[Ben]

The final flyer is done and the event is published: https://radicalnow.org/high-point-hike/

You can download the file and print from that page.

radicalnow.org

National Day of Prayer High Point Hike – RadicalNow!

Join a vibrant community of everyday people dedicated to radical living for Jesus right here and now.

[Ben]

Trying to get some details in order…

Sunset: 8PM (Park closes)

Parking: Park at Monument

Hiking Options (loops from and to monument)

• The Monument Trail (RG Loop): 3.5 mi = 3.5hrs @ 1 mph
• The Monument Trail (RG) to SRT/Cedar Swamp Trail (loop): 2.5 mi = 2.5 hrs @ 1 mph

Proposed schedule:

The plan is to listen and pray as we walk. The Monument Trail offers extensive views of the Tri-state area and up to 6 overlooks.

1. 16:00 (sharp) Leave Parking area at Monument on Monument Trail.
2. 17:00 Decision point: If at SRT cut-off, continue on Monument Trail. Off pace: go back on SRT.
3. 19:00 Arrive at Monument for Final Prayer
4. 19:45 Depart before park closes

After work/late arrivals: Meet us at the Monument at 19:00.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 4 days ago by  Ben.

[Ben]

@bopbop reported his typical hike speed is 1mi in 30 min, so 2 mph. If we factor a few minutes at each of the six overlooks, this puts us on pace according to the allotted time.

[Ben]

This is very helpful @bopbop . I’m curious about the little “c”, big “C” distinction. Where does that come from? I think it’s a good way of explaining how we move from the origin and possibility of children of God into the realty of Children of God. Adam was created as the son of God (Luke 3:38), but the Fall moved humanity out of the reality in some way and into orphanhood. Jesus is the Son of God and makes us Children of God (by right and spirit, John 1:9-13, John 3) through grace.

We’ve been talking a lot about the horizontal and vertical idea. Many times in scripture, it’s talked about as spirit vs flesh. Here’s a passage that ties the Adam/Christ thing to the vertical horizontal as it talks about the resurrection:

1 Corinthians 15:35-58

The Resurrection Body

[35] But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” [36] You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. [37] And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. [38] But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. [39] For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. [40] There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. [41] There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

[42] So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. [43] It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. [44] It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. [45] Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. [46] But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. [47] The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. [48] As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. [49] Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Mystery and Victory

[50] I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. [51] Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, [52] in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. [53] For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. [54] When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

[55] “O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

[56] The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. [57] But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[58] Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

This re-creation of our identity in Jesus is a resurrection reality.

It’s important to notice, however, that the flesh in this passage is not discarded or destroyed, but improved or evolved. “The perishable puts on the imperishable” like putting on better clothes suitable for a new environment. This is important to avoid the “Gnostic error” that separates rather than integrates the spirit and flesh, vertical and horizontal. The places where these are integrated is the soul, and a failure to integrate them leads to soul fracture — what many think of mental illness. A great example of this is PTSD which is, at least in part, the result of an embodied (horizontal) experience that is not properly integrated with the will and mission of the person (vertical).

I spoke with a friend on Sunday who is new to retirement. I could hear the struggle and loss of identity, I could see it in his eyes. It’s so easy to allow our usefulness to humans (horizontal) to define our God-given mission, destiny, and identity (vertical). Retirement is a huge transition often fraught with stress, depression, relationship problems which soon lead to physical and mental degradation. It’s like a mental health minefield, and yet we as a society offer almost no help navigating it.

Well, isn’t that an opportunity for the church?

[Ben]

This is an awesome summary of months of research you’ve been working on! I can’t wait to sit down with it for a few minutes. Thanks for posting.

I really see this evolving into a content journey where people can get the main ideas of a lot of research to understand their own pathway. This outline is the highway, but each topic is kind of an exit ramp to a stop with deeper work and services for the journey.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by  Ben.

