Many of us will be
familiar with a well-known conversation that took place in
the district of Judea across the
Jordan River some 2000 years ago, between a young rich man and Jesus
Christ.
"Teacher, what good must I do to
gain eternal life?" asked the rich young man.
Christ replied by simply telling
him to keep the commandments i.e. don’t kill, commit adultery, don’t
steal or bear false witness; honor your father and mother and love
your neighbor as yourself.
The rich young man was adamant
that he had observed all these commandments; however he still knew
deep inside that something was still restraining him from having a
complete relationship with God.
“What do I still lack?” the young
rich man asked Jesus.
Upon hearing this Jesus replied:
“If you wish to be perfect go
sell all you have give to the poor and follow Me”
(Next, Christ made the statement,
“Its harder for a rich man to go to heaven than it is for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle”)
The disciples were quite taken
aback by this statement and began saying among themselves “Who then
can be saved?”
The advice Jesus gave that day to
that rich fellow does not just pertain to him alone - but to all who
call themselves Christians (people striving 24/7 to become like
Christ)
One of the greatest Christians of
all time lived 800 years ago. His name was Francis of Assisi (the
city of San Francisco was named after him, he was founder of the
Franciscan Order, plus he has many, many other outstanding spiritual
credentials far too lengthy to list here).
Francis of Assisi
took that advice of Jesus seriously and literally – in fact the Holy
Spirit specifically instructed him to make that spiritual directive
one of the pillars of the Order he founded. And,
as incredible as it may sound,
God gave him and his companions the same powerful anointing that He
gave the original Apostles and those of the first Church (with all
the miracles!). It was as though the glory of the apostolic age
returned anew!
Consequently, these men where
responsible for the greatest revival of the Middle Ages!
>Why not obtain and read this
spiritual classic, and check it out for yourself? “Little Flowers of
St. Francis” by Raphael Brown)
*Note: Of course people with
families must provide of their families so they can’t follow this
directive. Francis of Assisi and all his first companions were
single men and women so they could safely make that sacrifice
without jeopardizing the welfare of their families.
I am not attempting to glorify
myself. The only reason I am qualified to write on this
subject is because I also followed that directive of Christ myself;
thus I am speaking from real experience. When you walk the harder
road for God He floods you with revelation (as He did me).
God ordered me to follow this
directive of the Master - and I was never a rich man like that
fellow in the Bible, in fact I was poor. I did as the Master
advised and I have quite a personal testimony to share:
I was a full-time street minister
in the red-light district in Amsterdam, Holland. Since my financial
support was meager ($600/month), I was living homeless and using
this allotment for my food plus my ministry. When I received my last
allotment the Lord brought to my mind a chapter from that book on
the early Franciscan-Christians. In that chapter Brother Bernard
gleefully handed out his money in the town square. So, to make a
long story short I gleefully did something like that! Because
of my prompt obedience to a hard directive, the Lord shortly
thereafter blessed me big-time; I was raptured up to heaven for
perhaps ˝ minute!. (There’s no point me trying to describe heaven,
as it was blissful beyond anything the human mind could ever
conceive or believe. That is the reason I’d rather call it
‘Paradise’ instead.)
While in that heavenly abode, the
Lord revealed to me aspects of being “Poor in Spirit” (Blessed
are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven) that
the church does not understand. Additionally, the Lord personally
showed me precisely how to obtain the maximum spiritual benefit from
developing this virtue; Poor in Spirit. He showed me that by
developing this one virtue it’s a formula to attain Paradise! -
Just as Jesus stated!
I’m not speaking of attaining
Paradise after death, but instead, attaining paradise prior to
bodily death!! – Just by fully developing this one virtue!!! I’m
speaking of, as the Bible states, a route to become – MORE
THAN A CONQUEROR! This is a way to become a modern-day
Apostle (Christ said it is a way to perfection. He is the foremost
Spiritual authority - So why do we pick and choose when we believe
Him?)
Many people are poor – but that
is not the same as being poor in spirit. Being poor in spirit is
about developing greatfulness to God for everything in your life
(large, small, and insignificant!).
