Old manna

Old Manna

God rains manna down every morning. It?s your sustenance. You are in a desert. You live in a tent. Here today, somewhere else tomorrow. No attachments. No seed to plant. Even if you had seed to plant you can?t plant it in the desert. Can?t water it. Even if you could water it, tomorrow you?ll be somewhere else. Never get back for harvest. You are in a desert, for God?s sake! . . . And you?re just passin through.
.A. . . in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, What is it? for they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.
This is what the Lord has commanded: Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent. The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little.
And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed.
Then Moses said to them, No one is to keep any of it until morning.
However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell.

You can only gather manna in the morning (fresh). You must eat it the same day. If you store it up it will become full of maggots and stink.
AI am the bread from heaven, Jesus says. Present-tense. I am is a state of spiritual prosperity. I will be is a state of desperate spiritual poverty.
Would Jesus ever have said something like, I will be the bread of heaven when my words are written down and canonized at some future time?
Hell no!
I am, the bread from heaven. I speak. You eat. Present tense. New! Fresh! You can?t gain an ounce of spiritual nutrition from old manna. You must gather the bread from heaven fresh every morning.
Our bodily food is changed into us, but our spiritual food changes us into itself. (Meister Eckhart)
Never bag up a few favorite verses and preserve them for tomorrow. Eat them today and forget them tomorrow. Yesterdays spiritual nutrients cannot satisfy you today. Cast out all that?s left of yesterday?s manna. Now! Run like hell away from anyone teaching you to store up a right theology! There is no right theology! None! Run away as fast as you can and you might be fortunate enough to wake up in the morning with a mind that knows nothing.
You are the bread from heaven. I am the bread from heaven. Those who have the bread to give are those who wake up every morning with nothing. Yesterday?s revelation was for yesterday. Today?s revelation is for today. Be like a child. Let all things be new every morning.

Look at it this way, if you dare. Luther?s fresh revelation led to the protestant movement. What a enormous blessing Luther?s manna was to the world! Unfortunately he, or his disciples, organized Luther?s manna and preserved it another day, then another, then another . . . until now. That damned manna is over four hundred years old. Talk about maggots!
Luther?s revelation became Lutheranism, just as John Wesley?s revelation became Methodism. And so it goes.
One morning in 1904, or there about, Pentecost manna fell. It was fresh. It was life giving. It was spiritually nutritious. It was wonderful! Unfortunately, within a short time five or ten Pentecostal denominations appeared, each with their own preserved manna. Now Pentecostalism is cursed with an almost endless variety of self-righteous doctrinesCmanna filled with maggots. If one dares take a whiff one discovers a stink that reaches from earth to heaven.
What is fresh today will be full of maggots tomorrow.
Quit storing up those little bags of Bible verse and hanging it around the necks of your children and grandchildren. You?re making them carry around a burden that you yourself can?t carry. Quit saying, You must read the statement of faith, my dear child. Swear to it. Your forefathers gave it to us. Blessed us with it. Do we know more than they did? Do we presume to be smarter than they were? Have we more revelation than they had? Besides, my dear child, we don?t want to go to hell for believing the wrong stuff. We want God to like us and take us to heaven. Don?t we, honey.
Gimme a break!
If you want to be a good parent, set your children free. Teach them to be open minded, free spirited. Teach them to think for themselves. You?re killing their spirits feeding them that rotten manna filled with worms.
But, it?s the truth, you say.

Who told you it?s the truth? Your father? Your grandfather? Your Pastor? The kindly old deacon?
Perhaps you think because I castigated Paul earlier for creating the ground for modern dogmatic conservatism I would never quote him at all. Wrong!
He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the LETTER KILLS, but the Spirit GIVES LIFE.
What is written, memorized, and quoted as righteous doctrine kills. What is uttered by the Spirit fresh daily lives. It is as simple as that.
Here you might be asking, How am I killed by the letter? After all, I?m a convinced doctrinal member of my church and I?m still breathing?
Without a constant fresh flow of Word, the souls of listeners grow weak and sick, giving way to enormous religious egos and self righteous wars. The letter kills!
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, with unveiled faces (no preconceived ideology or doctrine) all reflect the Lord?s glory, and we are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
So, what do we do? Do we drag our children before the dogma kings and demand them to worship revelation that has been passed from earlier generations.

Hell no!

You must be free to see!

Bob Hinkle

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