Instead of HIM it = Vanity: An Offensive Choice

1 John 2:15-17 (The Message)*
* with additions from M. Scot Peck MD’s “The Road less Traveled”
15-17Don't love (cathex= dedicate all mental activity of thought upon and emotional affection to) the world's ways. Don't (cathex) love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

That is what one king called it- vanity. King Soloman who had everything and realized that all of it was for nothing. Yet the Word of God tells us in chapter 41 of Isaiah that the King of Kings supercedes the it with the IT . The power to make IT (Colosians 1:19). He came to take us away from the captivity of doing worthless things in it. Things done in vain merely to show others that we know what it is or the ability to make it .

Just trying to make it is not enough. This is in direct opposition to what our God given life-purpose is. He delivers us from just trying to make it. The IT he wants is to know that IT is from, by and of Him. We can make IT if we know through a personal relationship with HIM that IT is of HIM. Like fishing we can help someone buy fish or teach them how to fish. Someone else may not know about the dominance of it pursuit . Yet in not only knowing or not trying to tell others about IT and where IT comes from we fail to tell that IT is a personal relationship with Him as mandatory for IT to be manifested in their lives!To bring praise upon Him should be our purpose. To acknowledge for all to see our praise going up and He coming down to ”sit” upon the “praise of Israel (his people now of Christ) To love God with all of our heart mind heart and soul and to love our fellow man as we love ourselves. This all brings glory to God ( Isaiah 43:7). This should be IT, but IT it is not for most of us. How do we do IT instead of being concerned with it.
First of all realize that as a Human you are falling short of IT in trying to pursue it. As man and woman were blessed and told to get IT. WHAT IS IT?

From GENESIS 1:28

Genesis 1:28 (King James Version)28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it
Restated this is IT ( God’s Will) in order/outline form is given to
I. Develop an attitude of being blessed. Be a blessing by
II. starting off in actions that are of fruitfulness/. To multiply this fruitfulness of thought put into action by a practice of intercession in service and demonstration of the fruit of LOVE God /self fellow man .This will allow you to
III. then be about replenishing/filling .This will then allow you to
IV. then be about subduing and /having dominion with the perpetuation of the purpose set here on earth namely your Spiritual Gift practiced in love .In essence the Great Commission. Go ye therefore….We will speak about the first gift to pursue is prophecy according to Paul which is mentioned in Isaiah to mention the former things (Str. Number 7223-Hebrew) and also what shall happen Str. Number 7136). This will demonstrate godliness and attract more.
What we do is the reverse.
IV. We cathex something that has been marketed to us or we are seduced info buying it. We become dominated or we become subdued by it.
III. Instead of replenishing we steal/borrow without repaying to get it. We do not replenish even the world's resources in making it. We do not fill we are filled with other its. This happens via an orifice eyes, ears , nose, mouth, rectum, penis
II. We do not after being filled with it love self or others or God. We demonstrate the works of the flesh instead of the fruit of love
I. We do not have an attitude or speech of being blessed , but complain, and bitch about everything. This happened

Perversion of Process
This then Perverts the Process of Speaking forth a blessed thing that is Holy, Seeing that it is good and Separating out the component(s) of thing that is not needed for the process to be completed at this TIME.

