This week, i felt like writing on small tablets, little teaching seeds, that are easy to run with. Hopefully they will be like a little sunflower seed packet for others who are on the go. Be blessed.
So, here are some little tablets to run with- speed teachings for those with spiritual ADD. Little seeds can still grow big plants, or even trees. I’m practicing condensation this week! Do more with less!
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Soil, Sight and Skin are three neglected areas of His Lordship. Our relation to the earth, our imaginations, and our physical bodies are all places of meeting and knowing Our Lord.
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Creativity is meant to flow from core true identity. Culture flows from identity.
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Identity is hidden in Christ, and therefore eternal. He shows us who we are as we lean into Him. Both our names and our paths are in Christ. He protects and nurtures both. The streams of who we are in Him are trustworthy because of who He is. We are not broken lines in Him. We are not crazy in Christ. We are known seen and loved. Psalm 139—search me and know me. Ephesians 2:10—we are His masterpiece poems. He who made us know us, and can reveal us to ourselves, and share us with others for His Purposes and pleasure. Trust that your identity is held in Him, even when you cannot see the whole narrative yet. He is writing you, and you get to collaborate.
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An elder is never worried, but concerned. They know the Father, therefore are in His Peace, even in the midst or clear site of suffering and grief. Elders are commended for knowing The Father. When young we are commended for overcoming or for righteously reacting. In youth, we are defined by what we push against. Elders are no longer pushing against. They simply rest in His I-AM-ness. There is still sadness, but more trust and less rush. Restlessness is worthless to an elder. They have given themselves to the Father, and so become shade for others.
One of the occupations of an elder is to be thankful. Trust breeds thanks.
Elders are also comfortable not knowing everything, but resting in God. So seeming paradoxes don’t bother them as much. Some things just trail into mystery, and they are ok with that. Not everything must be black and white or fully known. For they know the Knower. They lean less on their own understanding, and move from their own best ideas, into trusting His. They have already committed intellectual suicide.
They are no longer being formed in reaction or by pushing against or competition. But are defined rather by being in His Being. They are no longer threatened that His Thoughts and Ways are higher a bigger than their own. In short, they trust God.
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The chain of communication. From Father to Son, to Spirit, to revelation to our spirit, down into our soul. Our spirit is higher than our soul, and is in charge of our soul and body. Our spirits should be leading, as they are led by His Spirit through the scriptures and The Holy Spirit. Through HIs Spirit we are led to The Son, and through the Son into The Father. That’s the heavenly hierarchy. There is a hierarchy in the Kingdom. For there is a King who is in charge and above every other name. Spiritual things are discerned spiritually! That is by our spirit talking to His Spirit. We cannot discern by the soul. When we are soul led, we are idolatrous. To lift the soul above the spirit is to raise an idol.
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We need to be in God, in order to deliver His Messages. God is One, and wants to be represented as whole. We go up the mountain, and draw very close. Then, if He sends us down into the valley, we stay in Him, and deliver what He has told us, in His Tone. That’s prophetic spirituality. To be close friends with God is more important than doing things for God. We are ones who instead prioritize being with God. God can use a donkey to prophecy. But if we have a spirituality of friendship with God, we may be useful to others. And have His prophetic orientation towards others and the world.
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What we will be has not fully been revealed but is already in Him. The way to know yourself is to know God. We lose ourselves-our versions of ourselves-in order to find our true names in Him. We die daily to the false versions of ourselves, to live in our new creation selves. We reject the streams of accusations and enter into the streams of intercession. This is our hourly practice. This is applying the Cross in the area of identity. We confess, thank and get true revelations of who we really are in Him. We then seek to live from our true selves. Then we are able to truly lay down our lives for others. Jesus knew who He was when He endured the Cross. He knew what He was laying down. He was not victimized by the Cross. We should choose to take up our crosses also. But we need to know who we are while doing so, so that we are truly laying down our lives for others. The apostles knew themselves, because God had revealed it to them. So should we.
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The spiritually mature are slower to speak, and quicker to listen in Love. They are less loud and more comfortable in His Silence. The Silent Being of The Father. The secret place of the Most High. Elders reside in the I Am-ness of God.
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Deeper sanctification includes getting Christ into the whole self. So that He and our true selves are co-ruling within. A deeper embodiment of the Life of Christ is the spiritual journey for us all. The further He comes in, the more I am my true self. Sometimes, we need practices which help us let Him in. That’s our part of working out our salvation. We learn to progressively yield more and more of our lives into His.
