What if your heart is no longer 'prone to wander?' What if God is more interested in releasing a noble goodness He's already placed within you, rather than pressuring you to be more 'holy?' Discover the book by Jim Robbins.
Why desire matters in our journey -- Jim tells the story of how his 5-year journey to find a better town for his family and a more sustainable life has now come full circle; and how desire was the glue that held his dreams together when he wanted to give up. You will also discover that your deep desires matter to God and that he will use them to give you answers and direction.
THE KINGDOM: What you can't see is often more important than what you can. Because of Jesus, the eternal has penetrated the temporal, and heaven and earth have collided. The Kingdom of Heaven is near and the veil is thin.
“It is the childlike mind that finds the kingdom.” - Charles Fillmore
“If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.” - William Law
“For me Christianity is about the Kingdom, not about the Church: it has to do with human growth and development not church growth and development.” - Michael Taylor
“The doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of Jesus, is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever stirred and changed human thought.” - H.G. Wells
"Earth is crammed with heaven,and every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries." - E. Barrett Browning
Heart and callling are inextricably linked: you can't know your calling without knowing the deep desires of your heart -- and believing that they are trustworthy. Within your new heart lie desires God is awakening. Here are some quotes on 'calling:'
“For the most part, I do the thing which my own nature prompts me to do. It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it.” -- Albert Einstein
“Progress is not created by contented people.” -- Frank Tyger
“Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy – that he live in accordance with his own nature.” (Seneca)
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” -- Frederick Buechner
"[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all . . . rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather." --Frederick Buechner
"What I do is me: For that, I came." -- Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins
"What is in you that is so unique, that if you don't live with it, the Kingdom of God will live without it?" -- Gary Barkalow, www.thenobleheart.com
........................................................................................................................... Listen to the podcast: "A life of desire"
........................................................................................................................... How about you? Do you have any quotes on calling/purpose you can share?
Recovering our desire -- Jim is a guest again on Joel Brueseke's Growing in Grace Together podcast. They talk about our fears to trust our desires, because we've mistrusted our hearts. They also talked about the various sources of desires and the consequences of not trusting the desires that are in our new and good hearts.
Andrew Farley, author of The Naked Gospel, joined me again to talk about the misleading catch-phrases Christians use that end up leading them away from their new and good hearts.
We also address that sticky passage in the Lord's Prayer that says, "If you don't forgive others...neither will your Father forgive you." But wait a minute, aren't we already and fully forgiven? How do we reconcile other passages on our completed forgiveness with this passage that follows the Lord's Prayer?
Listen 'live' today as special guest Andrew Farley, author of The Naked Gospel, joins Jim again. This time they'll talk about the misleading catch-phrases Christians often use -- spiritual language that ends up separating us further from our new hearts and restored identities.
Joel Brueseke, who hosts the Growing in Grace Together podcast, is a good friend and a guy who really gets the good and noble heart. Joel interviewed me today for a two-part series. Here is part one.
Listen in for some great conversation about why Christians tend to walk around in guilt and shame, and why there seems to be such a focus in the church on behavior management and sin management - and how living with a New Covenant mentality rather than an Old Covenant mentality, as well as a proper view of the new heart, will overcome all of that.
Update on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 2:03PM by
Jim Robbins
................................................................................................................................ All of my podcasts are also available on iTunes. Here's the link:
Monday, Nov. 23, Jim will by the podcast guest on Joel Brueseke's "Growing in Grace Together" series.
Wednesday, Nov. 25, Andrew Farley, author of The Naked Gospel, will join Jim for a second podcast. They'll be discussing the misleading language and catch-phrases Christians often use that end up preventing them from embracing their true goodness and restored identity.
AMC TV Chanel's mini-series, The Prisoner stars Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings-X-Men) and Jim Caviezel (The Thin Red Line-The Passion of the Christ):
From the series synopsis:
A man, known as Six, finds himself inexplicably trapped in The Village with no memory of how he arrived. As he explores his environment, he discovers that his fellow inhabitants are identified by number instead of name, have no memory of any prior existence, and are under constant surveillance. Not knowing whom to trust, Six is driven by the need to discover the truth behind The Village, the reason for his being there, and most importantly -- how he can escape.
The struggle for our hearts will always involve the issue of identity in some way. "Who are you?" is the question the Devil used to distract and tempt Jesus himself:
"If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." (Matt. 4:3)
"If you are the son of God, ...throw yourself down." (Matt. 4:6)
And the Enemy, through the insults of the crowd tempts him, "Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!"
If we don't know the answer to the question, "Who are you?" we will fall for anything.
The attack comes against identity. Your identity. What is in you that the Enemy or the world would snuff out? You are not ordinary. There's no such thing in the Kingdom. So what is the noteworthy glory you have been given that the world needs? God is in the process of unveiling your unique self to the world. It is his good pleasure.
[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all . . . rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather. --Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets
Here's my interview with friend and guest blogger, Aida Calder - whose blog "Forgetting the Former Things" brings hope and grace to many all over the world.
................................................................................................................... As always, feel free to leave your comments below!
