The truth shall set you free. You don't make it true. It's true before you know it. It's true if you don't believe it. Yeah. But when you begin to believe it, it impacts in any sense. And Jesus says, I have come as light into the world that you may not remain in your darkness. And speaking to the lady, let's use the story of her skin. He walks in the door and says to her, he says, I have come as light to tell you the truth that your husband, I mean, your son is not dead so that you cannot will not remain in this squire. Yeah. Because I did not create you for this form of of gnashing and weeping and gnashing and bitterness. Wow. So it holds again. But seeing our modern modern evangelical, I don't even like to call it evangelical, because it's not. It's existentialism. It is. There's no truth until you make it through by your faith. And it's only as true as your faith can make it. Well, bless your heart. I mean, that people that think that have never been through a single darkness. So let alone a season of that's right. That's right. Yeah. Good. Well, in the end, the position this prophet there is that God is not your father, but becomes your father when you believe and is only as fatherly towards you as much as you believe in a given day. Wow. And that's why the gnashing creed is exactly why the gnashing creed begins with we believe in one god, the father almighty maker of heaven, it places the concept, the reality of creation, the making of heaven, or inside the prior fatherhood of God. Wow. This this God, the father of this son is the creator of all things. You don't, but God is always father. Yes. And so it leads in that other position. It's mythology is what at the nation call it, but it leads us to the place. I've had arguments with people about this that God is judge and only becomes father. I'm like, come on, man. God is eternal father of the son. He's the eternal father of the son. And he's always father creation comes from his fatherhood. I faith that doesn't have the ability. And I'm learning this. It doesn't have the ability to alter how God feels about us at all or who we are at all. Yeah. Yeah. I've learned I see this so much of my grandchildren because I can tell you there is not a thing to alter how I feel about them. Now what can be altered is their relationship with me based on what they know and what they believe or think they know. But they don't have the power to temper with how I feel or either grandparents feel about them. And so this is this is where all of this is coming. It's like, oh my goodness. Man, this is like no wonder no wonder the early church exploded in the most beautiful, powerful way. And John is seeing the parlories, Neerak's gospel. He's seeing already in his lifetime that the church is losing touch with these core revolutionary realities and it's turning into a religion. This is why I think he doesn't have a big long discussion of the Eucharist. He doesn't even quote the words of the institution in his gospel and the reason it's not because he doesn't think that that's important. He knows it's already been turned into a ritual. And so he's going to go, he's going to go saying, Jesus says, if you don't eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part of it. John is not advocating cannibalism. He's saying, this is not about bread and wine. This is about union with church. Yeah. For me, the great shift in my life started with the revelation of Father. And I had a good dad. So I had started a lot of folks. There was a story I recently heard you tell about you were out hunting and you could smell waffles from three miles away. And I'll let you tell the story. But what I felt like you were saying and in light of my journey, it is a journey of actually experiencing God. It's kind of where I was starting with the Amazs road where he was showing up and he was sure he was interacting with our intellect. But more to the point, he was speaking heart to heart. And it was their hearts that they got revelation in their heads later on in the house, but their hearts knew before their heads knew. And there was this beautiful experience, experiential thing taking places, feeling and touch, emotions, every aspect. And I think it's so important to be able to experience that the love of our father, you know, that's and I be curious where your emotions and your I'll say it this way. I have so many believers who've grown up with an intellectual gospel and of course under a retributive, repunitive lens. And they know the names of God, but they have no idea how to actually get in his lap to access and encounter with him to actually experience his affection, you know. My passion is that people would be able to know how to access heart, soul, mind and every aspect of their body, every aspect of their personhood and encounter with him. And so I love I know you talked about those waffles and I love that story. It was it was throughout chicken. It was the same difference, but I will say first what to talk about that. I will say that this is the human journey. It's all our journey, but in the reason this our journey is because Jesus is sharing his own knowledge and his own communion, his own fellowship with his father with us in the spirit. So we're never going to be content with a theology or secularism or whatever. So he's setting up the journey of the human race by being in us. And it's we have a litmus test. We taste it glory. We felt the fellowship. So for and this was my journey for years and years and years. I would sit on my what I call it the Cadillac stand. It was up and I was just shot four deer in my entire life. But I love being out of the woods and and I would go and one day I was having a particular hard, particular hard time and I just I was just not feeling anything and I got so mad so angry. And then I suddenly realized that there was this you know I knew the store just back up the road three miles and they could fry chicken for I could smell fried chicken three miles down in this one. And I said, and I said, uh, lower, I stood up in the Cadillac. I said, this, this just really pisses me off. I mean, I could smell fried chicken and I don't want to smell fried chicken. I won't feel you and I can't think of you. Now, what is wrong here? Are you, are you just jerking me around or are you saying no, there's some issues inside of you? Okay, what are the issues and how do we deal with them? Yeah. Because I, I want to know what Jesus knows. I know right now. He doesn't bite me. He's fingernail man. He's not afraid of tomorrow right now. He's not afraid of COVID-19 or whatever you want to call it right now. He's not afraid to be a commoner because he's looking at you face to face. And his emotions go with that in the spirit. Right. And I know this. I've come to see this theologically, which is a beautiful journey. I've given where I started in hardcore Calvinism. But that's not what I'm after. Yeah. I'm not after a beautiful theology. I want to experience you. I want to know you. I want to. And, and so. Just not long after that. I don't know the exact dates, but it wasn't long after that. I was sitting in my office and I just, I said, okay, I'm done. I'm done. I can't, I can't make a living at this. I'm not this experience. This experience is not. Okay, I'm done. And this is the origin of the idea of Patmos. And although this was decade, at least 15 years ago, maybe longer. And, and I stood up and I said, I'm walking out of this office and I'm going to close my door. And that's it. I said, I'll go find another way to make a living. I just, it's not working. Done. And I was dead serious. Yeah. And that's happened to me three different times in my journey. Oh, man, this monumental revelations, but I have not closed my door, I have my door, hand on the door handle. And I heard. Baxter. I am going to give you the desires of your heart. Not yet. Well, I said, well, okay, well, tell me when I'll check out till that day. What is this not yet business? I mean, how can you try harder than I've tried? Yeah. I'm sure there's plenty of people that have, but I mean to me. