Still trying to "get closer to God?" 

How can you get closer to your Siamese twin?

 John Crowder ‏@TheNewMystics

Start with the answer

He doesn’t say: Why no faith? He says: Here’s the Answer. He doesn’t say: Why are you sick? He says: Here’s the Answer. He doesn’t say: Why are you poor? He says: Here’s the Answer. He doesn’t say: Why is your marriage broken? He says: Here’s the Answer. Having spent years in healing ministry, I’ve seen the whole machine become obsessed with looking for roots and causes to the problems of sickness, rather than resting in the simple reality that by His stripes we are already healed. The Gospel is always the antidote. Let’s start with the answer, not the problem. It is the higher reality to which we continually appeal, even when circumstances fly seemingly opposite.

from Cosmos Reborn : Happy Theology on the New Creation       by John Crowder

From John Crowder's Book 'Cosmos Reborn - Happy Theology on the New Creation'

He doesn’t say: Why no faith? He says: Here’s the Answer. He doesn’t say: Why are you sick? He says: Here’s the Answer. He doesn’t say: Why are you poor? He says: Here’s the Answer. He doesn’t say: Why is your marriage broken? He says: Here’s the Answer. Having spent years in healing ministry, I’ve seen the whole machine become obsessed with looking for roots and causes to the problems of sickness, rather than resting in the simple reality that by His stripes we are already healed. The Gospel is always the antidote. Let’s start with the answer, not the problem. It is the higher reality to which we continually appeal, even when circumstances fly seemingly opposite.

Come alive

 

Quoting:  John Crowder

In that forgotten closet of Earth, something began to move. Deep in the core of those silent membranes of flesh, a stirring began. Perhaps it started with a hum. Perhaps it happened with a flash, a bang or a thunderclap. But one by one, each and every individual cell in that lifeless body began to vibrate. Those cells began to bounce and bend again. They started to twirl and dance and sing and come alive.

We don’t know where it comes from, or exactly where it’s going. But this ever-coursing torrent of resurrection power got its hands on us that day. It snatched us clean up from that cold stone slab. It shot through us like an ethereal voltage – running solvent through our clotted veins and putting goose bumps back on our
clammy skin. It’s the energeon that holds us together this very moment.

The limp frustration of mortality was swallowed up in immortality. In an instant, everything had changed. sorrow was eclipsed by ecstasy. A holocaust became a holiday. A fast turned into a festival. When the last curtain call came in, we found that light really did have the power over darkness. That life is indestructible. Love is unquenchable.

Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?

God Himself is the Breath of Life. The unstoppable flame of charity. The joie de vivre. The flat announcement of the gospel is that we don’t have to die unless we want to. For love is as jealous as the grave. Death’s sting has been rendered impotent. And the saints can live forever.

deliriously happy

I'm deliriously happy. While writing reports I've had a day of Worshiping God and listening to good grace teaching. I stopped for a break and read some of John Crowder's book "The Ecstasy of Loving God".   A quote from the book:
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Many Christians have been conditioned to believe that the personal satisfaction they derive from God can become idolatrous. Even in the thought work of Lewis, he determined that the personal satisfaction of love was not evil, as long as it did not become an idol. But Piper takes Lewis’ work to the next level, and more to the heart of Scripture. He says that our personal satisfaction in God is the very essence of true worship!

“The longing to be happy is a universal human experience, and it is good, not sinful. We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy, as though it were a bad impulse,” writes Piper. “Instead, we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction. The deepest and most enduring happiness is found only in God.”

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A heightened awareness

 A Quote from "The Ecstasy of loving God" by John Crowder.

"Today the world is in birth pangs, being shaken from a natural perception of things observable and awakened to a heightened awareness of things unseen. We are being awakened to the glory realm—the atmosphere of God’s tangible, manifest presence. The spiritual realm of Heaven is a greater reality than the known, material universe. One might say it is a meta-reality, for the spiritual always affects and overrides the physical. Things which are shifted in the spirit bring direct consequence to the natural realm.

These are exciting times as God shifts our concept of reality. He is preparing us for the phenomenal—angelic encounters, visitations of Jesus, bizarre miracles, and multitudes of souls coming into the Kingdom. The thing which most needs shifting today is us. God will not have an end-time church that is depressed, cynical, doubting, religious, or powerless. He will have a church that lives and breathes from a heavenly vantage point, even while their feet still touch the earth. This church will be filled with joy, faith, intimacy, and power like no previous generation.

In this day, God will not have for Himself a purpose-driven church, but a Spirit-driven church—an intimate bride who is moved and motivated by the cloud of His presence. He is looking for lovers, not do-gooders. A people who are enraptured by His fragrance and lost in the eternal weight of His goodness."

 A Quote from "The Ecstasy of loving God" by John Crowder.