A womb is the most precious and essential environment for the developing of a baby, but when the baby is born, we do not treasure the afterbirth – the substance has come. All the Jewish feasts, festivals and the rituals provided the beautiful prophetic shadow, for the substance that came in Christ. How sad [...]]]>  

A womb is the most precious and essential environment for the developing of a baby, but when the baby is born, we do not treasure the afterbirth – the substance has come. All the Jewish feasts, festivals and the rituals provided the beautiful prophetic shadow, for the substance that came in Christ. How sad that some ignore the substance and continue with a sentimental attachement to the afterbirth.

All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ. So, then, if with Christ you’ve put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? “Don’t touch this! Don’t taste that! Don’t go near this!” Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they’re just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important. (Colossians 2:17, 20-23 MSG)

I remember the excitement of anticipating the last day of school, before the long summer holidays. We stayed [...]]]> Hope is a positive, joyful anticipation, an expectation that something good is about to happen. However, in Christ Jesus the greatest event has already taken place. How do we understand hope in this context? Let me illustrate:

I remember the excitement of anticipating the last day of school, before the long summer holidays. We stayed in a small town called Phalaborwa, in the far northern part of South Africa. The climate was extremely hot and mostly dry.

God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” (Romans 8:14, 15 MSG)

UK & Europe (February & March)

Venue for the Paderborn event:
Bäckerei Mertens
Detmolder Strasse 210
33100 Paderborn

http://www.baeckerei-mertens.de

Both evenings start @ 19.30h

• 25,26 February, with Uwe Dalke in Karlsruhe, Germany, http://www.czk.de/
• 4 March, Doxa Deo, Raynes Park, London, UK, Link here…

USA, Brazil & Caribbean (March – June)

• 9-16 March, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
• 17,18 March, Lakewood, Ohio
• 19-25 March, Moravian Falls, North Carolina, http://www.facebook.com/events/338711979478005/
• 26 March – 7 April, Florida
• 8-15 April, Imagine Caribbean Cruise, http://www.destinymin.com/_/Spring_Cruise.html
• 17-23 April, Brazil
• 25-29 April, The Promise, Woodland, Washington State
• 30 April – 2 May, Seattle
• 3-7 May, Portland, Oregon
• 8-27 May, California
• 28 May – 3 June, Texas

God is saying, “Hey!  Let me tell you what I had in mind when I designed you.  Let me show you the design- the beauty that I anticipated when I dreamt of you.  That dream – that word is still [...]]]>  
Transcription of Andre Rabe October 28th, 2011 in Sausalito, CA by Helen Watson

God is saying, “Hey!  Let me tell you what I had in mind when I designed you.  Let me show you the design- the beauty that I anticipated when I dreamt of you.  That dream – that word is still God’s only reference to who you are. 
When God became a man, it wasn’t just out of necessity — it wasn’t just because of sin and evil and “the problem” that the Word became flesh.    If Adam never fell, He would still have done it.  Jesus isn’t “Plan B”.   God DESIRED to become a man.
 
Redemption, Salvation – was necessary.  But lack, sin, evil does not motivate God to do anything.
 
Evil does not move Him.  That’s why he speaks about the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.  That’s why 2 Timothy 1:9 says that he gave you grace – so often we understand grace just in comparing it to the Law, but God was gracious before the Law was given. 
He saved you and gave you grace…when?  Before time began.  But now in these last days, it appeared in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ!   
 
To become a man, was God’s idea from the very beginning.
 
God designed a dimension called time and space and he thought, “If I had to exist in this dimension, what would it look like?” 
 
You see, if I am a craftsman, let’s say I made a guitar and I’m very proud of my workmanship.  Now you won’t give me any praise by telling me my workmanship is rubbish.  You honor the artist by adoring the picture.  Now if you sat next to Monet and looked at his paintings of the water lilies and you absolutely adored it, he wouldn’t have felt a bit neglected and said, “Stop looking at my painting and speak to me.”  Monet would have been absolutely complemented by you being captivated by his work of art.  Now in creation, God gives expression to his artistic abilities.  Romans Ch. 1 says the invisible qualities of God are clearly seen in what is made.    But you know what?  If I’m creator – the craftsman that made that guitar and I’m very proud of it… you say, ‘How proud?’  Well, it’s the best guitar I’ve ever made.  ‘Well, are you willing to become that guitar?’
 