EXAMPLES IN ACTION
The problem is that we in America have been disconnected from a true pursuit of love of ourselves. When was the first time that you had real fun with others and how much did you love IT ?. For most of us it was free and experienced with our siblings, friends or our parents. We pursue things and acquire things which have nothing to do with loving ourselves. They produce an artificial fun. Then we become defined by what we have. We use people to get things. We think we have things but they have us. The IT becomes a false idol that we cathex (direct our eyes mental attention to pursue and invest affections/time towards ). We confuse love with this emotion that we at one time had as fun but then we replaced with a feeling. Due to good marketing and the desire for knowledge “which puffeth up”(in the words of Paul), we drifted from a true pursuit of love of ourselves. We stopped having fun in exercise.Our attitude in conceit of having it only separated us away from others. When we did pursue a relationship our thoughts and speech of being friendly were either, inconsistent ambivalent nonexistent toward a Spiritual IT The question at this point as someone put it honest and brutally blunt to me . “ What can you do for me monetarily or materially? I have too many “friends’ to supply it to me. We feel angry because our offer to someone of what we thought a physical manifestation of it was was rejected. We take it personally.On the other hand the it is Martin Luther King states in his Drum Major Instinct speech of our pursuit of being the drum major. Our attitude of pursuing the it as in this case a ‘status”. It is perceived as a leader protected from fears of poverty, unfulfilled desire/lust or want. If someone casts any doubt that we are not it we lose our loose our composure and affiliation with agape or phileo love. What we hope for in fulfillment of lusts separates us away from being hungry for the hope of salvation and spiritual pursuit namely the Word of God. In addition we have less love for fellow man and less love and dependence upon God. If someone takes what we have identified as a part of us, including our reputation of association with it, we develop anger toward that person and lose love for that person. We show continued progression of the works of the flesh directed toward the individual in avengeful actions thoughts and speech.Vain actions also make our fellow man envious of us. The first thought is how I could handle the it better. This occurs in the immediate environment locally and around the globe. Meantime we care less about giving the least thought to a period of at least daily devotion and SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT to self and others. We do little to remind ourselves and others consistently of our Spiritual essence in a material world and its importance and context . This is what love is. This is what IT is. What does love have to do with it ? Everything in this context. It makes the it the IT . This should be the ITHe who gives us the strength to breathe, our heart function and its strength to beat, the properly directed appetites leading us toward the correct consumption, and those things eaten giving us the strength to walk for Him. We are more concerned with the vicarious experience of watching a football/basketball game, than devoting the time to be with actual surrogate children/grandchildren and teaching and participating in the exercise of participatory learning or sports. Pornography leads to the consummation through surrogate sexual fulfillment. All of this definitely precludes the hopes, thoughts and pursuits relative to those have-nots around the world and locals who are widows, orphans, prisoners and strangers among us. Our seduction is complete in the Perversion of Process.We are also too occupied with vain hedonistic activities as a culture to teach our progeny actual and surrogate, about themselves as being capable of being seduced into false idol worship and its dangerous consequences. We even judge church members by where they live and what they put on and drive, ignoring the warnings of James given to the early church. We hold things up as entitlements of Christianity” and as blessings from God . When the things of it are threatened, WE become a threat to peace in that environment. There is a personification of sorts involving the things that we do not possess but that possess us. We lose our religion and get depressed if they are taken. They have nothing to do with our purpose and in fact become detestable in distracting us away from our purpose. When their it things (the punished person) are taken we consider them as cursed and treat them as if they had leprosy, contagious tuberculosis and HIV at the same time. We do not visit them in the prisons, are feed them if they are hungry or clothe them if they are naked. Our attitude may be: “Look at me I have it . Surely you do not deserve it, only me , and I am not going to help you get it.What is our purpose? To glorify God ! To realize that His loving and kindness endures forever and to tell others, not with an outward display of wealth and conspicuous consumption but with an inward to outward hunger to stop hunger and thirst to stop ignorance of the truths in the Word. This should include first and foremost the Good News of Jesus Christ’s death as sufficient payment for our pursuit of it instead of HIM. In essence a falling short of His glory. We flounder in our belief in His resurrection sufficient payment for all. Belief as a ticket of entry into the actuality and consciousness of His coming back to save us from the wrath of God. Yet our faith in this fact should evoke actions aforementioned. If not we have a perversion of those things hoped for in pursuing it. If not we also have a problem in Perversion of Purpose.

