A few weeks ago a huge national news story prevailed concerning a prison break. Two inmates had been hunted for days. Two bad guys. Then the hunt ended. One was eliminated, and the other captured alive, but wounded. While seeing this on the news put a current light on the subject, it isn’t the first time such things have happened. And for those whose life will end in prison, who can blame them for wanting to escape. Really!! Whether or not there is repentance in the heart of the perpetrator, it would take a lot of inner adjustment to settle into an existence behind prison walls if you have known freedom. And what of those who have been unfairly judged as guilty? What a tragedy! What an allotment of pain and grief to be laid upon a person’s life. But God knows all about these assignments and outcomes: being cast in the role of the bad guy while innocent. The Son of God wasn’t the first person to ever suffer that fate, but he was the first to overtake it with humility, grace, and surrender, leaving a permanent indelible bloodstain to cover a multitude of sins.
That being said, prisons abound, holding all those judged as guilty, casting shadows on the depths of the human nature. Jails, penitentiaries, holding tanks. They speak of justice, injustice, forgiveness, and unforgiveness. We park persons there for weeks, months, years, or for life. We label them as felons, locked away to exist or die, segregated from society. Outcasts. And even for the prisoners who have limited time in lock-up, when they are released the plague of their history stays with them. While some shifting is starting to occur in society, a mainly close-minded perspective hovers over the outcomes of released prisoners, affecting access to jobs and housing, and cancelling out voting rights. Social, mental, emotional fallout from the bad guy label and/or a sin nature that can erupt without notice. But for this cause, we have law.
We must--of course--keep the innocent protected from those who have been caught out of control (for we all get out of control), or from those who don’t seem to value the sanctity and worth of others (for a season). Law enforcement, the military, a judicial system--and all attachments to same--give us a certain degree of peace and safety, keeping chaos and anarchy at bay.
Yet, mortals can only solve these hard problems with less-than-perfect solutions. Life and death issues that are not to be taken lightly, but which are truly over our heads. Even though we must take action, we are not worthy to accurately judge any situation, for we cannot see what is hiding in the soul of each person. We can only look at surface facts and outcomes, and try to work a solution of some sort that looks “just”. And so we do the best we can, even with persons in every aspect of the peace-keeping process who are--themselves--vulnerable and subject to the same beastly actions and reactions. Persons who have been given authority and who wear the uniforms and robes of power are just stand-ins for the structured seats of law and order that are invisibly woven into the systems of man. They, too, may find themselves someday on the other side of the fence--except but for the Grace of God--for the propensity to fall short of perfect had been locked in the DNA of every human being, and no human could unlock it.
“ ....for all did sin, and are come short of the glory of God" ( Romans 3:23, Young’s Literal) Hamartia is the Greek word for sin in this scripture, and it’s meaning is “to miss the mark”, just like an archer trying to hit the target and failing. But the target God was aiming at has been salvaged and fixed, ever since He vacated a high spiritual place to move into our world. Yes, the human condition was fixable, and was done so in the form of an Living upgrade (a higher being), interfacing (just like 2 computer programs meshing into 1) with our old understanding in our individual spaces via the secret place of spirit/soul union. (Heb 4:12).
This upgrade was the Logos of God (Living Word), deposited into the unseen (hades) when Jesus of Nazareth denied himself a life as a single human and died. As the Holy Spirit, all of God’s intelligence and energy was deposited as well. The point of entry was our atoms*, and was as such a nuclear happening, because God is the Creator and inhabitant of any nucleus, and no cell or atom exists separately from Him.
(Note: we must remember that God is the Master of math and science. All the principles of physics that man has discovered are proof of a Supreme intelligence. Just like a baby forming inside the womb, it begins with a cell that duplicates and continues to multiply. Each cell has “instructions”. Where did they come from?)
All of the dynamics of a Holy, All-powerful creator have been infused into our make-up in the invisible (beyond our understanding and natural senses). God reigns. God is Sovereign. And God holds the reigns of how and when our hidden power-pack changes our lives. All the timings and measures of enlightenments and degrees of awakening are “time released” for our good, and for our safety. Gentle applications of all the stuff that our physical sun is made of, beating with a Majestic heart that is purpose-driven.
