{"id":16578,"date":"2018-03-27T09:27:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T13:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16578"},"modified":"2018-03-27T09:38:05","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T13:38:05","slug":"growing-in-loves-likeness-falling-into-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16578","title":{"rendered":"Growing in Love\u2019s; Likeness Falling into Mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Richard Rohr<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Growing in Love\u2019s Likeness<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Falling into Mercy<\/strong><br \/>\nTuesday, March 27, 2018<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/r_mUFFuAjk8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe transition to the second half of life moves you from either\/or thinking to both\/and thinking: the ability to increasingly live with paradox and mystery. You no longer think in terms of win\/lose, but win\/win. It is a very different mind and strategy for life. In order for this alternative consciousness to become your primary way of thinking, you usually have to experience something that forces either\/or thinking to fall apart. Perhaps you hate homosexuality and then you meet a wonderful gay couple. Or you meet a Muslim who is more loving than most of your Christian friends. Or you encounter a young immigrant who doesn\u2019t match your stereotypes at all. Something must break your addiction to yourself and your opinions.<br \/>\nYour first reaction is a struggle: \u201cWhat do I do now? I don\u2019t like this. I can\u2019t deal with this. I want to go back to my familiar and habitual world.\u201d You know your lesbian daughter is good and you love her and don\u2019t want to reject her. So you ask your minister, \u201cWhat will I do?\u201d (Hopefully you have a wise, nondual minister!) Inside such \u201climinal space\u201d is where real change happens, where your self-serving little dualisms must fall apart. It might be called growing up.<br \/>\nJesus always honored and often idealized good, holy non-Jews, like the Samaritan man (Luke 10:29-37), the Roman centurion (Matthew 8:5-13), and the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30). But even his disciples struggled to accept that the outsider could or should be accepted. If you\u2019re stuck in the first half of life, with your explanation about why you or your group are the best, you will hold on strongly because it\u2019s all you have, and any change feels like dying.<br \/>\nOften the only thing that can break down your natural egocentricity is discovering that the qualities you hate in others are actually within you. You\u2019re not so moral after all. You\u2019ve imagined doing \u201cbad\u201d things; and if you could get away with it, you know you\u2019d do it. Perhaps the only reason you don\u2019t is because you\u2019re afraid. Fear is not enlightenment. Fear is not the new transformed state of the risen Christ that we\u2019ve been promised. Fear keeps you inside of a false order and will not allow any reordering.<br \/>\nUnless you somehow \u201cweep\u201d over your own phoniness, hypocrisy, fear, and woundedness, you probably won\u2019t let go of the first half of life. If you don\u2019t allow this needed disappointment to well up within you, if you surround yourself with your orthodoxies and your certitudes and your belief that you\u2019re the best, frankly, you will stay in the first half of life forever. Many religious people never allow themselves to fall, while many \u201csinners\u201d fall and rise again. Our greatest sin is not falling or failing, but refusing to rise and trust ourselves\u2014and God\u2014again. Make sure you are always in need of mercy and you will never stop growing.<\/p>\n<p>________________________________________________<\/p>\n<div class=\"row title-row\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"utmost-devo-title col col-sm-12 col-xs-12\">\n<h2 class=\"entry-title\">Spiritual Vision Through Personal Character<\/h2>\n<h4>By <a href=\"https:\/\/utmost.org\/oswald-chambers-bio\">Oswald Chambers<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"clearfix\">\u00a0<strong>Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place\u2026 \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&amp;search=Revelation+4%3A1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Revelation 4:1<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<div class=\"row entry-meta\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-4\">\n<div class=\"top-sharing\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"top-rule\">A higher state of mind and spiritual vision can only be achieved through the higher practice of personal character. If you live up to the highest and best that you know in the outer level of your life, God will continually say to you, \u201cFriend, come up even higher.\u201d There is also a continuing rule in temptation which calls you to go higher; but when you do, you only encounter other temptations and character traits. Both God and Satan use the strategy of elevation, but Satan uses it in temptation, and the effect is quite different. When the devil elevates you to a certain place, he causes you to fasten your idea of what holiness is far beyond what flesh and blood could ever bear or achieve. Your life becomes a spiritual acrobatic performance high atop a steeple. You cling to it, trying to maintain your balance and daring not to move. But when God elevates you by His grace into heavenly places, you find a vast plateau where you can move about with ease.<\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>Compare this week in your spiritual life with the same week last year to see how God has called you to a higher level. We have all been brought to see from a higher viewpoint. Never allow God to show you a truth which you do not instantly begin to live up to, applying it to your life. Always work through it, staying in its light.<\/p>\n<p>Your growth in grace is not measured by the fact that you haven\u2019t turned back, but that you have an insight and understanding into where you are spiritually. Have you heard God say, \u201cCome up higher,\u201d not audibly on the outer level, but to the innermost part of your character?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShall I hide from Abraham what I am doing\u2026?\u201d (<a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Genesis+18:17\">Genesis 18:17<\/a>). God has to hide from us what He does, until, due to the growth of our personal character, we get to the level where He is then able to reveal it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bold\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"bottom-rule\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-6 col-sm-offset-3\">\n<div class=\" bottom-sharing\">\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\">\n<div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\">\n<div class=\"sd-content\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Rohr Growing in Love\u2019s Likeness Falling into Mercy Tuesday, March 27, 2018 The transition to the second half of life moves you from either\/or thinking to both\/and thinking: the ability to increasingly live with paradox and mystery. You no longer think in terms of win\/lose, but win\/win. It is a very different mind and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16578"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16578"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16583,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16578\/revisions\/16583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}