[Ben]

[11] And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. [12] But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, [13] waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. [14] For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
[15] And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
[16] “This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”
[17] then he adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
[18] Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. — Hebrews 10:11-18 ESV

Jesus’ sacrifice opens a way for both himself and us into the throne room of Heaven where he is seated in at the right hand of power. This is a masculine vision of love — power used rightly for the sake of the beloved. As such power flows by the Spirit, it accomplishes the prophesied second birth, removing hearts of stone (Ezekiel 11:19-20) to write on new hearts and minds of flesh God’s laws:

25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them. — Ezekiel 36:25-27 WEB

This regenerative power is the heart of the new covenant.

[Ben]

Hebrews 10 describes the sanctifying work of Jesus in the same terms, but adds in the theme of temple sacrifice, referencing how Christ completes and surpasses a system that did not make people holy (v 11).

First, our sanctification comes not from the destruction or cost of the sacrifice, but the submission of human will:

[5] Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
[6] in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
[7] Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”
[8] When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), [9] then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. [10] And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. — Hebrews 10:5-10 ESV

It is the submission of the will to the redemptive purpose of God that is the core reality of laying down one’s life and offering one’s body — both for Jesus and the husband. This kind of offering denies the flesh because it does not allow it to influence the will. More than this, it bends natural energy of the will — the pith of life — away from its normal self-preserving drive towards the advancement of God’s ends, regardless of cost. This is the first step that opens up the veil into to realms of purifying grace and holy power for the Bride and wife (v. 20)

To be clear, this means a husband must cast down flesh-driven intentions: the quest for status or consumption, desires for sensation, greed, and ambition. Further, he must understand the purpose and intents of God, both generally in Scripture and specifically in the case of his wife’s prophetic identity and bend his will to this will, even when they are opposed to the natural course of his own will or may cost him life: time, money, pain, and blood.

This opens up the way for the wife to be holy-special. This is far beyond wining-and-dining to elevate a wife’s status through decadent pampering or comparative conspicuous consumption — the bride price for a woman as property of a man. Instead, this invests in opening the space — buying her the farm — so she can come into her pure self by accessing the seat of divine power (v 19-23).

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by  Ben.

[Ben]

What do you think are the main symptoms and causes of these marriage problems? Maybe make a quick list?

[Ben]

Marriage in the NT

1. Sermon on the Mount
2. Mt 19:3-12 Jesus answers the Pharisees’ question on divorce, likely based on a controversial interpretation of Deut 24:1-4. He references Genesis 1 (v.4) — where humanity is created in God’s image as male and female. He makes an appeal to Yahweh’s creator-authority then connects this immediately to Genesis 2 (skipping the woman-origin story) saying the same creator said they will form a new family unit and become one flesh. He then prohibits man separating what was joined by God’s authority. When the Pharisees’ object appealing to Moses, Jesus says Moses permitted it “because of the hardness of your hearts.” Jesus is rightly pointing out the Deut 24 law is permissive, not prescriptive. In fact, divorce is not legally instituted anywhere in the Law, though rules are given to govern man’s apparently established practice which had evolved after “the beginning” where God’s pure creative intention was revealed. It’s interesting that this section is followed directly by the blessing of Children — at least one way that marriage becomes “one flesh” — and the command to be like them to enter the Kingdom. Next, it’s The Rich Young Ruler whose moral-of-the-story is reward for giving up spouses and children among other things. If we take this as a whole teaching, these second two sections would add to marriage two important ideas. (1) “They were like two kids again” — pursuit of the Kingdom in marriage requires the freedom of dependence on God like children and perhaps an open-hearted joyful acceptance and innocence. (2) Marriage and family do not supersede Jesus and his Kingdom in priority and must be aligned through sacrifice and submission to following Jesus.

[Ben]

Great point. When I answer the big “why” questions about pain and struggle — whether for myself, those I care about, or the wide world in general — I always come back to “with”. God wants to be with us and he will not allow a world where we humans can’t feel this.

Those who deny God’s presence in their pain make him too small in their faith to matter. Those who blame God for their pain loose their faith and suffer in darkness. But those who bring their pain to the Father and hold the questions before him grow in faith and life even if they hear no answers. That’s why Job was wise and faithful.