DISCONNECT
If you are a child of God, namely a genetic member of the tribe of Jacob which migrated into northern Europe where the tribal flags still today reveal our identity, then you think differently from people of other races. Your instinctive compulsions are different. Your values are different. You recognize Jesus as your Lord, not because you were taught, but because your spirit is part of the body of Christ. You are a spirit-being who is an actual part of God as one of His anointed offspring. You have in your soul a knowingness that God is your Father and a yearning to reunite with Him. You are truly different than people of other races. When you were a child, you were confused about why you felt more like a stranger than a friend among your schoolmates. You tried to join and be one with them, but never really achieved that to your full satisfaction. As years passed, you learned how to get along and be accepted, but you knew that it was not the real inner-you that your friends liked. You kept that "self" somewhat hidden. Society molded and formed you, forcing you to adopt its values, mind-set, behaviors, goals, and agenda. By the time you became an adult, you had been traumatized and brainwashed to such a great degree that you even despised that person you were as a naive and innocent child.
Now, I’m going to tell you that you were right as a child, and wrong as an adult. As a child you felt like a lonely individual, all alone. Later, you learned how to be part of a social group, a family, a class, a club, a community, and member of a guild. But, it is individuals that God calls to Himself, not families or groups. It is that lone inner child whom you have suppressed that God loves. It is the real you, the one you keep hidden, that is the beautiful child of God. You know the passage, "Except you become as a child again..." How does one do that?
You might not like the answer to that question. You begin by admitting that you have been wrong for most of your life. Wrong path. Wrong beliefs. Wrong values. Wrong thinking. Wrong choices. And then you begin to refresh childhood memories, how you felt about yourself, how you related to others, how you came to feel unacceptable as the real you, and how you learned to be accepted by sacrificing that individuality. Instead of despising your insecure child-self, go ahead and permit some feeling of love and tenderness. Let yourself wonder how it could be that you were right then, and became wrong. Ask yourself if you are truly happy with the person you have created. Wouldn’t you rather feel comfortably free to be your real self? That’s a difficult question because you might have a difficult time figuring out who the real self is, since he/she has been so long buried.
Let’s begin by considering that your real self was born with a happiness, a trustingness, and a contentment that permitted you to sleep like a baby. Then the lessons began. Don’t touch that. Eat this. Don’t get dirty. Get out of my way. You’re too little. You can’t. Don’t. Shush! Don’t ask so many questions. Stand over there so you don’t get hurt. Of course, a child must be guided with some discipline and some training. But, the sum total of those first ten years was a conditioning process whereby you learned to do things which society approves, and to not do things that bring punishment. If you had Sesame Street and PBS, that conditioning process seemed somewhat painless as all the lies were sugar coated. But, if you were one who insisted on thinking for himself, the process was totally traumatic and your rebellious nature set you apart from your peers. PBS has, in my opinion, been the most effective and pernicious instrument of brainwashing that Satan ever devised; we can but pity its victims, for that conditioning created diabolically twisted core-beliefs that are not easily altered. That "roaring lion" has devoured a couple generations of God’s beautiful little children, resulting in an adult world that lives in a condition of clinical dementia. So, if you are going to reclaim your real self, you must disconnect from nearly everything you believe and value. And that is not easy! You’ve worked a lifetime to create an identity which is acceptable and successful and can survive in a merciless world. How you might work toward that disconnect is something each person must work out for himself. I would suggest you imagine yourself lying down on your bed to sleep for the night, lying naked on a bare sheet, blissfully content that God is watching over you and caring for you, so you fall happily asleep with a smile and enjoy sweet dreams. No worries about tomorrow or evils in the night. Just the peace, love, and contentment that your true Father wants to comfort you with. With that vision in your mind, you can know that anything which conflicts with that bliss is something you must disconnect.
Jesus said many things which we might think about and strive toward, but we seldom see the big picture of what He was really trying to show us. It seems to be His consistent theme that He proposed a scheme of "dying to this world." He said to not worry about tomorrow, food, shelter, etc. He said to not labor for food. He said to not hate your enemies. He said to abandon everything if you would follow Him. He said to "hate" (read "separate from" - find your individual identity separate from any others) your parents and family if you would follow Him. He said to not value material things, but give them freely to whoever asks. He told the rich man to give his wealth to the poor, in order to follow Him. He said to not store up in barns for your security. He called men from their work and their families, to just walk away from it all and follow Him. Some did! He said that while foxes have holes and birds have nests, He didn’t have place to lay His head, and that we should follow Him. He showed us the way to die to this world, not just regarding physical and personal values, but by giving up even the physical life. He gave up His life without arguing for His innocence or making any complaint. He said we are foreignors here and that we will be persecuted and killed, and that we should just accept that willingly because it is the part of the process for the prodigal to return home. Finally, what Jesus calls us to do can be stated in one word, "Disconnect."