 …It’s not that good!  The only time that I would be willing to become what I made is if I could accurately reproduce my image and my likeness. 
 
God knew what was coming long before it came.  He knew the end from the beginning.  He planned to become man before he designed man.  And so when he designed man, he designed man compatible with himself.  Because he didn’t even think of it like “I’m going to spend 33 years in human form”, do you know that when God become a man it was a permanent commitment?   After the resurrection, we read about the Man Christ Jesus.  God is still a man in the person of Jesus Christ!  To become a man was his plan from the beginning. 
 
In Genesis 1:26, God finishes all of Creation in 6 days – the first day Adam opens his eyes is a day in which everything is prepared for him to enjoy and God blesses him.  
 
This context in which we understand our relationship with God – because of the mess and the sin that we were saved from.  Jesus once spoke about the story and he said, “If you’re forgiven much, you love much.” So there s a place, a context in our relationship where we always remember the enormity of his forgiveness of his grace to save us from whatever mess we were in and we were all in the same mess.  The end of that was death, he saved us from that.
But there is another context, a bigger context – you see in 1 John he says “I write to you children, because you know that your sins are forgiven.  But I write to you fathers because you understand him in the context of the beginning.  There is a bigger context to your relationship with God than salvation. 
 
Salvation will always be awesome!  But in John 17:24 Jesus starts introducing us to this much larger context.   He says, “Father I pray that they may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory and the love with which you loved me before the world began.”
 
This is a relationship, a love that does not have any context of sin or salvation…
 
This is Jesus and the Father in intimacy.  Let’s just go there … God has given you an imagination just use it right now.  He’s given you a spirit dimension; let’s just go back to this place called the beginning.  Just say Holy Spirit take me back because this place that’s called the Beginning is a timeless dimension. 
 
 Yes it was even before time began, it was before the dinosaurs, the milky way, before the universe, before everything there was only God in all his fullness. No space-but no limit, no time, no rush.  Just GOD!  Light, Life, Love, a relationship, a dynamic interchange of appreciation of joy, of peace of fullness.  In this place there is no lack!  In this place there is no inferiority.  In this place there is just overflow of love and in this place before time began your name came up!!!
You were born in the mind of God.  God dreamt of you – why?  Because this dynamic intimacy that they were enjoying was too good to be kept for themselves.  This intimacy they said, we’ve got to share this!  And we are not just going to share it with any kind of creature, we want to develop, invent a creature that can intelligently appreciate the enormity of Who I AM – able to absorb this love into themselves look at it from every angle every facet, reproduce it and reflect it back.  God dreamt of you for ages! 
 
David says:  GOD!  How many are your thoughts towards me!
 
You see this whole universe was a by-product of the fact that God thought of you.  This whole universe was the context in which he wanted the romance of the ages to play!  Glory!  Have you ever walked into a movie like three quarters through the way, and you don’t understand the plot and you’re trying to get who are the characters, who are the people, what’s happening?  Well, life is one massive movie that started way before you came onto the scene.  The Director had you in mind from the very beginning.  He had you in mind and you have an irreplaceable position in this cast.  And the Gospel brings you up to speed! 
Hey – you have a beginning in God!  God dreamt of you – you see this whole universe is but a small fraction of the logic of God.  That’s what John 1 says, ‘The word that was in the beginning, that was with God, that was God, nothing was made except through him.’  So this whole universe is but an expression of the logic, the logos the thought of God.  A small part!  If you have to look at the mind of God, he sustains this universe by the Word of his power effortlessly.  Its one of his small thoughts!  Imagine the kind of being that would be the product of that which fills the mind of God.  ‘What is man’, (says David) ‘that your mind is full of him!’ 
 