Restatement of Reversal/Perversion of PurposeThis perversion involves the reversal of the aforementioned namely a being dominated ,a seeking and being filled with bad counsel and its subsequent conversion power of us into consumers of it . Instead of us demonstrating fruit (of Spirit = Love ) we demonstrate works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-22). We are unconscious to God’ and His blessings around us.
God's Process
In Genesis we see God's image as one who says unto darkness (let there be light ) , sees (that what is spoken forth is good) and separates (pre-existing from that spoken forth) = mutually exclusive things. If we do the same we "see" that our time is not spent in vain actions and pursuit of it . We accomplish things. We redeem the time. This allows for us to perform according to His will. We were made in His image to accomplish this process

In the 41st chapter of Isaiah verse 21 he gives us a clarity that comes from questioning the power behind these vain actions. He prompts us to examine ourselves He starts out in the KJV

“ Produce your cause, bring forth your strong reasons”

This is what He is asking us today. Is it of any value that we have information from our Blackberry's in Google, Delicious, Twitter, and other networks if we do not convert the info into something that will eventuate into service to our fellowman and bring praise to the Creator instead of us? Does it glorify us of God? We are asked of our motives. Is this a vain action? Is this a nothing from nothing VAIN action that yields nothing ( in the words of Billy Preston)?I come confessing that I am chief of sinners in Perverting the Purpose and Process mentioned above. As I am of my fellow-man, I wonder when did this pursuit of it start for mankind? When did mankind become involved in the vanity of the pursuit of it ? When did I become involved in this abominable it pursuit? I do recognize it is offensive toward God as a choice / action mentioned in Isaiah 41:24 When did it pursuit begin for me.? How can I correct it?

To become involved my affections are being dedicated to this vain thing. When did my gaze toward it disorganize my purpose in IT . When did I direct my eyes to it in a continued view and mental activity of wanting it; that vain thing?. No doubt this started as a Perversion of Purpose from the original blessing given to male and female in Genesis chapter 1 verse 28.

What we will do in this book is to use literature and the Word of God to prove up this perversion, in all humans and our weakness and vulnerability to Pervert the Process and the Purpose for which God has allowed us to continue to take in this air. We will then be able to identify the perversion in ourselves and move toward a desire to ask God to remove the perversion from us. Whether it is of thought, feeling-attachment (cathexis) and actions towards those it things which are vain, offensive and abominable to God., namely sin. We will offer scripture for prayers, in the hope that we can begin the healing of ourselves, communities, nation and world. Example : to splint a fracture is a tool that disallows a further injury of the neuro-vascular of that extremity which may lead to an even a more serious injury. We offer these writings as a tool to prevent further injury and offense.
Genesis 1:28 (King James Version)

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue itRestated an order or outline is given to1. Attitude of being blessed. Be a blessing by2. starting off in actions that are of fruitfulness/. To multiply this fruitfulness of thought put into action by a practice of intercession in service and demonstration of the fruit of LOVE God /self fellow man .This will allow you to3. then be about replenishing/filling .This will then allow you to4. then be about subduing and /having dominion with the perpetuation of the purpose set here on earth namely your Spiritual Gift practiced in love .In essence the Great Commission. Go ye therefore….We will speak about the first gift to pursue is prophecy according to Paul which is mentioned in Isaiah to mention the former things (Str.number 7223-Hebrew) and also what shall happen Str. Number 7136). This will demonstrate godliness and attract more
Opposite = Perversion of it Pursuit
James 4
2 You want something, but you can't get it. You kill and want what others have. But you can't have what you want. You argue and fight. You don't have what you want, because you don't ask God. 3 When you do ask for something, you don't receive it. Why? Because you ask for the wrong reason. You want to spend your money on your sinful pleasures.
4 You are not faithful to God. Don't you know that to be a friend of the world is to hate God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Don't you know what Scripture says? The spirit that God caused to live in us wants us to belong only to God. Don't you think Scripture has a reason for saying that? 6 God continues to give us more grace. That's why Scripture says, "God opposes those who are proud.

1 John 2:15-17 (The Message)

15-17Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.