Dear Family,
Our letter from last week may have received the greatest response we have ever had.
In it I described how my daughter Audrey articulated during our recent visit that if she had known the Gospel as she knows it now she would have had the ability to say no to the molestation that was being inflicted upon her by her brother-in-law when she was a child. Because of her upbringing she was under the misguided notion that she should pray to God for His help to stop the abuse. And, of course, no help was forthcoming for my little girl. Her anger toward God was palpable and understandable, to say the least. However, once she understood the perimeters or the borders of the Gospel—everything changed in her thinking. She now knows that God is inside of her instead of some outside separate entity—that she and God are literally One. Then came the realization, the very powerful idea of what inner-strength had actually been available to her even as a child.
The larger one’s perimeters become, the greater becomes the capacity for creativity that is released in one’s mind. New thinking and ideas are born in larger spaces than that which was granted by the smaller perimeters that once dominated our thought process. Precious few new ideas, if any at all, come from old defined perimeters.
As important as broadened perimeters are for advancement in the human experience, a lack of perimeters causes the mind to become inactive and regressive, producing only irrational and disconnected thought.
The very idea of human liberty was born only after the perimeters of human existence expanded from the Flat Earth Doctrine that had been promoted and sustained by the Catholic Church to the understanding that we in reality inhabited a Round Planet. That literally led to the discovery of an entire New World. Religious thought always seeks to thwart perimeter expansion. The perimeters and paradigm switch from flat to round changed everything. Our minds were collectively challenged to fill-in the new open spaces of the new perimeter. The massive advancements of humanity came ONLY after that religious doctrine was relegated to the ash heap of history.
I remember sitting in a desert years ago experiencing its vast open space and feeling so inspired. That incredible space released my imagination. Still and this is so important vies-a-vies our understanding of the Gospel, no boundaries or perimeters at all befuddles the imagination. No perimeters or boundaries gives us nowhere to go!
For many eons of ages humans have emphatically declared that travel expands the mind. Truer words were never spoken! But why does traveling expand the mind? I think it is because when we experience new horizons, the boundaries of the new reality open our minds to begin creating in order to reach the limits of the new perimeters we now know exist.
The human race has only progressed after the perimeters that once seemed limited were allowed or even forced to change.
After we realized the Earth was a globe, one of the next major changes of thought came after the perimeters were enlarged at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to include the understanding that man could fly. And that was just over 100 years ago! Look at the innovation that has taken place after the perimeters were changed from “Round” to “SUPER-Round”!
The next thing we knew we were launching our first manned space flight. As perimeters grow the mind changes and with it its ability to imagine what once was unimaginable!
Bondage, or the old boundaries and perimeters, always lead to freedom!
To lead us to our ultimate freedom in Christ, God Himself had to first put us in bondage to Law. Limitations produce angst. And then angst produces a desire to expand the perimeters. Then, as the process continues, the changing of perimeters inspires the mind of people to create.
Limits should only be placed on someone to deliberately produce a desire to think and be bigger. However, the abuse of limitations for purpose of control is a devastating perversion of the genius of perimeters.
Remember when we were kids being told to “color within the lines”? Whether as children or as adults, virtually all of our reality is lived out within certain lines or perimeters. Think about the import and reality of ALL the perimeters in our lives: the television, our pictures and artwork even those of the very homes we live in. All have very specific perimeters that have grown as the old definition of those perimeters were challenged and overcome. It is only within perimeters we create! The larger the perimeters become, the greater the creativity that is unleashed!
The Gospel does not remove all boundaries; it expands them to their greatest existing reality. Established then expanded perimeters inspire imagination. Having no boundaries at all, no basis for understanding our current “location” seemingly places the mind in neutral. We have seen this with some folks who got free in their thinking from Evangelicalism through the Gospel, only to be neutralized by discarding the perimeters of the Gospel itself. Even the Gospel, or I could say especially the Gospel, has perimeters. The Power of God, the Gospel, is released to our souls by the ongoing understanding and discussion of what those perimeters are!
Sometimes people end up throwing-out or denying the perimeters of the Gospel because the old perimeters of their former Christianity were so wrought with holes and as much ridiculousness as seeing the Earth as flat. Some of these wonderful folks go adrift becoming atheistic after being set free by the very Gospel they now reject. Or we’ve seen some concoct their own new religion again with no perimeters which again stunts growth.
Discovering the Earth is not flat does not mean there is not a round Earth to discover forever!
The flatness of Christianity has now been exposed as the fraud that it is. The roundness of the Gospel is just now beginning to unleash our creativity and thirst to discover where these new perimeters can take us.
Christianity has no clearly defined perimeters. Every attempt to establish a perimeter in Christianity is accompanied by an “if, but, or a maybe” resulting in irrational and disconnected attempts to establish perimeters on morality rather than on spirituality.
No wonder there are over 50,000 Christian sects and denominations! This insanity has NO perimeters to anchor on.
The perimeters or boundaries of the Gospel are certain, crafted by God and verified by the Holy Spirit-Inspired Body Document, what Jesus Himself called the Scriptures—the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets—which do not include the writings of what became known as “the New Testament”.
God’s first perimeter was the Law:
· Designated Behavior
· Specific Sacrifices
· Divine Rewards
· Divine Punishments
These were all designed by God as a foreshadowing of what and Who was to come as He expanded the perimeters to the Gospel:
· Redemption is only by One Man
· Redemption is established without the participation of the rest of humanity
· Redemption abolished all law governing humanity’s relationship with God
· Redemption is the fulfillment of ALL Scripture
So, go ahead, I dare you! Connect these perimeter lines of the Gospel and start coloring!
Like the amazing picture that Audrey was able to paint for herself about her own life, that I could never have drawn for her, you will be amazed at the beautiful piece of art that your thoughts renewed by the Gospel of Peace and Grace will produce.
This New Covenant and eternal perimeters of the Gospel are going to be recognized by the masses one day. We are on the ocean on the way to this “new world” of thought. The false, constricted, judgmental confusion that is Christianity is literally on its way to being consumed by the very inferno it created.
Much Love,
Michael