Lifting Your Sails to the Wind of Heaven
6/27/2024
a collection of recent conversations...
The Comfort in Uncomfortableness
7/2/2024
Our Goal--BE Who He Is
It is hard to articulate just how encouraging Jesus Christ in All His Fullness is. When someone said, “He sees the End at the beginning” and “You’ve made it”…. My eyes filled with tears. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I’ve allowed this thing in myself that says, “There’s always that risk that I’ll get off track, that I can’t grow as much as others, that the work is too hard for a lazy person like me, etc. etc. etc. lie, lie, lie.” Those are lies. And I believe that I will embrace Jesus on that day knowing that He was my Life, from beginning to End. And believing that and knowing that changes everything between now and then. Those fears will undercut the Good He wants to do and possibly become their own self-fulfilling prophecy.
One part that meant a lot to me was:
"The faith the Father is speaking from through His Son is that He knows the end as the beginning. It’s clear in His mind, and He’s actually trying to pass on a confidence to us that we won’t measure ourselves by how we feel or perform. There’s something bigger than that going on! If you have ears to hear, understand this: Jesus’ commitment to you is more real than your current introspection.”
The Father’s every hope and every dream have been fulfilled in you, as you believe on the One He has sent. Jesus is the Way.
“Am I going to make it?”
“Did Jesus make it?”
“I made it! I made it!” Can you believe that? Can you look into the Father’s eye and say, “I made it!” Or are you busy looking at yourself, not believing what God has said and kicking in the dirt, asking, “Am I going to make it or not? I don’t know. I wonder if I can?”
Don’t live that way! God will love you anyway, but He doesn’t want you to live a frustrated, miserable, low life. So don’t!
And while you are at it, “Encourage one another with these words.”
I love that Christianity is RELATIONAL, not conceptual. It is for people who WANT to BE like Christ in every aspect of their life.
7/3/2024 - 7/7/2024
Deal With Your Flesh
No matter what the topic is, when I feel my flesh’s motor running, I need to STOP it because it is an indicator that I have stepped out of any relationship with Jesus in that moment. The double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
I need to recognize it like I do when a car cuts in front of me. If I feel my temperature rise, there’s something wrong with my day. It’s not “really” about someone else's driving at all. If I have an emotional buzz or am emotionally disconcerted by it, then I have a problem with my flesh that I need to deal with.
If I lash out or react, then I need to pause and retrace my steps and find out where I went wrong in my day.
The double-minded man or woman is unstable in ALL his ways.
We can’t grow if we don’t take responsibility for our motor.
Learn how to discern. Learn to discern your spirit feeling guilt or shame about your motor running without your mind justifying it! Learn how to recognize the motor, the buzz.
It’s not about what you do and don’t do. You may not figure all that out, and your brain will always try to fool you to justify, or compare, or trivialize. That’s X-Y stuff.
But LIFE IN JESUS is about dealing with your flesh in order to find the Z-axis.18:08 p.m.
Pneuma--Taking that Deep Royal Breath
I had something related to this come up today. Some little stupid thing invoked a response of frustration. As I retraced my steps I couldn't quite see "where I went wrong with my day." But I did recognize the frustration as OFF course, and I saw it as my moment to step back, reckon my 100 in Christ, and take a deep breath of pneuma to get back to the z-axis.
As I was choosing to remember that I was already complete and had my 100 in Christ, and that when the Father looks at me He sees His Son, I noticed that I felt Royal. So then acting Royal was the natural response.
As I shared what I was experiencing as I walked along the way, even more came to Light for me... Here is a recording of a conversation about that.
Letting Go of the Natural
It is becoming more and more clear every day HOW dealing with our flesh has to do with being Led by His Spirit and finding the Z-axis. It is not an eyes down XY "I have to deal with my flesh."
"I have to find the Z-axis instead."
"Z-axis, where are you? Come out, come out wherever you are."
No! It is simply a turning away from that flesh, that natural man, and turning to my Man, Jesus, who I let live and Reign in me. The natural isn't worth anything. The natural is XY axis. Once Jesus comes to live inside, we don't live according to the natural anymore. The natural counts for NOTHING. This is what CHRISTIANITY IS: Crucifying one life, the natural life... to have the other, His supernatural Life.
I read this Oswald Chambers quote again recently.
“...the only basis of the spiritual is the SACRIFICE OF THE NATURAL. The natural life is neither moral nor immoral. I make it moral or immoral by my choices—what I allow to rule my mind, my emotions, my affections and friendships, my eyes, my desires and dreams and ambitions. Jesus teaches that THE NATURAL LIFE IS MEANT FOR SACRIFICE. We can give it as a gift to God, which is THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE IT SPIRITUAL (see Rom. 12:1-2).... If you are going to be spiritual, you must barter or trade the natural for the Spiritual; sacrifice it.... It is not punishment, but an eternal principle.
Spirituality is not a sweet tendency towards piety in people who have not enough life in them to be bad; Spirituality is the possession of the Life of God that is mighty in its strength, and He will make Spiritual the most corrupt, twisted, sin-stained life if He be obeyed. Obedience is strong and fierce, and the man or woman who is going to be obedient for Jesus Christ’s sake has a gloriously sterling Life ahead.
When Jesus Christ has miraculously altered our disposition by enduing us with His very Life, one still must bring the body into harmony with the new disposition of God within and “a New Creation.” We must now yield to Him, His Ways, His Voice in order to explore and experience the Fullness of “this New Life”—“Rivers of Alive Water.” We may now cause our minds to Live IN Him, rather than FOR Him, simply. It is now available to us that we may yield our hearts and minds and bodies to His Invasion of Love and Liberty. This is the Freedom to LIVE, not a burden to bear. His Ways are Right, and His Outcome sound and full! In so yielding the natural and crucifying what the world (and even the mere religious) finds acceptable—we may “exercise” the new disposition “unto godliness.” Trust the Messiah...
This is pure Christianity. There is not another kind of Christianity. It is XY vs Z. Natural vs Supernatural. Our life vs HIS LIFE.
This was cracking me up yesterday morning (see video below). Ha! Like we are supposed to TRUST anything from our natural man as "valid"? Do we need more proof than this that our little ole flesh tendencies or skills or bright ideas are of no value? Good or Evil. Look at them! Same EXACT situations in the same 16 hour period. Yet such strong opinions and perspectives "right out of the box." Is one perspective "right" or "good" or pleasing to God? No. It's ALL just natural man stuff birthed between their ears or emotions—until it's not. Until His pneuma, that Wind of Heaven takes us to a whole OTHER dimension. His AIR is the only air I want to breathe!
1In this conversation, the XY-axis versus the Z-axis is being used as an illustration of the difference between eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil vs eating of the Tree of Life. XY-axis living is a “flat” natural living of good vs evil. Z-axis is a supernatural Zoe life in Jesus. Back
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