Life in the Kingdom (#5)
A study from Gateway Church - Freedom Ministries - My Notes
Introduction:
It's easier to accomplish a task, when you have the right tool. Easy is not a mater of laziness and not working hard, it's a matter of having the right tools for the right job. It's easier to change a tire, when you have the right size lug wrench. It's an easier work flow when you have the right tools. The Kingdom of God lifestyle is easier when you know and understand the tools that allow you to live this life.
If we can understand what is "my part" and what is "God's part" in this Kingdom of God, we will be more effective.
One of the problems in the modern American Church is that we are operating on a belief system, based on a world view, that many of us don't have. The prevailing World View in Modern America is "Materialistic and Intellectual". This does not mean that we are rich and smart. It means that we base our understanding of reality based on the natural world (science) and intellectual reasoning (mind).
The Kingdom of God is based on a worldview that is the integration of Spiritual and Natural. Ex; a bush that is on fire, but it's not burning. It is seeing the spiritual realm and the natural realm integrate seamlessly so that you cannot speak about one without also referencing the other.
Four main content areas to discuss our part and God's part:
1. Lordship
2. Transformation
3. Authority
4. Spiritual Warfare
God's ways are higher than ours.
Issiah 55:9
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
This does not mean that he is geographically higher. It means that he has a way of seeing, thinking, and perceiving, that are qualitatively greater than ours. He can see an issue from all angles, and all perspectives at once without getting confused. God's view vs ours is akin to the difference between 1st grade math and Quantum Physics.
Translated into the Kingdom of God.
Colossians 1:13 ASV
...who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love;
Translation from English to Spanish is not exact. There are cultural differences which make the translation more than just picking out the words that match up, but truly communicating the idea or concept. Words are concept containers.
In English I might say: "Hello... and what is your name?"
Transliteration is taking the exact words and moving them into the same words in the other language. The transliteration of this phrase into Spanish is: "Hola... y que es tu' nombre'?" The problem is... that's not how Spanish speakers ask this question. In Spanish, the question would be: "Como te' llama?" Which transliterates to English as "How are you called?" You see, you need to translate, not just transliterate.
Why is this important. Well, in the Kingdom of God there are concepts that are foreign to natural earthly people. If we have been translated (not just moved) into this new Kingdom, we need to understand the qualitatively different aspects of how that Kingdom functions.
2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
We need to understand the way this new Kingdom, this new culture, this new reality, operates.We've been given more than we know. Just because you have a remote control, doesn't mean you know how to turn on the TV. Likewise, just because you have the tools of the Kingdom of God doesn't mean you know how to access the Kingdom of God, you must begin to learn how to use them. When you find that you've been given all things for life and Godliness, don't think "this is it?", think "there is more to this than I know".
1. Lordship
21:00 into videoGod does all the hard stuff. We respond. Let us separate the mind, will, and emotions. Your WILL is the mechanism for decision. Your Will is not your decision, it's the mechanism for making decisions.
There is your WILL. Then there is your Will about... different things. We have a will about marriage, sex, money, work, food, the car we drive... Are you WILLING to give God your WILL... ALL of it?
If I'm driving my car, and I pick up Jesus in the passenger seat, and I'm trying to obey his instructions... I'm still using my will to drive the car.
I'm I pull over, get in the back seat, and let Jesus drive... then I've surrendered my Will.
Many Christians think we ought to use our Will to choose good stuff and avoid bad stuff. Underneath that assumption is the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. I must know bad from good and choose good. That is the wrong source, wrong tree. Many Christians think that the knowledge of bad is bad, and good is good. However, all knowledge is the wrong source.
The only proper use of the human will is submission. Lest you think that submission is equal to slavery...
What electronic device is enslaved by being plugged into electricity? None. Electricity is empowering it. However, there is no power without it. We must submit to LIFE, not to knowledge. Surrendering WILL to the Lordship of Jesus is empowering.
The choice is between God's power (hearing and responding/revelation) and my power (knowledge).
Choosing His voice will always result in you having a better result. It's not a matter of Good and Bad, it's a matter of "What is my power source?"
2. Transformation
40:04 in videoWhat is our part? Romans 12, we must understand the change that we are engaging in. The change we are after is not about good vs evil; but rather, about Life vs Knowledge. Life (Hearing and Responding to God's Voice) vs Knowledge (my ability to do good/bad | my strength). My change will not be a matter of my trying harder and doing better. My change will come from a shift in how I think, how I see, and what my source for how I think, act, and feel.
When Jesus said told the parable of the workers he picked up throughout the day, and each got a days wage no matter how long he worked... many of us feel that it's unfair for the last one to get the same wage as the first. But in the Kingdom of God there is only one wage... Himself. He cannot give you less of Himself than someone else.
You may not know how to access, utilize, the remote control... that doesn't reduce the power and ability of that remote, it only reduces how much you benefit from it.