By living in extreme poverty on
the streets of Amsterdam Holland for the love of God for two full
years I personally experienced being ‘Poor in Spirit’. This is my
firm belief: None of the people who merely study it
understand the depths of it (I didn’t even come close, until I took
the plunge myself).
So how do we become poor in
spirit?
The key is deprivation.
For example, immediately after breaking a fast, food tastes
so precious - or immediately after one gets out of jail many kiss
the ground because they are so greatful for their new-found freedom.
Many Christians have never experienced what I am speaking of. For
those of us who have tasted this ‘extreme’ level of greatfulness to
God, sadly this bliss doesn’t last long. But, the Lord has taught
me a way to make these greatful feelings last! (That is a mystery
that the Lord wants me to keep secret and only divulge to those
persons who become homeless street ministers for a minimum of five
months time).
Again, experiencing this
DEPRIVATION is the key to becoming greatful to God for the
many, many, many small things in our daily lives that everyone takes
for granted. This is a big part of becoming “Poor in spirit”. Poor
in spirit also means to have a humble-spirit.
Life is not full of big flashy
miracles, rather its full of small ordinary, unexciting things. If
you learn to become greatful to God for these countless small
things, you begin to see the hand of the Divine in them. Thus, you
become spiritually rich!
Here is a true example of being
Poor in Spirit: When I was in Amsterdam, a certain member of the
Church of Christ named Eric kindly invited me out to lunch. Since I
was homeless and financially destitute (I ate most of my meals out
of the garbage - since Amsterdam is a tourist city the food in the
garbage is still fresh; safe), Eric kindly bought me a plate of rice
and vegetables. While he was busy trying to talk to me about
attending his Bible studies, I was in a rapture over this great
feast that was on the table in front of me – the rice and
vegetables! As he was witnessing to me the Holy Spirit had me say
(speaking of myself), “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven”. Shockingly, he was blind to my bliss
- he was self-absorbed in his own thoughts! Just because we have
studied something, we assume that we understand, but often we do
not! {The 13th century Franciscan Brother Giles stated:
“A man is only as wise as the truth he puts into practice, and no
more.”}
Abandoning my money (my security
blanket) in Amsterdam did a tremendous amount of good for my soul -
more than words can adequately describe. It was so powerful it was
just like being born again. . . for a second time!
If you have bills to pay or a
family to support then poverty can be a curse because of all the
worry it brings (worrying is one of the cares of the world).
But if for God’s sake you go
homeless there is no more financial worry! Then this ‘poverty’
becomes a priceless spiritual adventure. It becomes as St. Francis
coined it, ‘Holy-poverty’. Doing Holy-Poverty in the streets is more
exalted than living it as monks do in monasteries.
In the early days of the
Franciscan Order they had few places. During their frequent
preaching tours, they as the Gospels dictate, took nothing
for their journey, neither staff, nor wallet, nor bread, nor
money - and trusted God to
supply all their needs.
The path to Paradise is the path
of self-negation (dissolving oneself), for God’s sake {Paul said,
“I must decrease and He must increase”}. Voluntary-Poverty
(Holy-Poverty) is self-negation! My experience is that when one
reaches a certain advanced point in this self-negation process your
life becomes a sacred ‘Play of Consciousness’; you enter into the
realm of miracles. Why? God has increased greatly because you have
dissolved yourself for His sake. Please take the time to ponder what
has just been said.
Additionally, by walking this
path you become the “least of them”, and thus you see through the
eyes of the least of them. What you see is that almost all
Christians are walking in pride and thus are blind to most of the
suffering of the people that God puts in their life. They may speak
eloquently and appear spiritual because of their knowledge of the
scriptures, but since they lack real humility it impedes their
fulfilling the commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself” which
is one of the main reasons of our learning of the scripture
knowledge to begin with!
Voluntarily becoming the least of
them for God’s sake is a sacred undertaking as ‘the least of them’
is connected with real humility, need I say more?
