Well it’s Friday night before the first day of this year’s summer school and this will probably be the final blog entry I’m able to pen—err, type before a little hiatus while I’ve got limited internet access. I’m writing this at the Firehouse after a lengthy time of praying and making full use of my iPod before arriving here. In fact God’s spoken to me or made spiritual concepts come alive to me lately through my MacBook and iPod.

I’ve been using my Apple MacBook for a few months now, and I’m still getting used to the differences between Apple and Microsoft. No, I’m not just going on about my MacBook, I AM making a point and heading to a spiritual application with this! There’s vast differences, and as a Dutch computer engineer at the HRO told me recently, the “architecture” of an Apple computer is totally different than that on Microsoft. When you’ve had many laptops like me (I think the count was 4 in 6 years), and all of them have had Windows operating system on them, and then buying a MacBook and using Apple’s OS Tiger system, you find is like entering a whole other world and re-learning how to use a laptop computer. You have to forget some things you’re used to, and frankly, learn how to use a better computer. How many Appler users can I get an amen from on that one?

How many believers are like this analogy?

When we first get saved, we aren’t changed overnight. We go from darkness to light, positionally, yes. But thought and behavior patterns that have been years in the making and long-established, aren’t just changed the instant we pray a sinner’s prayer and dedicate our lives to Jesus. We grow. Things are gradual—the seed is planted and with proper care, watering, nurturing, and cutting out of your life the old destructive habits, you gradually grow strong and sink your spiritual roots deep into God.

Have you ever noticed that?

I’ve known people who’ve been so radically affected by previous pre-conversion lifestyle choices, that years after they’ve gotten saved, they’re still affected by the thoughts, and making decisions through the eyeglasses or filters of their past. How many Mac users out there have tried figuring out how to do something on your Mac the same way you used to on your old Windows machine? The way files are stored is totally different. The way things are organized takes some getting used to. In Christ, you are a NEW creation, the old has passed and all things have become new (2 Cor 5:17). Get used to it.

If you’ve been radically saved from a lifestyle of all manner of rank sin, and gotten saved, it took some “getting used to” and a HECK of a lot of mind renewing (Romans 12:1-2). But I’m sure if someone’s first computer was a Mac, and it was all they knew and were experienced with, and then someone put a Windows computer in front of them, they’d have a hard time understanding how come things work (or don’t work) the way they do.

“Why do I get error messages all the time?”

“Why does this thing keep crashing.”

“How come this thing works so slow?”

“What are spyware and viruses?”

Can you imagine, in a spiritual sense, if you were an angel or some kind of human being who had lived in heaven for about a thousand years, and then came to earth and operated in the realm of human flesh?

“What’s a sickness or a disease?”

“Why do I suddenly after about 15 hours need to close my eyes and lay down—sleep? What’s that?”

And while I’m at it, we’re told to pray for God’s will to be done on earth AS it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9-14). What does that look like exactly?

I recently got an iPod, and you plug the thing into your computer—in my case, a Macbook, just in case that part was lost on you so far—and you download files onto it, primarily people use it for music, and download songs in a program called iTunes. The transfer takes place directly from the computer, and onto the iPod device. If you decide to delete something from your iTunes, then the next time you synchronize your iPod with your iTunes, it will erase the song from your iPod as well. If you add new things to a play list, then as you synchronize your iPod, it will add those files to itself as well.

How many of you are continuously synchronizing yourself with the heavenly realm?

I was walking around a corner on the Nieuwe Binneweg recently (a major busy street in Rotterdam the Firehouse is near) and listening to my new iPod when it hit me like a ton of bricks—curiosity as to how much ministry goes on in the name of the Father, but is not in any way originated or birthed in Him.

All of us reading this can appreciate this thought—how many of us can honestly say we’ve NEVER ever–since the day we got saved–messed up and done something thinking it was God’s will but had no basis in Him whatsoever until we found out after the fact or through trial and error? How many people are building their own ministries, in the name of God in name only, but not with His Spirit? We’ve all done it—gone about our own business for a while, asking God to bless something we thought was a good idea or that we figured there’s no way He would not be against, and then simply spent 5 minutes asking Him to put His blessing on it after we’ve already gone about our own plans—but never finding out if it was His will in the first place. How much “ministry” going on in the Church today is a big waste of time? I am sad to say, probably lots from what I’ve seen and experienced. Much damage has been done in countless lives and ministries from such an attitude as I described.

Are you in sync with Jesus?

If one goes a long time with their iPod, and doesn’t syncronize it with their computer, it takes longer to accomplish when you finally do it. But when you are doing it daily, or often and perpetually, then it just takes a moment. When you pray, is it once in a while, and only talking AT God and bringing your requests to Him? Or do you ever sit and listen, and let Him download of His Spirit into yours?

Just pray a lot in the Spirit and read your Bible lots, and you’ll experience something from other “Christians” for yourself—when you are constantly synchronizing yourself with the heavenly source, then people who aren’t doing so for themselves start thinking you’re weird. The ones who only do a little bit of it once a week—attend a sermon or two here and there, but otherwise have no functional relational experience with the Father, Son or Spirit for themselves start thinking YOU are the one out of sync, because you start differentiating yourself from the status quo. You slowly, but surely, will no longer fit into the system or the consensus. You know who I’m talking about: pew warmers will start telling you to chill out, and tell you to just join the majority who do no such synchronizing, and go with the flow.

If you leave your iPod unplugged from your source for two long, all the while making constant changes or deletions to your music library, eventually the two are out of whack with each other. When we are out of whack with the Father, HE is not the one who changes, capiche? Get yourself plugged in.

“We’re all fine the way we are.” The majority say to you.

“God only speaks to prophets—who are you to think you hear from God?”

People who voluntarily stay out of proper sync with the Father usually find it insulting if you tell them what you are accessing. When they miss out on the awesome realities they could encounter for themselves if only they wanted to, they will slander and willfully misunderstand you because you contradict their old out-dated downloads.

I don’t know exactly how that ties into Macbooks or iPods, but they made a reality clear to me this week.

I hope you all are blessed and I’ll see some of you at the summer school.

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