Abandon that false identity which you created to make you acceptable to this world. Let go of all the emotional attachments you feel toward any loved ones. You are an individual, and you must disconnect from others if you would follow Him as your Lord. Equally difficult is to let go of all the disappointments along your path, as people let you down or have betrayed you. Let go of all the angers that might still be clenching your muscles. All those people who did you wrong were just as dysfunctional as anyone else, and did what they felt compelled to do at the moment regardless whether it hurt you or not. It just doesn’t matter, whatever they did or didn’t do. Most bad things happened because wounded souls were writhing in the hells of their own lives. You felt hurt, but your emotional reaction is a worse penalty to burden your soul than the original wrong that was done to you. In such ways, each must take full responsibility for the hell he has lived. No other person could "do it to you;" rather he/she did something petty and you went on to punish yourself for life as a result. Who is more to blame? By accepting the blame for yourself, you thereby make it possible that you might transcend the mundane and unimportant events of this life. No retribution is needed, but just the act of letting it go, like it was someone else instead of you.
"Like it was someone else instead of you." Yes, like your physical self is not the real you, but that you are watching your physical self from a distance - without getting emotionally involved! That is a "disconnect." That is Jesus’ teaching. It is the spiritual path. As a sidenote, compare such "disconnect" from worldly cares, with the teaching of prosperity cults, whose teachers, like Joyce Meyers, promote prosperity and wealth saying that the God who loves you wants you to have all the gratifications this world can offer. Satan’s messengers!
While reading the above, did you imagine yourself stepping back from all the worldly matters to just be an observor, like watching a stage play? Is that what God really wants of us? Then why did He make this world, and us, and give us emotions and physical urges? Should we not put ourselves fully into whatever project or task that we undertake? The answers: yes, that is what God wants of us. And, regarding emotional and physical urges, there are two sides to each, a Godly side and a worldly side. The same goes for our intellects, by which we learn to know good and evil. We can learn evil, but it is not something God wants us to do. He warned Adam in the garden against the tree-of-knowledge-of-good-and-evil. Before the fall, Adam knew only Godliness, the Good. And as a spirit-being, he did not get caught up in emotional intensity or physical lusts. He was spiritually One with the Father, and did not experience wickedness or human weakness or physical desires. He was separate from those things, like disconnected. It is that Godly state to which God wants you to return, and to do that, you must disconnect from all the things that Jesus suggested. You have left your heavenly home and become part of a negative energy world, the prodigal’s pig pen, where ungodly aspects of your natures are the norm, and where you have forgotten what Godly righteousness is. So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to reject this world and to return home. How to do that should become an important part of your meditations, and of the exercise of your life. And even more than that.
You are an offspring of the Almighty God. You are a member of the body of God’s anointed Christ. You are a spirit-being, from before the world began, and as such you don’t only represent God but you are one through whom God experiences life. Yes, God experiences life through you, and the rest of His Elect ones. That is the purpose for your existence. When you come to realize the truth of that, then each day will be lived differently in that you won’t be guided by emotions or physical desires or intellectual thrills. What then is your part in the grand pageant of God? What role should you play? No person, other than yourself, can determine that. It is your task to perform God’s will moment by moment, and to do it without knowing what awaits around the next corner. You can’t engineer a successful life because you can’t know the details of your destiny. You meet each moment anew, and must respond to it from your inner-self, from your core-beliefs, from your real self. If you have yielded to God’s will and if you value Righteousness above all else, and fear not death, but are willing to step enthusiastically through whatever door opens before you, then you will be acting as an extension of Him and will perform His will. If you adopt any worldly values or desires or goals or hungers, then you will be "worshiping" gods other than Him.