Aida Calder is the blogger who writes the Forgetting the Former Things blog, which has an international audience.
Join us tonight as we talk about her journey, the new heart, and spiritual abuse. Listen 'live' at 6:30 pm EST or download the podcast shortly after the show.
Quiz - Recover Your Good Heart -- Take the quiz with Jim as he exposes the tragic assumptions we've made about our hearts as Christians. You may be surprised at the answers.
The Naked Gospel Quiz Below are ten faith-related concepts that don't seem to be regularly discussed in many churches today. But our view on each of these concepts affects our relationship with God, our spiritual growth and our fulfillment in life. So for each of the ten concepts, decide whether you think each is true or false, and you'll be presented with the answers at the end of the quiz.
1. Christians should ask God to forgive and cleanse them when they sin. True or False
2. Christians struggle with sin because of their old self within. True or False
3. We should wait on God even before making everyday decisions. True or False
4. When we sin against God, we're out of fellowship until we repent. * True or False
5. Old Testament law is written on Christians' hearts so we want to obey it. True or False
6. The Bible tells us that Christians can obtain many rewards in heaven. True or False
7. Christians will give an account for their sins at the great white throne. True or False
8. Christians should tithe at least 10 percent of their income to the church. True or False
9. God gets angry with us when we repeatedly sin against him. True or False
10. God looks at us as though we're righteous, even though we're really not. True or False
My family and I are learning a hard lesson. We've moved 1,000 miles to a new town, with no job. It's the way God asked us to do it. But we still have money flowing out, a shrinking savings, and no sustainable income. The pressure to give into discouragement and fear is mounting.
Here's the lesson: "Give us this day our daily bread." The manna in the wilderness was for that day.
Our culture has programmed us into thinking predominantly long-term: make sure your insurance policies will cover your needs 40 years from now. Get that extra coverage on the new washer and dryer, just in case. Make sure you have a job, any job, because that's the only way that God can provide for you. (Oops, did I just say that?) Forget the desires of your heart, your calling, because we're in a tough economy right now and you need to think more pragmatically.
Now, it is critical that we first ask God if he wants us to live without any of the "securities" I just mentioned. Seek his counsel first. But you get the point: we have not been programmed to think of the daily-ness of God's provision.
"Give us this day our daily sustenance."
So my wife and I keep asking, "Are we alright today?" ...and the answer is, 'yes.' Today, we have what we need.
Our emotional health is directly tied to our view of God. Faulty assumptions about God will sabotage your heart. For that reason, I highly recommend Darin Hufford's new book, The Misunderstood God - the lies religion tells us about God, because the book so ably exposes those harmful assumptions and invites the reader into a deeper freedom.
The book also has staying power. I found myself reflecting on key portions of the book long after I'd read it. The chapter exposing the myth of "The Angry God" reminded me that, "Love is not easily provoked." And despite what we may have been told, the Holy Spirit is not easily wounded or offended. Our God's heart remains supple and open without the fragile neurosis that plagues most of us. We need him to be strong like that.
This book will help you get that heavy pack of religious assumptions and misunderstandings off your back, because you were never meant to carry that.
Narnia, or the the professor's english countryside estate?
The prince's palace, or Cinderella's sooty cellar?
Your town; or another, more supernatural realm?
More specifically, from which direction does life flow? From which direction does authority and power flow?
The Kingdom of Heaven is not "heaven" - what we falsely call the "afterlife." Rather, it is a dominion in time and space; a world, as Jesus indicated, that was markedly "near." Accessible.
Why else would we say we are "surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses?" You can't be surrounded by something far away. You are surrounded by these encouragers even now. There are other characters in the story. It's not just "Jesus and me." As Dallas Willard indicates, there is no such thing as empty space. The air around us is occupied.
"Still, we have been speaking of the Otherworld and the manifest [the one we see] world as quite separate places. The ancient Celts, however, made no such distinction... The material and the spiritual were not separate or self-limited states: both were equally manifest at all times." (--from The Paradise War, by Stephen Lawhead, p. 87)
So which is the real and most authentic world, the one that has the power to shape the other and call it into its true form?
The unseen is the supernatural current of electricity that gives its light to the seen. It is the seed that gives its genetics to the fruit; the Firstborn his inheritance to the follower; the Original its form to the copy. The goal is restoration. This is of course what we mean when we say that one day, the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdoms of earth will be unifed: the natural earth (the 'seen' world) will be folded into and repaired by the supernatural (presently unseen) Kingdom of Jesus. Heaven restoring earth. Supernatural healing the natural.
“The doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of Jesus, is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever stirred and changed human thought.” - H.G. Wells
Jim's newest podcast. "Just take the rough edges off, God. Make things run smoothly." Join Jim as he shares how his search for comfort became a substitute for meaningful aliveness.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 10:56AM 
Why desire matters in our journey -- Jim tells the story of how his 5-year journey to find a better town for his family and a more sustainable life has now come full circle; and how desire was the glue that held his dreams together when he wanted to give up. You will also discover that your deep desires matter to God and that he will use them to give you answers and direction.