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Some are in healing seasons, and just need to meet Him working through the grief, necessary confession and forgivingness, and transparency in order to get less opaque. In order to come clear. We meet Him where we are meant to meet Him each new season. If we are in denial, we are unable to confess, grieve and let Him in. This stunts spiritual growth. Confess constantly is what John is teaching in his first letter. He is faithful to guide us to areas in ourselves which still need healing. And He is The Healer, and will make us whole in that area. He who started a good work in you, is able to walk it out into completion! He is faithful.
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Knowing what season you are in matters. We need spiritual maps to know where we are in Life, and where He wants to meet us. What is He forming in you now? What part of His Life is He grafting into yours at this moment. We need that GPS to know where we are in Him. Where is He discipling you and how. This is another way of getting to appreciate how Great He truly is. Trust that process. There are lots of good spiritual growth maps stated and implied in scripture.
The whole journey of Israel is one: from slavery, to wilderness refining and training, to the great equipping of Sinai with His Law (growing in knowledge of His Ways), to crossing over and co-reigning through possessing, occupying and cultivating the lands of your spiritual inheritance.
There is an order to occupying each city, and particular enemies revealed in the book of Joshua. Each city (or part of self, area of life etc) had a way God was taking it, and a particular enemy to overthrow. The whole book is a prophetic map of spiritual growth on one level.
Other basic models are John’s blessings of youth for overcoming, and elders for knowing The Father.
When young, we claim the word and do battle to know Him. There is a blessing in doing that well given by John. As older ones, we are blessed for knowing God, and resting in His Nature. This offers clues as to what the trajectory of spiritual growth is meant to look like. It heads towards rest in The Father.
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We cannot take land outside ourselves if He has not already taken that land within us! To the degree He has, we will have authority to bless others in that area.
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The basic foundations to a theology of the arts are: God is One; Jesus is Lord over every area of Reality, including the arts and imagination; God loves the whole person, including their creativity. The rest are footnotes. The God who is One desires to meet and love, call forth, bless and be Lord over, every area of our lives. He loves our whole being, so wants to meet us in our creativity. He is the Father of the arts.
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The Lordship of Jesus over every area of Reality, frees us up to bring His Kingdom into whatever our sphere of influence is on earth. We are no longer divided into sacred and profane. He is One, and is making us one integrated expression. We are free to bring Him wherever He leads us. This is liberating knowledge. In this sense our ultimate calling is to become our true selves in Christ, and walk on the paths He has prepared beforehand to be our way! (Ephesians 2:10) He is already there, when we get there! He is with our future selves, forming Himself in us. We continuously transform as we walk with Him through time. He is Lord over the past, present and future. The Alpha and Omega. So we are free to grow, and go wherever in Him.
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Freedom is among other things, correct interpretation! If we interpret our situation from His Perspective we remain free regardless of our circumstances. This is the spiritual contentment which St Paul wrote about. He had learned to be free in every situation whether he had or didn’t have, whether rich or poor, in prison or walking around in the marketplace. He had learned the secret of spiritual contentment-to be in Christ. Freedom involves seeing things and understanding them from His Perspective. This occurs through prayer mostly. When Paul said to pray without ceasing, he was talking about an orientation of being with God in whatever you are doing. This is a freedom practice. It is the walk of faith into freedom.
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Performance orientation towards God is deadly. So is spiritual perfectionism. The first resides in the stream of lies about God not approving or really loving us, unless we perform well. In truth, we are simply “included in the Beloved” despite ourselves.The second puts our own soul attempts to do things perfect above His Grace and actual Presence. They both choke the spirit’s growth. Both have to be daily dislodged by His Cross actively. Put to death. We are responsible to be collaborators in working out our salvation; but we can’t perform our way into approval by God. He accomplished this through His Son. His Son is the only Perfect one. Let’s let ourselves off these unnecessary and crippling hooks.
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The Bible is primarily a place to meet God. Scriptures contain the categories He chose to reveal Himself in. The book itself is meant to be a place of meeting the Living Word. Letter and spirit ignite the pages! When we meet God there, everything is illuminated! The book needs to become a book in Him for us, in order to understand it. We sit with Him as we read and meditate. We encounter new nuances of Him. It is not just from Him, it is in Him. It is a medium He offered to touch Him through, to come to know and love Him more, to commune through. That’s how to read it, and then it opens up to us and transforms us. Be in love with the One who is in the book with us! Some don’t love the bible, others have idolized it by separating it from Him Himself, but once we meet God through it, we will be lovers of The Word through the word!
