Sunday 4 October 2009

Tuning - Part Two - Normal Pitch/Concert pitch

Greenwich Meantime sounds posh, but for those in Britain it denotes normal time. English people have a problem with the phrase "concert pitch". It sounds too posh. So now I ask them if they would like me to tune their piano to normal pitch.
Which is exactly the same.

What is tuning to normal pitch viewed spiritually? Christ was the most normal guy that ever lived. There was nothing a bit off about Him that Moliere, or Brecht, or any other playwrite such as Shakespeare could caricature. Once into His Ministry after His baptism into water and the Holy Spirit, yes, He did extraordinary things....but , if you could stand His penetrating insight into the depths of your soul, He was the most joyful of guys to be around. He was....er....normal.

If a person has asked Jesus into his or her life, once you strip everything away. Once you touch rock bottom in your life, like Mary Magdelan (some question whether the commonly held view that she was a prostitute is in fact so...perhaps that was another Mary, or not a Mary at all) or the apostle Peter after his denials of Christ.....once you reach this place, however it happens for you....

All you are ever going to discover is this:
The reason you fail so is that you believe you have a separate life in your own right. This is the hubris we gained at the Fall. It's the healthy taste of hell, whereby in our failure we learn we cannot manage our own life. We were never made to. We were always only ever containers. Spirit containers of either a false spirit deity - the devil, or now a container of Christ.

We don't all have to experience what Job did. What David in the Old testament did.What Abraham did. What Jacob did. But however it works out in your life, none of us it seems gives up believing this "independent self" lie without one heck of a fight. Like the Book of Proverbs says, we prefer to sit in the seat of scoffers for a very long time. And this is after we become Christians.
Singing all the songs.
Doing all the meetings.
Maybe as in my case living in community for years.
Perhaps in ministry for years and years, preaching our sermons, always wondering why there is an almost complete lack of fruit.

What is it as a Body of Christ in the Earth that we are tuning to? Why is it all taking so darned long?
It's obviously not just tuning to "asking Jesus into your heart and believing on the blood of Jesus to forgive sins" That is believing upon God for righteousness apart from anything we do, and entering into this new life where things work by faith! This is correct but look around you...it obviously isn't enough! This is to worship the God of Abraham only.

It's obviously not to tune only to the "Baptism in the Holy Spirit message". A message of supernatural enablement. A Holy Spirit who is still apart from us. Or maybe in us, to help our poor "independent life status". (see that lie again?) This is to worship the God of Abraham and Isaac. Isaac was the one who spent his life uncovering water wells. But look at the charismatic movement! Have you noticed the deluge of people all rushing into the Kingdom impressed by charismatic churches? No. There's still something else to tune to.

It's obviously not tuning to the first bits of Jacob's life. Manipulating everything for his own self-preservation. But there is something different later on. Jacob had a name change. Something at the very core of how he lived his life from thereafter changed. And taken as a whole package this is what we are tuning to : The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! THE WHOLE PACKAGE.

So this is what Jesus meant when He talked about building a solid and normal life! We build upon a rock. Not the Sunday school tale of building upon some laws, ideas or precepts of Jesus. We build upon Jesus Himself.

Let me break that down, before your Sunday school brain rises up again.
Building upon the rock as opposed to upon sand is:

You,leaving behind this dreadful and damaging lie that you are an independent being, strutting around making your choices, living your life...

instead catching yourself in the act....squaring up to yourself and saying
YOU DON'T HAVE A SEPARATE LIFE....right now you are either falling back into independence which is a whole Satan lie

Or you are Christ going on as you, through your soul, through your body. And in this way you start consciously only doing what Christ is actually doing through you. It's a learned thing. It's a faith thing. But pretty soon you become aware when He hasn't budged an inch...but you have.

This is how Christ lived His whole life and is what he meant when He said I can only do what I see the Father doing.

This is building your life upon a rock! As the world famous evangelist!!!! Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits sings in Solid Rock:




Well take a look at thatI made a castle in the sand
Saying this is where it's at you know
Couldn't understand now
If I realised that the chances were slim
How come I'm so surprised when the tide rolled in

I wanna live on solid rock
I'm gonna live on solid rock
I wanna give I don't wanna be blocked
I'm gonna live on solid rock

Well I'm sick of potential
I'm sick of vanity now
I'm sticking to essential reality now
I don't know what's worse
Try to make a silk purse
Living an illusion living in confusion
I'm gonna live on solid rock....

Well a house of cards
Was never built for shock
You could blow it down in any kind of weather
Now two solid rocks two solid blocks
You know they're gonna stick
Yeah they're gonna stick together

Because the heart you break
That's the one that you rely on
The bed that you make
That's the one you gotta lie on
When you point, your finger cos your plan fell through
You got three more fingers pointing back at you

I wanna live on solid rock
I'm gonna live on solid rock
I wanna give I don't wanna be blocked
I'm gonna live on solid rock
I'm solid rock now

Chris Welch has tuned for LSO, LPO, NIGEL KENNEDY. ANDRE PREVIN. DEMIDENKO, MARC-ANDRE HAMELIN, ST GEORGE'S CHAPEL WINDSOR, THE BARBICAN, FAIRFIELD HALL. CROYDON, LONDON COLISEUM, ROYAL BALLET SCHOOL. CARL DAVIS, PAUL WELLER, JOOLS HOLLAND, TOBY SMITH EX JAMIROQUAI and many others

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