Living Loved

I mentioned to a friend I bumped into the other day as I was out for my morning walk around the river, its truly amazing as we continue to be awakened to the incredible reality that God emphatically does love us and really likes and enjoys our company.

The infusion of His love awakens our senses to things of such intense wonder and beauty that were there all of the time but sadly missed.
I am finding that I no longer need for God to do something supernatural to make others aware that He does exist. I continue to revel in the sobering and yet intoxicating infusion of his unconditional love, which frees me to be as he was in this world, one more time all over again God touching caring for this world of people living and breathing and loving through me.


Rich

The Naturalness of Living Supernaturally

These scriptures precede the following thoughts, they are here in 2 Kings 2:3, 5, 7, 14, 15-16; 4:38-41; 6:1-7, and Romans 8:20-25, 1-2, 6.

Its interesting how many of us can see so clearly one moment (day) and the next, seemingly forget any and all that we were so certain of before.
So many of my (our) perceptions are founded upon our natural perception of reality, perhaps a “reality” based solely upon the natural senses, and as God says, the natural man detests rejects that which is spiritual, or, he cannot receive that which would open up before him a whole new reality of endless possibilities.

I so appreciate the following thoughts here from T.A. Sparks, I trust you will like wise be richly encouraged.

Rich

We pass from Romans to Corinthians: "Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged." That is death: and when we try to handle, analyze, pierce through heavenly and spiritual things with these minds of ours, this natural reasoning, we come to a deadlock, we come to an impasse, and we move in a realm of spiritual death.

These very men had seen what happened. They saw Jordan cleft; they had knowledge of the risen and ascended Lord, but they were not taking their own position in an experimental way upon it. They wanted to have a certain confirmation in the realm of sense. Oh! how the natural man longs to get confirmation through his senses. He longs to see something, feel something, to have evidences. Beloved, one of the marks of resurrection is that so often the whole thing goes on without any evidences in the realm of our senses. Do you think that the people who live in the power of His resurrection are always conscious of being simply overflowing with Divine life? Very often, like Paul, they feel as dead as anything can be in themselves, and yet the miracle is that there is that which is not of themselves enabling them unto the work, carrying them on. They are conscious of weakness, emptiness, dependence, and yet there is something of God which carries them on. If they were to stand still and say: "I am not going on any longer until I know in every part of my being, and in every factor of my life, the overflowing of His resurrection," they would not go on. The Lord does not meet us on that ground at all. These men showed immaturity by wanting evidences in the realm of the senses. Elisha shows how utterly he represents the principle of resurrection life by standing against all that is merely sentient. The flesh must have its proofs, and its evidences along its own line, but the spirit sees through and acts in another realm: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6).

So these sons of the prophets sought to take hold of resurrection life and draw it down to the limitations of man's doubts. If you and I do that, we shall fall out of the realm of that ministry and testimony to which the Lord calls us. It is a very great temptation all the way along to want evidences of the spiritual in the realm of our feelings and of our natural knowledge, instead of going on and knowing quite well that the going on is not by our own power; that it is impossible so far as we are concerned, and yet we are going on by reason of Him Who is our life.

Looked at naturally, all those who have known and lived on the principle of the risen life of the Lord Jesus would appear a very poor lot indeed. If you could gather all the men and the women of this New Testament dispensation who have lived wholly upon that principle of life triumphant over death, and you looked at them as men look at people, you would say: "That is a poor crowd." Take Paul! Some people would get a big surprise if they could see Paul as he was. We have all the romance of nearly two thousand years of the effect of Paul's ministry. We have all this volume of literature on Paul, his life, and letters, and work. If Paul were able to meet us as he was then, and we had no spiritual perception, but simply saw him as a man, we should say: "Is this the man who created all this literature, and caused all this talk, who has stirred the world to its very depths for nearly two thousand years? I do not see anything in him!" But there is a deeper side. So you ask him: "Paul, did you know all the way through your life, when you were in this great work, such resurrection power that you never had an ache or a pain, and never felt tired, and never knew what it was to be depressed, to feel fears, to be anxious?" He would answer: "I knew them all as few men have known them, fightings without and fears within. I knew what depression was; I knew what it was to be tempted to doubt; I knew what it was to go through dark patches where ultimate questions arose; I knew what it was to despair of life." We may take it that there were many, many occasions when Paul was not conscious pre-eminently of the power of His resurrection, and yet he was living on it, and that accounted for everything.

That which is real and that of which we are conscious may be two different things. All that we know at times is that we go on in spite of ourselves. What is it that carries us on? It is that other "something" that is deeper than thought, deeper than understanding, deeper than feeling; it is the Lord going on in us.

Flourishing Or Floundering

One of the main tactics the father of lies employs is to convince us that things are all quiet on the religious front, while simultaneously trying to keep hidden from us that there’s an accelerated exodus taking place within organized, institutionalized religion. This is reminiscent of the scene in the movie The Wizard of Oz, in which the fraudulent so-called “wizard”, having been shown up for the fraud he really is, bellows out, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

I’m sure there are more reasons than any of us know as to the reasons for this exodus, but I am wondering if their Heavenly Father is doing what he does best, namely, beginning to reveal and make real His life in them as them, which is totally incongruent with a value or virtue-based approach to life and living.

