Forgive my acronym (baptist background), but sometimes mnemonic devices help me remember what I know.
Here are three basic conditions for God to enter into any situation, including the situation of identity, or who we are personally and collectively: that we be holy, united and burdened.
Of course, He makes us ripe for all three of these characteristics of His, by Grace. We do not get holy, united and burdened by works (religion), but by His impartation! And, i think, by request and desire for them!
Holiness speaks of purity, wholeness, and being in the sanctification (sanctify comes from the same root word) process in every area of our lives (being made whole, even as He is whole…). And praying for His wholeness and purity of being, to enter every area of Reality around us-our neighborhoods, cities and nations. Isn’t this what praying for our neighborhoods and cities really is–to “pray-in” His Holiness. A pure expression is holy. God, uninterrupted, in His creation would be the ultimate holy expression of Himself. This is what it will be like when His Kingdom has fully come. This is what we are partnering with Him in birthing on the earth. And this desire for holiness is one aspect of the mandate to cultivate the earth and cause it to be fruitful, and to multiply after its own kind. To reproduce Him, and in doing so, make everything whole and fruitful.
United, speaks of integration of all the parts of self, as well as between people and parts of the Church and society as a whole.To bring together the parts, to reconcile them into one whole, united expression as symbolized by the reconstruction of the wall around Jerusalem, in Nehemiah’s time. Nations, and people, struggle to be unified in purpose, because there is a specific warfare set against all unified expressions.
And yet, it is our destiny to be unified! It is His unification of the city of God within us, as well as in this world, that this area imparts a passion for. This includes, and perhaps incites, our intercessions for the unity of His Church–His mystical Body with her many parts, members or aspects, as well as our cities and our nations. What happens in us by His Spirit, effects the whole-the micro effects and models the macro! If we can allow Him to model unification within us, we are able to minister unity outside of ourselves, and thus, to become agents and models of reconciliation–between man and woman, races, nations, denominations, generations etc…
Burdened, speaks of communion and co-labor with Jesus, earnestly expecting, and holding on, or carrying with Him, the concerns of His Heart. “Burden” touches on spiritual intimacy and empathy with Jesus as He carries the weight of the world daily in His actions of prayer. His burden, not ours, begins to emerge in us, as we conjoin with Him in prayer. Through His prayer life, His Kingdom presses into every area of ourselves, and all of Reality. We join Him in the efficacy of His prayer life–even for us personally! We, as His partners, channel this spiritual highway or pathway of His prayers into this world! We get to co-priest with Him! Again, firstly we experience this within ourselves, and then out into our society, our nation, the planet etc. His/our burden for the Kingdom to come–that yearning in faith into the full incarnation of His Kingdom is our birthright as believers in what He is, and is doing. We are, by spiritual birth, burdened with what He is carrying and concerned about!
We are given His burden for His full formation/incarnation (that we, and they, would be baptized fully into His Name!) into His Creation. We begin to be burdened for our own wholeness, then burdened with His concern for the church, our cities and nations; burdened that His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven-in us, and in the world!
These three are the normal state-or spiritual modus operandi-of every believer. We are to be entering into deeper experiential depths in each of these areas daily. That is living near the Cross. That is the ongoing becoming, of life in Christ. That is our orientation towards life, as brothers and sisters, lovers, and brides-to-be of Jesus, and as sons and daughters of God, The Father. Blessings as we all press further into these three areas of His Being! Let’s manifest this on earth as it is in heaven! Why not? For, He is able to form these parts of Himself in us!