Plus, on this path you suffer far
more than one who lives a conventional lifestyle. All the suffering
that you endure walking this road becomes suffering for the faith!
(Also, asceticism was one facet
of the early-Franciscan’s secret to sanctity. A more important
facet was that they were masters at the art of humiliating
themselves. They would do things like go out in public looking
despicable, just to get mocked! (Remember, the cross of Christ
involved both humiliation and suffering. The gospel
directs us to be ‘partakers in the sufferings of Christ.’ -
“Those who suffer with Him will glorified with Him”. . .
suffering and humiliation and two different sides of that same
coin!)
If one lives a life of humble
service for many years, this lifestyle gradually makes the soul
humble and pure. The good that takes many years of humility to
accomplish for the soul, through humiliation this can be
accomplished in but a handful of months! In other words,
humiliation is the fast tract to attain humility. . . with
all its spiritual benefits! Why is this so?? Because humiliation is
far lower than humility! Aren’t I making sense? For example, if one
athlete works out with heavier weights that athlete will get
stronger faster than another who works out with lighter weights. For
this same reason practicing humiliations is a far more powerful
sanctification tool than is humility. Understand?
There is more that I could tell
you but that would be contrary to the Divine will. This is one of
God’s mystery books.
These deep things of the faith
are precious to the heart of the Father and are only reserved for
those who love Him enough to make the leap of faith. That was the
Master’s intention from the very beginning. That is the reason He
merely tells you what to do, but says no more about it. To learn
more you are expected to pay the entrance fee - to make the
sacrifice.
Also, if a person renounces all
visible means of support and places their full trust in God (living
by Divine Providence > DP), that person’s virtue of faith has got to
improve.
Shockingly, I’ve discovered that
many homeless people have more faith in God than Christians who
regularly attend Church, for the simple reason that homeless people
are poor and naked before the Lord. As a consequence of this, they
are forced to depend on the Lord. Since they are forced to exercise
their faith, they develop and strengthen it! Thus, many of them
have a greater faith in God to provide for them, than the church
people do!
Love of God is one virtue; faith
in God is a completely different virtue. To develop the virtue of
faith - it is akin to learning a totally different language.
One can’t understand the deep
things of God without personal experience. Without personal
experience parts of the word of God are misunderstood, and in turn
this misunderstanding is taught in Bible studies, until this
misunderstanding becomes institutionalized! Then we have perversion
of the Holy-Way – not good at all!
“BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO SUFFER FOR
RIGHTEOUSNESS SAKE AS THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN”
“Suffering for righteousness
sake” as Paul did, is yet a different path to Paradise! For that
reason towards the end of his ministry Paul proclaimed, “Oh death
where is thy sting!” His reason for making this statement is because
since he was already residing in Paradise - how could death touch
him? (I understand this Bible verse because of my experience living
in holy-poverty)
The first Church received their
glory because of the radiance of the Apostles (who experienced the
close association with Jesus for three years), plus the radiance all
those Believers who where baptized by fire on the day of
Pentecost. Additionally, that church was birthed in an environment
of persecution. All these factors illumined the first Church.
The persecuted church of today
(China, Muslim countries), earn their glory because of the hostile
environments they are raised up in. The early Franciscans, who had
achieved comparable glory, paid for their blessing through
Holy-Poverty, practicing the art of humiliation, asceticism, and
other things.
For our church of today to
inherit the tremendous good that God desires to give us, we will
have to pay a price for it, just like the others paid. A price
greater than studying and debating - a price in suffering! Once you
start tasting the glory and the honor of working closely with God
you will not mind so much walking the hard road. . . this is my
experience.
Sadly, many Christian disciples
in our society are in the eyes of God like a sounding brass or
tinkling cymbal. On account of their scripture knowledge they
have an amazing eloquence while uttering heavenly words. They even
beget great multitudes of spiritual offspring by showing to others
the fountain of life. But since many don’t practice what they
preach, and hardly anyone suffers for the cross (since they don’t
witness to the lost), they themselves are arid within (but as this
is all they have experienced, they think this spiritual state is
normal!). Thus sadly they have the glorious words, but not the
spirit. This is the case because they live off too much milk and not
enough meat – walking the easy road too much. They are a people of
the mind (studying and discussing), not people of the heart
(fruitful in good works). After all, God is love and love is verb
(a doing word!).