God has inoculated us with Himself. The whole corporate soul of mankind has been infused, and there is no way to remove the remedy. This is God’s own application as Administrator of the whole operating system of US. And this Divine habitation in us is our ONLY source of redemption. While outer rules and pressures can sometimes train us, they can’t change us. Only the brightness of His coming IN us (2 Thess 2:8) will overtake the urges and helplessness of our original condition.
We are all prisoners of our old natures until the awakening process begins. (Rom 13:11, Eph 5:14) I know it has happened in me. And it has happened in many since the main event of the first century. I was overtaken at age 27, when I was quickened and roused to the truth of God being not only with me, but IN me. This "awakening" is from a lowered realm of understanding into a higher one. We weren’t ever separated from God, only ignorant of his being and whereabouts.
All of the words spoken here are truths endowed to me as I passionately sought God about the condition of our current world view. I have always had a boldness to approach and seek His face. My life has been--and still is--racked with pain in intercessions for mankind. This is my calling. Intercessors exist throughout the land and are an integral part of the Kingdom of God (our hidden home) as it overtakes in secret the kingdoms of men (Luke 17:20-21). And intercessions CHANGE things!
Receiving from God, I can attest to the beauty of a perfect scripture number and word: Jeremiah 33:3. “Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you know not.” (AKJV) Many times I called as the battles of good and evil that still plague our world caused my faith to fail, caused my trust to be tested. I had to touch Him and be given assurance (not lip service from powerless men) that the chaos we see is from a stance of denial in the narrow-minded, stubborn and DEFEATED old human nature, the lethargic (spiritually dull-sensed) first Adam.
Though overtaken on the Cross by the second Adam (1 Cor 15:47), the “finished work” doesn’t look finished. But things aren’t always as they appear. God is in control and planned this whole thing. God’s will is always being done, and His will is OUR destiny. (Ps 133:10, Pr 19:21, Eph 1:11) Romans 8:20 states that God put us in this quandary for a purpose, and also that we (the creation) didn’t want it to happen! Weymouth reads: “For the Creation fell into subjection to failure and unreality (not of its own choice, but by the will of Him who so subjected it)”. Unreality. Not our choice. Why? (verse 21): “Yet there was always the hope that at last the Creation itself would also be set free from the thraldom of decay so as to enjoy the liberty that will attend the glory of the children of God.” And God’s “hope” is of expectation, with confidence. (Greek: elpis) If there is any reason to believe that the chaos we have to endure will subside, this is it.
Knowing this, and knowing who is in charge, I can never again look at a human in the same way, as if their own choices and actions are the reason for a tragedy. There is a story behind the story. And these aren’t easy words to say. I have hated, and I have wanted to kill. I could have ended up in prison. But, instead, I was conquered and overcome by the beautiful, loving, merciful Christ coming up from within me. And because of his location, he doesn’t just view our trials from a distance. He is right here walking them out with us, feeling our pain, holding us up, understanding our instincts.
I no longer see any class of people as “the bad guys”, for just like me--they are victims of the will of God. If there is any victimhood, this is the status of it. Does that mean that God is the bad guy? No, but if we are to question or blame, if we want to get a real conversation going, and if we want truth that is past the religious rhetoric, it will have to begin and end at the Throne of God, one-on-One. Who sent us out of himself fully loaded to fail? But who, also, enacted an escape clause to overtake the letter of his own law that would deliver us. Restoring creation to a Vision he had for us, as the above scriptures state.
I started this writing with a news story of a prison break. For those persons who must suffer the consequences of incarceration, my heart aches. But I know Someone who loves them more than I. I know Someone who doesn’t see them as guilty. That label is a temporary injustice. Let us encourage all who fall into the hands of natural law that there is a purpose and a higher remedy. May we look to God and not mankind for a higher outcome, and not be surprised when these things "manifest". May we passionately pray and seek God, then walk out the higher law and order as a new standard rising up. May we speak always against those things that deny there is an invisible Kingdom that is having its own way!
*Paul makes reference to changes in our cellular structure in 1 Corin 15:52. "...in a moment" isn't about time, but is about a location: atomos (atoms).