Psalms 139 Your thoughts towards me are so many!  I could go to bed, I could get up, and you are still thinking about me!  You began in the mind of God and that is still where you have your true existence.  A friend asked, did we really exist, or did God just think about us?  If all that we see is just a small portion of God thinking, then just imagine how substantial his thoughts concerning you are!  His thoughts concerning you are more real than your physical body.  To discover yourself in the thoughts of God is the greatest and most relevant discovery you can make about yourself ever.  The most substantial existence you have is in the Mind of God.
Jesus comes and introduces us to our true existence that we may understand Him who is true and we are in him Who is True.  When you meet Jesus Christ, you meet yourself for the very first time!
You meet yourself in his thoughts.  You see, in this world psychologists tell us that your sense of identity is your ability to look at yourself as a separate entity.  Now what people do to make themselves comfortable, (to find themselves) is they see themselves in the context of other entities – to kind of place themselves.  So a person’s sense of identity is very often identified by my culture, my language, my rights, my location, my community, my education, my family, my career, my greatest achievement or sometimes my deepest disappointment. 
 
People find themselves within the context of “stuff”.
But all that stuff is temporal.  Jesus comes to introduce you to a context called ETERNITY.  In that context, all that stuff disappears.  You see, in the mind of God, before time began there was no culture, no career – no location, language.  That beautiful name of God he gave us – “Yah-weh” (the sound of your breathing), it’s not Hebrew, it’s not Greek, It’s not Latin, it’s not English.  Breathing – is international! 
 
God comes to introduce you to a context called eternity in which every temporal reference you had to refer and find yourself in disappears.  In the context of eternity those things are a vapor.  See too many of us have allowed our achievements, our experiences, our disappointments to define us.  God has a different definition, an eternal definition.  He says YOU ARE his image and his likeness and not a fraction of who you are has been revealed yet!  That’s why he wants to unveil this mystery. 
 
In John 8:16 (the Message) Jesus says my judgments are true, because I do not make them out of the narrowness of my own experience.  If JESUS said that his experience was too narrow to form accurate conclusions from, then surely we’ve got to come to an understanding that there is a bigger context to our lives than what we have experienced up to this moment.
 
The Word of God comes to confront you with the reality of what God believes concerning you!  He’s convinced… he’s not going to change his mind!  He knows you.  You might honestly object and say God, that guy – that victorious, joyful peaceful guy that you present to me – honestly that is not me.  God will just respond and say, your honesty is commendable, but my truth transcends your honesty.
 
What God says about you is reality.  It is true, for far too long we have reduced the person and the achievement of Jesus Christ to something that was just potential.  Something that was just… legally  (maybe) …. valid potential…
When your designer, when the creator of Adam who represents all men, when the creator of every living thing that can be seen and not be seen, when he took upon himself human flesh he became man so completely, so fully, so intensely that he represented each and every man in that act.  You see even the achievement of Christ – we’ve got to understand that there is a bigger context to it than his death, his resurrection and his ascension.  If we do not understand the implication of the Incarnation, then we’ll reduce the size of what he achieved on the cross. 
You see, what happened in his death and his resurrection would have been the achievement of one man, if there wasn’t something very unique and special about the Creator becoming man.  Romans Ch. 5  starts giving us insight into what’s happening there.   Just like Adam, through one act of disobedience subjected of humanity to corruption and death spread to all men — so —  through the one act of obedience of this one man (Jesus), this same mass of humanity is included!  
 
You see what the principalities and powers did not understand is that they were not killing one man, they were bringing to a final end a race of man called the Adamic Race.  This is what Paul started to understand when he said, ‘If ONE equals ALL, and if one died for ALL, then ALL died!’   
 
I can go and pay your debt without you being present, but if I had to cut out a cancer out of patient, that patient needs to be present.  What happened on the cross, wasn’t just God paying a debt to himself, God was bringing to a final conclusion this problem called sin.  He was brining it to final judgment.  He never did in the Old Testament, (thank God!) because if he did, mankind would have been wiped out because man was so attached to this thing called sin.  Sin did not exist as something apart from man, it existed within man. 
 