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, what's this not yet business? And he said, he said, it's clear to you anything. He said, are you willing to face pain? And I'm saying, well, like I have a choice. He said, oh, yeah. He said, everybody has a choice. And that's the choice. If you face pain, if you get, if you look at it, you're going to meet me in it. And that's how you experience me. Yeah. And so far as you avoid your pain, you don't experience me. Yeah. Because I have come to dwell inside of your darkness. And I brought my father and the Holy Spirit with me. If you're not willing to look at your darkness, I'm not talking about your poor theology. Yeah. I'm talking about your wounds. I'm talking about your, your myth, I'm talking about your delusion. You're not willing to look at that. Yeah. You can't take stops of me. You can't experience me. That didn't mean I'm going to stop. I mean, this for the long haul. Wow. But wow, man, that was some, you know, I thought, oh my goodness. And so, a part of the, the, the, the, to me, having grandchildren has brought all of the beautiful theology that the Lord has carved out of my darkness. Yeah. You know, he's brought it to bear emotionally. Yes. To me, in ways that I could not have experienced. Oh, I mean, I experienced it. But now it's like it's on steroids. I mean, because especially the fact that, that day, you know, I told you that that was several different stories with respect, respect to them. But just the, the notion that, that I loved both of my grandchildren. Nine months before they were born. Yeah. I'd already made up my mind about them. And they're one of the different things they could do to change it. And they still can't. So either I'm better than God. Right. Or I'm actually loving my grandchildren with the love of the father, the love of the son, the son, the father, the freedom of spirit. If that's what that is, that is the feeling of their love. Is how I feel from my family, my grandchildren, my friends. That is the experience that I've been seeking. And I've been having my whole life, but they didn't know. I was looking in the wrong place like that, like Eden. In so far as you were willing, in so far as you were willing to face your darkness, your delusion, you will experience the father, son, spirit. And I will say this, this is how part of how this works is that none of us is going to face our darkness, our delusion, our wounds, if we believe that God is discussing with us. Because then all we're going to find is proof, in error proof, that we are discussing. Right. But it's the gospel that begins to set us free to look at our own darkness. Because the gospel tells us that the deepest truth of God's being is He's for us, He loves us. And the deepest truth of our being, the thing that is the deepest is underneath everything about us that the core of our identity is that we belong. We always have, we belong to the father, son, spirit. Now, if that's who I really am, then this stuff in between, just above that, these wounds, these scars, this hurt, this delusion, that is truly my enemy, this keeping me from me from being who I am. So good. And living, and living from the experience of my father's heart. So good. I mean, that's not, you don't get that in the theology book. No. You get that from living your life and making a mess of things and learning. And most beautifully of all is how the Holy Spirit, I would call, I call the Holy Spirit Mama Spirit and I call the Holy Spirit Redeemer Genius. And because she is just brilliant at taking our moments of stupidity, even our moments of rebellion and outright sin. And the things that have happened to us and weaving those into revelations of Jesus in us. So we didn't look back and see how that the Holy Spirit has taken up what I thought I interpreted as my dark time or my. My wayward time or whatever you want to call it and turn that. Yeah. Yeah. Into a revelation of Jesus in us and trained me in the midst of that to be able to identify with others who are in their pain so that I could share what I had come to note with them in ways that they could understand. But that's just just just cool. I just I just. Yeah, that is so good. Oh, I got tons of stories that I was thinking about. Let me tell one more. Then we can go a different direction. But go ahead. There's a demand that was the, he was a master carpenter. We were maybe the best in the world. He made this standing carpenter's in his six year old granddaughter was pestering him. He's going to let me help you make one. I know how to do it. Let me make you up one. So on her seventh birthday, he presented her with her own pair of needles. Yeah. And taught her three basic stitches and set her up on one end. And she started going to town. Yeah. And he was working on the other end. And he was watching her and realized that she did not get a single stitch right. And she was a mistake. But he was so good that he was able to incorporate all of her mistakes into the overall design. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's what I mean by we weren't meant to be perfect. Yeah. We were meant to be. We've meant to participate in their perfection that perfect. And so that's what this is about. Is it you live long enough? You look back and you see how man that was that was just a. The wrong move on my part bad. And my goodness nice turn it look at Paul young his life. You know, you know, story. And then he could have never written the shack had him not gone through all that. Yeah. Right. Yeah. God doesn't just work things for good as who he is. It's literally, that's just the nature of who he is. That's, that's it. That's the good news right there. Yes, sir. Hey guys, thanks for listening to this episode. We hope it encouraged. We had a lot of them making it. If you guys want to subscribe to this podcast, please do. We're on Apple podcast Spotify. All of them anywhere you might listen to. Leave a review. Leave a review. Yeah, that'd be great. Especially if it's a good review. We're just getting started, right? We don't want bad reviews. No. Also, if you want to follow us on social media, you can go to I know this man has a Twitter account. We both do. 160 followers. It's very active. It's about the skyrocket. And if you want to find us online, we're at a familystory.org, a familystory.org. Also, you can reach me there if you want to get a hold of us for any reason at [email protected]. We're excited that you guys are on this journey with us and we look forward to releasing more content. Yeah. Thanks. See you. [MUSIC]