Is it possible that our brother Paul’s insightful warning was prompted by an inside knowledge of the wiles of the Prince of Darkness?

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart”

Is it possible that even we, His sons, can have a darkened, ignorant understanding which can effectively cut off or alienate us from knowing and experiencing the true source of our only Life?

There will always be a select few superheroes who, due to their “natural” or soul-based predisposition outwardly appear to excel and flourish as they operate within a values (a.k.a. ‘law’) based religious environment, but for the vast majority of us mere civilians it will hit us sooner rather than later that at best, we are floundering!

I am including something from Oz Chambers that fleshes this out with much more insight and detail. You can read it here.

Rich

Flying By the Seat of my Pants

Why is it (merely a rhetorical question) that as soon as God does anything in engaging us, making Himself known to us that we immediately try and make it fit into a natural mind set?

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” to which Nick says, “Are you saying I have to go back into my mother’s womb and be born all over again?”
Or when Jesus engaged the Samaritan woman, here is some of that conversation. “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.”God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

Is there now through the re-birthing a “new me, a new you,” that most of us are totally unfamiliar with, and yet this “new” person we have become is in sync with knowing and hearing the voice of this living God who has become our Father?
The natural minded man does not receive the things of God, hear or understand this reality that has invaded us in being re-birthed.

Without a continued revelation (man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that flows from the heart of our God and Father) is it any wonder that what Jesus is building (His church) has been through the carnal natural minded man turned into a grotesque and hideous monstrosity that so many flock to.

Rich

Famine, is A God Thing

When you begin to hear repeatedly the same thing, it might just be God?!

I want to share some recent thoughts from others that are registering within me, much like what the scientists are still trying to figure out regarding the abnormal behaviour in some animals that they know are inwardly picking (registering) up the initial signals of an impending tsunami or earth quake.

This is from a friend/brother Ravi, something specifically he sensed Father speaking to his heart.


Satisfied on the Day of Famine

"They will be satisfied on the day of famine"! I felt the Lord speaking this to my heart as I was seeking Him for directions in this coming new season. I felt the Spirit of the Lord saying that even in the midst of uncertainties, calamities and disasters; the Lord will supernaturally sustain those that lean upon Him. If He feeds the bird of the air and clothes the grass of the fields, He can and will do much more for His people. What is needed is faith...SUPERNATURAL FAITH! Supernatural faith not of the individual, but of Christ Himself! When we unlearn the conditioning of religion, which teaches us self-motivation instead of pure faith and inputs guilt upon us for lack of faith, when the supposed 'promise' does not come to pass; and understand that we are simply the branches and that He is the vine that sustains the branches, we will prosper, even in times of famine.

John the apostle says that we shall prosper and be in good health, even as our soul prospers. There is a greater famine than the famine of material things. That is the famine of the soul. I felt the Spirit of the Lord speaking to my heart that many of the people who love Him are experiencing this famine in the soul. They experience this famine for they have substituted the Rivers of Living Waters, for a stagnant pool. I hear the Spirit saying realize that the famine of the soul is so because you have allowed these counterfeit waters to water your soul. And because it is not good waters, instead of creating life, it has created death. You shall prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers. To proper in this season of famine, our soul first needs to prosper; and we need the Rivers of Living Waters, the Word of God who is Christ Jesus Himself, to cause our soul to prosper.

In this new season, the Spirit will give many that love Him a major discernment. A discernment to understand the subtle counterfeit; a discernment to realize the substitutes. And even as we are made aware of this substitutes and counterfeits, the Lord will call us to make a choice to choose the real stuff. The choices may call for difficult decisions. But when we trust Him enough to make these difficult choices, the Lord shall surely cause us to prosper in this season of famine for the world.

I have often quoted this as I see it is a “God thing,” that He lovingly brings into our lives.
"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.”

For the longest time the best that most of us have seen operating, better yet masquerading as His life is but the remnants of the first Adam. To better highlight what I am fumbling with in trying to illustrate this, please read the following from Os Chambers.


"And Every Virtue We Possess"
“All my fresh springs shall be in Thee.”
Psalms 87:7

Our Lord never patches up our natural virtues, He re-makes the whole man on the inside. "Put on the new man," i.e., see that your natural human life puts on the garb that is in keeping with the new life. The life God plants in us develops its own virtues, not the virtues of Adam but of Jesus Christ. Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through a drying-up experience!
The sign that God is at work in us is that He corrupts confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but remnants of what God created man to be. We will cling to the natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us into contact with the life of Jesus Christ which can never be described in terms of the natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people in the service of God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them, depending on what they have by the accident of heredity. God does not build up our natural virtues and transfigure them, because our natural virtues can never come anywhere near what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every bit of our bodily life into harmony with the new life which God has put in us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.
"And every virtue we possess
Is His alone."


Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through a drying-up experience!



Rich