What is sin?  It’s clinging to an alternative identity from what God intended.  It is embracing the lie of separation.  It is giving space and time for that for which God had no time nor space.  Sin is evil in terms of it opposes everything that is of God, and mankind was tied to this thing called sin, so that’s why in the Old Testament sin was never completely judged.  It was just the Law – it said: you broke the law, it said you were very naughty and that’s bad, and it would clean up the cobwebs – but it would leave the spider…and if you kept the Law, you felt self-righteous, and neither one of those conditions brought you any closer to God.
The law was never meant to solve the problem, it was meant to reveal it.  But in Christ Jesus, God does something incredible, something that no man could imagine.  He reaches back through all eternity past into the very being of every man and he separates sin from man.  He reaches out into all eternity – to God, into every man, into your very being and person.  You were there two thousand years ago.  He reached into you and took a hold of sin; he separated it from you so that he could completely deal with it without destroying you. 
 
Colossians 2:14 says that His Body became the document of your guilt.  The only legal weapon the enemy ever had against humanity was humanity’s guilt.  That’s the only form of legal weapon it had.  What the principalities and powers did not understand is while they were ripping his body apart, they were tearing down their own weapon against humanity.  They were busy destroying the only thing that gave them legal right to your life.  In this one person, if one died for all, then all have died!  That’s why he is called The LAST Adam!  To be part of a race called the Adamic race is no longer an option. 
 
The last one has come and has gone.  He was the last one!  And he was the first one of a new humanity who is now represented by Christ at the right hand of the father representing your innocence!  Romans 4:25 He was handed over to death because of your sin and he was raised because of your justification!  Jesus would not have risen if you were not innocent!  
 
 He was raised because of YOUR JUSTIFICATION!
 
What’s happening here:  God has never changed his mind that man is his image and likeness.  Religion has changed their mind; religion has defined man by the fall of Adam. Religion bought into the lie (just as much as Adam himself) and the very definition of man became “sinful…corrupt”. 
 
God NEVER changed his definition.  God’s definition remained Genesis 1:26:  ‘MAN – you are MY image and MY likeness’. 
When God wanted to make sea creatures, he spoke to the substance from which they came, he spoke to the sea and said bring forth fish and creatures and the sea brought forth.  When he wanted to make animals and plants, he spoke to the substance, he spoke to the earth and said, ‘Earth, bring forth plants and animals….”
 
When God wanted to make man, he spoke to the substance from which he is made and he spoke to Himself and he said ‘Let US bring forth man’… in our image and likeness.  There’s something about you that has no beginning, nor end.  There’s something about you that’s uncreated!
There’s a part of you that’s created.  There’s a part of you that’s of this earth, there’s a part of you that began, but there is another part… that’s what this Gospel comes to reveal…   you have your origin in God!  God is eternal, there’s more to you than what you ever imagined. He didn’t design somebody that was going to bore him within a year or two.  He designed someone that was going to intrigue him throughout all eternity.  God designed somebody with whom he was going to fall in love and remain in love forever.  Eph 2:7 says that the ages to come God has one occupation:  that is to unveil, to make known, the exceeding greatness of his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. 
You see, in John 1:14 the Word became flesh is the full explanation of what Genesis 1:26 means. 
 
See, God when he created man in his image and likeness, in that moment, man was still unconscious. That man never heard the words:  be my image and my likeness, those are the words that brought man into existence, but man did not hear those words, otherwise he would not have been tempted because if he knew that I AM the image and likeness of God there would have been no temptation in: eat this and you will become…like God. 
So the temptation was for man to become something he already was.  But man did not know that.  So what God did: he wants to awaken love, so he doesn’t just give man full knowledge.  Because man knew everything, love would not have been awakened; it would have been the default.  God’s the only choice, OBVIOUSLY! 
 
But God wants to awaken love.  He wants a response, so he starts hinting… he says Adam will you come and help me name the animals?  As they start naming the animals they notice that every animal has a partner like itself.  Compatible with itself. 
 
God’s starting to hint at what is the basis, what is the purpose of all of what’s happening there.  Then Adam is put into a deep sleep, woman is taken out of him and he wakes up and says, wow!  This is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone and the recognition of likeness becomes the basis of intimacy. 
 
