"They Will Know Us By Our Love..." or will they...

this author and preacher dude spoke in class yesterday a.m. and will be speaking to us all week. the guy's amazing. he's totally stepped aside and has let the Spirit preach through him. and not in a stiff, un-real, holier than thou fakey way. the guy's a hilarious dork.
picture with me if you will david letterman as a christian speaker. not kidding. the same gestures, laugh, and all around absurd goofiness.
i've come to learn that i think another reason child-like antics and humor light up my life is that i can concentrate and actually learn so much better if the teacher isn't all concerned with looking stoic and worldly wise. (p.s. i've also been doing this study on not only grace but on pride. do we all for real remember that everything we know is b/c someone took the time to teach us...that we know nada, absolutely nothin in and of just ourselves. like how is pride so rampant- it's just such a ridiculous lie to believe. there's nothing we know that we learned apart from God and others...anyways)
anyhoo... onward soldier... dean sherman spoke on Kingdom living vs. worldly living. both are invisible systems. one is based on unalterable Truth. the other has no base, just floating out there- governed by bondage to selfishness, deception, and the temporary.
then he started on a topic that God has been swallowing me up in off and on recently: God being so much bigger than a religion. so much more huge and all-consuming than the confines of man can contain.
Truth is Truth is Truth. any successful marriage or wise business tactics automatically come from living Kingdom principles. EVERY good and perfect thing flows from God alone. now there is only one Way into the Kingdom. jessh - our Lord couldn't have been more straight-forward about that ya'll. but what if all that is good, pure, wise, noble, loving, and eternal flows from One Source and One Source only? what if Truth isn't so much a structure or denomination or organization so much as it is an invisible system of unchangeableness anchored in God alone? is our wonderful God perhaps sooo much bigger than we have previously believed and previously lived out in everyday life?! is our God un-boxable? uncontainable? oh my. yes o yes. we are all members of one Body. One. denominations can be o.k. but sectarianism is not so good-- claiming that one group is the best or the most holy or like a better part of the Body or somethin. just doesn't seem biblical to me. we are either alive in Christ or dead in our trespasses. period.
dean also spoke about how we are all, ALL of us, clamoring around for someone or Someone to tell us we belong and are a treasure. and that's exactly what our Jesus tells us. "we are no longer illegimate..." we are not an unwanted pregnancy. we can all so easily be independent and avoid community and strive for self-sufficiency then wonder why we get lonely. he's been a pastor before i think and spoke about how many pastors and just ministry people in general he knows who were simply not backed up and supported by their congregations. the members would get so wrapped up in anything but Jesus. they lost sight of the ultimate Commonality. it's so tragic. we so easily settle and trade in the eternal and abundant for temporary and shallow. life is a vapor; why do it. why?
do we truly see what satan's done to attack the Body- to split us up "divide and conquer" if you will. can we just spend most of our energies on the big 4: who's God, what's the bible, who's Christ, and how is salvation for eternity gained?
we are wanted and belong to God. and to one another. we all got the same Jesus DNA in us if we are in Christ. doctrine shouldn't be our big commonality. Christ already is the only commonality worth spendin much time focusing on. may all of our identity be so wrapped up in Christ that lessar things fade. that we focus on His saving power for every tribe, tongue and nation that has yet to hear about true Life. it's awesome. by this all men will know that you are my disciples: your love for one another.

religioned out. may we all sort through what is really of God as revealed in the Word and what is unnecessarily weighing down. His grace is enough. His calling on our life is "easy and light and well-suited" for each of us.
just more Jesus. a real living, breathing God-man who walked this earth and is now seated in His Home. matthew 11:28 in greek = "come to me if you are overloaded with ceremony and spiritual anxiety." please God, no more striving and pushing and piling up works. we're not serving some faceless, distant object.
as oswald chambers says: i don't wanna just be doing some lifestyle or be devoted to a cause, we gotta be devoted to a Person.
Our Jesus Christ. Our Saving One. Our Master.