Well, that’s quite a difficult recipe, isn’t it. You are required to do His will, but you can’t know in advance what it is! Yep. That’s right. That’s exactly what He wants of you. To do His will without being influenced by worldly desires of your human nature. The Bible is a good guide for learning His will, but it can only help to build a foundation. Your moment-by-moment daily life isn’t scripted in the Bible. For that, you must open to the Holy Spirit’s guidance. What does that mean? It means that you, as a spirit being, have a direct communication with our Father. That spirit connection with Him can’t do you much good if your mind is flooded with TV noise, busyness, pleasure seeking, thrill chasing, booze numbing, fears, people relationships, sensual cravings, insecurities, angers about anything, etc. etc. etc. of this world. You must disconnect from those things if you are listening for the subtle whispering guidance of God’s Spirit. The Bible can help you to build a foundation of Godly values, but only you can determine what your next moment should be.
It might seem like you are disconnecting from everything in life if you reject all the things of this world. What is left? What’s the use of living if one can’t participate in the world’s agenda? What other agenda is there? I think of Jesus’ words in John 10:10, "The thief does not come except to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." The thief is Satan, and his agenda is to exploit God’s children, and to destroy them. Jesus says He offers an ever more abundant life than the one of this world. So, what is it, you might ask? No one can tell you; you must find yours for yourself. And you can’t find it until you disconnect from the bondage of this world that you have accepted as your prison. Like catching a monkey by putting a cookie in a small-mouthed jar; the world is the cookie, and you can’t be free until you release your hold of it so you can get away. Only then can you accept each new moment as an offering from God, and an opportunity to let Him express Himself through you. The world is also like a basket over your candle; no one can see God in you until you throw that basket off and let your light shine.
And I would warn you that the "life more abundant" is not easier because you will be in conflict with the world. You will have to accept the fact that you are a lone individual, and think for yourself, and not follow any preacher or teacher except the Spirit of God. It is not prosperity that God calls you to, but a "passion" and death-to-this-world. Heaven awaits, but you have to release this world in order to have it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. But it’s not easy. So, if you choose the difficult path, please be assured that you have not chosen it alone, but that God is working it within you, and He will be your constant partner in the more abundant life.
Again: how to do it? Disconnect from this world and its entire value system. Read the Bible to learn the basics of God’s will. And then, yield to Him as your companion, guide, and even the One who wishes to live through you. God will bless your steps and your thoughts and will give you courage to stand alone as His Representative.
Such a disconnect as I have discussed above is what Jesus calls us to. It is something one can do during his life here in this world. But the time is close at hand when we will also experience the great disconnect from the Kingdom of World as we transition into the new Kingdom of Heaven. It appears that God’s Great Battle of Armageddon has begun in the Middle East (August 2006). According to prophecies, that battle will encompass all of us, and will be a terrible time of tribulation during which many hearts will fail due to fear. The entire Kingdom of World must die so Heaven can be born. If you realize what is happening, then you can turn to God and to Psalm 91, and you can accept the great disconnect from that materialist civilization which you know so well, and where you lived your life. Your world will perish in terrible agony, and you will watch it happen in awesome fear. To have your entire world pulled out from under you is trauma times ten. If ALL your security disappears, then what will you have left? What will the future be? What will you be? The Bible says that not all will die, but all will be changed in a twinkling of an eye. Changed into what? For an answer to that we must look at Jesus. After He rose from the dead, His body was more spiritual in nature, called by theologians a "glorified body." So, we can assume that we will be changed into glorified bodies. What we must do is be ready to yield to that. We must let the old world go, even happily watch it break down and get destroyed. That includes all the things you ever valued of this world, home, family, food supply, etc. All gone! We must realize that this process is necessary. The seed in the ground must die before it can be born again. That is what will happen to our world. Instead of fear, we should feel delight to be so privileged that we might observe God’s great event. We disconnect from our past, and we do it happily, even rejoicing with the angels at the crash of it all.
My suggestion to anyone who would follow Christ is to begin your disconnect now. Consider every worldly thing you have valued, and mentally devalue it. You won’t need it. It was a prison bar. By valuing it, you bonded yourself to it, and you made a jail cell of all the things you thought were important. Now you can disconnect from them and contemplate a new freedom. You can happily watch your home crash to the ground, and electricity cease to exist. You can ride the earthquakes like a circus ride rather than tremble in fear. If it is God’s will that you perish in the event, you can welcome that death as a liberation from a physical body that was heavy and ailing. For you know that you will live anew in the glorified body. If you do not experience a physical death, you can know that you will mount up with wings as eagles; you will run and not get weary; you will be rejuvenated and will be forever youthful. Isn’t it wonderful to know that all you need to do is to release the cookie in the jar, so you can be free. Disconnect.