"Neither do I put you down" (John 8: 11, Victor Alexander translation)
Everyone knows that the story in John chapter 8 about the woman taken in adultery does not belong there. The story is not about any woman taken in adultery. It is about Jesus' attitude: "Neither do I put you down," and it is perfectly placed.
In John chapter 7, Jesus, the Manifestation of the imagination, "rose and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts they can come to me and drink! Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures have proclaimed, rivers of the living waters shall gush from his body" (verses 37-38). Anyone. Everyone belongs to the club.
In the 1970s, I attended Jim Spillman's ministry at Omega Fellowship in Santa Ana, California. A group had left on tour of the Middle east, and someone mentioned that they had recently arrived in Egypt. I had just heard -- on the radio, TV or newspaper, I don't recall -- that there was some illness spreading around Egypt. I innocently and naively expressed concern, "I hope no one gets sick." One of the young ladies in the conversation rolled her eyes and walked away. I did not realize until now, forty years later, that I had put negativity on that tour. I had put it down.
We make negative comments, express negative opinions, criticize, reject, have negative reactions. This is reprobate. The imagination does not put us down, and we should not put each other down either. It is oppression of the others ascension. Each of us has desires which are the "woman" taken in adultery. Not human fornication, but ideas that are from our ignorance, ideas which have formed our lives. Can we thus thinking go to God, our imagination, and drink? Jesus answers, "I do not put you down."
To be more like God, eliminate negative reaction from your thoughts and opinions. God's thoughts are on the end: "And it was beautiful." Every moment on the way there is dross, in his eyes already passed and forgotten.
In John chapter 7, Jesus, the Manifestation of the imagination, "rose and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts they can come to me and drink! Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures have proclaimed, rivers of the living waters shall gush from his body" (verses 37-38). Anyone. Everyone belongs to the club.
In the 1970s, I attended Jim Spillman's ministry at Omega Fellowship in Santa Ana, California. A group had left on tour of the Middle east, and someone mentioned that they had recently arrived in Egypt. I had just heard -- on the radio, TV or newspaper, I don't recall -- that there was some illness spreading around Egypt. I innocently and naively expressed concern, "I hope no one gets sick." One of the young ladies in the conversation rolled her eyes and walked away. I did not realize until now, forty years later, that I had put negativity on that tour. I had put it down.
We make negative comments, express negative opinions, criticize, reject, have negative reactions. This is reprobate. The imagination does not put us down, and we should not put each other down either. It is oppression of the others ascension. Each of us has desires which are the "woman" taken in adultery. Not human fornication, but ideas that are from our ignorance, ideas which have formed our lives. Can we thus thinking go to God, our imagination, and drink? Jesus answers, "I do not put you down."
To be more like God, eliminate negative reaction from your thoughts and opinions. God's thoughts are on the end: "And it was beautiful." Every moment on the way there is dross, in his eyes already passed and forgotten.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
3:14 AM
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