Speaking of Holy-Poverty somebody
once asked me the reason that the first church did not do such
things. The Lord gave me the answer to that question. When Jesus
spoke on this topic it was never a command, it was a
holy-option. >“If you wish to be perfect. . .
“. Now, since I know myself, I know everyone else as well. We
humans tend to pick the easy road / the least painful road to
achieve an end. Therefore, the early church members bypassed
this advice (because it was never a commandment!). Additionally,
since at that time the Gospels were brand new to the world these
disciples had their hands full just getting the word out.
Twelve hundred years after the
first Church, Francis of Assisi came along. When people first
requested to follow this holy man, the Holy Spirit specifically
instructed him to make that directive one of the pillars of his
Order.
Mainly on account of them obeying
this one spiritual directive, many of them became spiritual giants,
not unlike the original Apostles and Saints of the first church.
Again, as a consequence of these men paying this greater price they
were responsible for the greatest spiritual revival of the Middle
Ages! The persecuted church of today earns their glory because it
exists in a hostile environment. Our Church in the west doesn’t have
that special blessing of the first, nor do they live in a hostile
environment like the second. Thus for us to acquire that glory we
must pay an additional price for it, just like the early Franciscans
did.
*The Almighty One gave me a
sacred blueprint concerning the resurrection of our modern-day
Church! (That is the motive behind the creation of this
essay. . . to prepare you to receive this
New Creative Thing of
God.
Also, you ought to be able to see
that my experience following this one spiritual directive had a
domino-like effect in my life. It has far-reaching implications in
many aspects of one's spiritual walk (humility, faith, compassion).
In the eyes of our Creator, one
quality disciple is of far greater value than a large number of
average disciples. Some examples of quality disciples in this
century: Mother Teresa, Richard Wurmbrandt - author of ‘Tortured for
Christ, and Cory Tem Boom (Holland).
Many sincere disciples may argue
against Holy-Poverty by saying, “It’s important that we have
finances or how can we support missions and help those in need?”
Great question! My answer to this question is that if you have a
family to provide for that takes money, no question about it! Also
having spare cash allows you to practice generosity. Generosity
is something very great.
But on the other hand, there is
an extremely spiritually damaging side to having money in your
pocket, something that probably never occurred to you prior to you
reading this essay.
Money and what it
can provide, insulates us from becoming poor and naked before the
Lord. It insulates us from experiencing deprivation, from suffering,
and having to exercise our faith (you need to exercise it to develop
it). Thereby having money can inhibit us from developing real
humility, far more compassion for the suffering, real faith, and
deepening our relationship with God.
For reasons such as these, all
societies with Christian roots saw it important to inscribe on their
money “In God we trust”. From the beginning they realized the great
spiritual danger on how having money tends to rob our faith in the
Lord. You’ve never thought about this because you have depended on
the present money system more than faith in God. I never thought
about this either until I went on DP and tried to live without
money!
Living on Divine Providence (DP)
with scant or no money has taught me to be greatful to God for the
smallest and seemingly most insignificant things (that’s a big part
of becoming ‘Poor in Spirit’).
Additionally, it helped me to
develop faith in God as the provider for ALL MY NEEDS (real
faith!).
So here is the million dollar
question:
How can we as
spiritual people glean the benefits of both worlds (having money to
share with the Church and with those in need - being generous),
without the spiritual downside?
To fully understand what I have
been exhorting it’s essential to experience for yourself living
homeless and without resources coming in for say - 5 consecutive
months. Being a homeless street evangelist in a city where the
streets are ‘brimming with people’ is an excellent place to
experience this - that was my path. Please also note that this does
not have to be a life-long commitment, any time you spend living on
DP will benefit you. You can always go back to a conventional
lifestyle if your personal circumstances merit it.