God was planning for a Day in which man would recognize his creator as flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone!  God planned to become man, God demonstrates his likeness to us in the most convincing way by becoming flesh.  See no one ever imagined that – everybody’s thoughts about God was a God that was distant, the God that was “other” the God that was transcendent, from another dimension.  All the philosophies of the days made so much of God’s holiness that he was completely other, completely separate.  But when God decides to reveal himself, he reveals such a different picture from what religion expected.  He surprises us, not with how different he is, but with how much like us he is.  That’s the surprise!  You know, he is so much like us; they had to pay a guy to point him out!   Who is the guy we came to arrest?  They all look the same to me…
John 1:14 is the whole Gospel.
 
Logos = the thought and the expression of that thought (translated Word)
 
What Word?  Nothing compares to the original word!  No fashionable word that can stand in the presence of the authentic original thought of God.  It’s THAT word – Logos.  And God completed (or finished) all his works and then he rested.  So the thought of God, the logic of God, the expression of God found its final expression, its ultimate existence in flesh.
 
AND TABERNACLED IN US.
God’s thought was never, he never, ever, ever intended for his thought to be captured in a book.  Listen – I love the scriptures!  I love it!  You know why – because it can add nothing to me.  The scriptures reveal a reality greater than themselves.
When you look in a mirror, where is the substance, in the mirror – or does the mirror just reflect the substance? 
The mystery revealed is NOT Christ in the Bible, the mystery revealed is not Christ in history, or in the future, the mystery revealed is Christ in you!!!!!  The ultimate destiny of God’s thought was never a book it was always your flesh, your body.  God wants to display his life in human existence.
 
So Jesus Christ in John 17 – Father I pray, that you do not take us out of this world! 
 
You see, he left heaven because he saw something of greater value in human existence than in heaven.  Phil 2:7 says he emptied himself – God has so much more to give than just boring information, dry knowledge…He gave himself!  He gave himself!  What he offers is more than a doctrine, more than an institution, he offers Adventures!  Dangerous!  Joyful!  Spontaneous!  LIIIIIFFFEEE!  Life!  Glory! 
 
I’m so glad there are so many people that have had enough of the anemic and pathetic religion.  That’s called orthodox Christianity.  God wants us to come back to that realization that Jesus did not come to start another religion.  Jesus did not come to compete with Moses or Buddha or Elijah…
 
Jesus comes to reveal his delight that enlightens every man coming into this world. He is as relevant,  as present – to any person you can imagine – as he is to you.
 
He’s their creator, their maker.  So   the ultimate expression, the final completion of God’s thought is your flesh, is your life!  If you think oh no, that’s just Jesus.  Then read 1 Corinthians:
 
I continually thank my God for you because of the grace of God in you in
Christ that you were enriched in him in every possible way.
 
Let me ask, if you’ve been enriched by God in every possible way, what do you lack?
In all the fullness of what can be known, you have been enriched with all the fullness… All the Logos of God you have been enriched with all the Logos of God! 
 
Does the Logos still have the same aim?  Is the final destination of the Logos still the same?  Flesh?  You’ve been enriched in all the fullness of what can be known and understood … and you are able to express it fully.  Just as the evidence of Christ was confirmed within you , you have within yourself the proof that he is.  You don’t lack anything. You are fully qualified; you have every reason to expect the Lord Jesus Christ to be made visible through you.
If the same Logos of God has come to make his home in you and his purpose is the same – to express himself…   I heard God say:
I don’t want to live in you… I thought WHAT?  He continued. I want to live through you.
 
God wasn’t just homeless, designing a companion.  A container would not have to be his image and likeness.  But if he was planning to exist within a form in which he could interact with this dimension called time and space, he created a being called his image and likeness through which this world could experience him and through which he could experience this world.
 
 Matt 4:17
Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  Repent means “change your mind; come to your senses, for I have brought my world with me”.  Change your thinking that we are dealing with another time another event, another place.  Change your way of thinking…I have brought my world WITH ME!
YOU are God’s desire!  The image and likeness of God, likeness yet distinction.