Please understand that this “Poor
in Spirit” concept is another important but almost universally
overlooked aspect of Christianity. Again, this is something that
many, many homeless people taste - but on account of their partaking
in vices and sinful living, the light that they accrue gets lost. In
other words, because of their sinful ways they can’t retain the oil
in their lamp!
God insists that I state this:
HIS HOLY WORD MUST BE RESTORED!
The Church must restore the Word by teaching this as a ‘Holy-option’.
That way zealous disciples are taught a straightforward path to
rapidly attain their full spiritual potential - their spiritual
dreams! This is the will of God!
Living in Holy
Poverty in the streets of Amsterdam gave me truly unspeakable joy! I
will not tell you all the reasons; I merely want to give you a
taste. A big reason for this incredible joy was my extreme
deprivation and I was given new ‘eyes that can see’. I recognized
the hand of the Divine in the seemingly most insignificant things -
whether it was half of piece of pizza I found on the ground for my
lunch, or a new plastic bag I needed to carry my belongings! On
account of the new me I was often laughing so hard at myself - and
this laughing at myself was breaking up the hardness within my heart
from sinful living in my past; this laughing at myself was making me
free within! At that time if you saw me doing my ‘street antics’ you
might think I was drunk on liquor – but I was drunk on the Spirit! I
might be eating out of the garbage and praising God loudly for His
goodness - in front of people eating at a sidewalk café – This odd
scene would naturally captivate their attention. An obviously
poverty-stricken man eating out the garbage who has a far higher
level of joy than any of them! Since I am obviously
poverty-stricken, far more joyful than them, and praising God for
His goodness, it’s obvious that this joy doesn’t come from material
comfort, but from Above!
Sermons would often
commence after these praising sessions: “It’s not how much that
we have that makes us inwardly rich, but it is how greatful we are
to God for the things that we are blessed with!” Then, I might
preach on how the purpose of life is develop love of God and to live
a life of goodness - instead of just living for ourselves and our
families. . . trying to love even those who are not in our family as
though they were…..this is the path to eternal life!”
This is one example of a ‘Fool for God’ witness! Witnesses such as
this stick in people’s minds - and what’s more, the Lord has a
special love for them! When you perform antics such as this you
become a clown in the royal court! God enjoys spiritual comedy!
The only thing
that distracted me from this heavenly state that I had attained was
my own carnal desires for women. I am 100% convinced that in order
to obtain ‘Heaven while living’ one has to become 100% selfless,
selfish desire will keep you out.
God desires to do a
new thing on an international scale – something that will result in
a mega spiritual revival! You may have noticed that the Holy Spirit
has been speaking about it lately. Themes such as ‘Carry your own
Cross’ and ‘24/7 Christianity’ have been popular sermons at a lot of
churches. In these end-times God wants to restore within the Church
the glory that the early Franciscans and the first Church possessed.
(Additionally, within this design is a most creative plan
incorporating state-of-the-art evangelism techniques!) The outcome
of this will be to inspire the entire Church to fervency . . . just
as the Franciscans did in their day!
Also, the Lord intends to
use us to present to the world a new, alternative type of Martyr on
a worldwide scale. God wants to create a living Martyr. A living
Martyr is someone who walks the hard road for God’s sake on a daily
fairly continuous basis (doing street ministry). There is too much
to tell in this one brief essay!
What I am speaking of is so
spiritually significant that this entire document should be full of
these exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you desire to do something
super-important in your life for God, the entire Church, and the
world then by all means ask me! (via e-mail) to unveil this
blue-print to you. Then you will see for yourself whether or not
this is worthy of your time and energies! I am but one voice crying
in the wilderness. I am a person who has been entrusted with sacred
things of God and I need assistance! Haven’t you ever dreamed of
doing something super important for God? Here is an opportunity!
Sincerely, Daniel Rosenblit
Copyright 2004, All rights
reserved
Email:
spiritualrevolution2005@hotmail.com