Then starts a dilema. As you are trying to learn this new thing He gave you called "LIFE" you start to ask: "Is that God's voice or my flesh?" As we grow in that and learn to discern what is Him, more and more of the Spirit of God takes control, and less of the flesh.
45:00 Minutes into Video
You could spend a lifetime of trying harder to do good, and this transformation process never occurs because you are exercising the very thing that needs to die. Your Will. God is not after obedience... He's after surrender. Surrender to the ability to hear His voice and respond. He's ok with you making mistakes, as long as you continue to train to Hear and Respond. Much training requires failure. This is where Grace and Mercy play out in our lives. God's not after you getting it right, He's after you learning how to walk.
If your infant starts to walk for the first time and falls... do you yell at the child and demand more? No, you celebrate the smallest of victories. That is how God does with you. He's not interested in your doing what you know better, but hearing and responding better.
He knows full well you will get it wrong, and it's His Grace that allows you to try again.
In auto pilot, a plane has been given a set of parameters/guidance. The plan hits one side and get's sent the other way, and it's off course more than it's on, bouncing between the guide lines. Likewise, we are going along our course, and God interrupts us and says "Hey... that way" and we correct course.
There is a tendency to believe that I am born, one day I encounter Jesus and get saved... then I spend my life in an upward battle for progress doing better, flat, worse, better, etc... until once day I die. Then at death this body will not hold me back anymore and I'll be totally free to grow with no restrictions. This forces us to settle for this idea that "This is what I got for now... but some day in the sweet by and by..."
Behind that belief is the underlying premise that my death can do more for me than the death of Jesus.
Jesus gave you more power, authority and transformation than you know. It was Jesus death that set you free not yours. It's just a matter now of tapping into Him. Jesus didn't die to set us free from bad behavior. Jesus died because we were disconnected from the source of Life, and he came to reconnect us to Life again.
Regarding the Baptism of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit isn't some mysterious mist that comes, and goes, and leaves, and arrives... it is the omnipresent God himself. Jesus is leaving for a good long while and He says to them: "Wait here awhile".
So often we try to run off and do something for God. But here is a great lesson... wait for Him who is to come and empower you.
One man once said: "most denominations are torches of once great revivals". God moves, men add their knowledge of good and kill the move, God moves on to a new move, and there is a name and building left behind.
Men try to get people filled with the Holy Spirit by copying what they see in Acts. So we have churches that are filled with people who have "it". They have the label, the t-shirt, etc... but how often do they have it because they preformed some acts people taught them, not because they received the Holy Spirit himself?
It would be better to receive the Holy Spirit and have an experience with God, and not know what to label it, than to have the t-shirt and labels but not the actual experience.
So often you hear people say that "tongues" is the single evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I would say that I've probably seen people speak in tongues without much of the Holy Spirit's aide. Because ALL the gifts of Holy Spirit (as outlined in 1 Corinthians 12) are just labels for things that happen when He shows up. Any person could be operating in any of the gifts at any time. God works all of them in all people (1 Cor 12:6), not some of them in some, but all in all. So let's not put God in a box and say that the only way to tell if someone got baptized in the Holy Spirit is if they speak in tongues right away. Likewise, let's not run to the other ditch and say that you may get one gift and not another. He works all in all. You can't get a part of Him, you get all of Him.
Gifts of the Spirit
Now the paradox of this chapter is he goes from saying that He works All in All, to saying that he works one in one, and one in another. That's true in light of the context. During a service, or gathering, He doesn't do the same thing in all people all at once... that's chaos. He works one here, and one there. But as you go through life, and Holy Spirit shows up, He'll operate in you as He sees fit, and as you allow Him. All in All.
The expression of the Holy Spirit is up to Holy Spirit, not our knowledge of good. Lest you think that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is a one time event, the same people who were filled and empowered in Acts 2, were filled and empowered again in Acts 4:8 and Acts 4:31. Read Ephesians 5:18, which says we are to be-being filled with the Holy Spirit. It's a continual process, not a one time event. There is a first time, but it must continue on and on. If you were filled in 1978 but haven't been since, you missed it.
Wait here... and when he comes, you'll receive power... This is not a topic to be studied so much as; rather, it is one to be engaged and embraced.
Waiting is key... waiting expectantly. Don't rush in to impress God with your knowledge of what this should look like... just wait for Him to do what He does, and only He does. The Holy Spirit gives gifts and fruit. Neither of these may become immediately evident in the moment. But every one of the gifts and fruit should increase in you as the days go by. All of them, not just one over another. The Holy Spirit is about bringing life back to His people, not regulations back to our performance.
God brings the power, we do the waiting expectantly.
3. Authority
Power is the ability to accomplish something. Authority is delegated power.
If a car is coming, a police man has no power to stop the car, but does have authority. If a car is coming a 2,000 lbs block of cement has the power to stop the car. Tickets, courts, and the power of governance has the power to discipline the driver. That power dissuades him from disobeying the one with authority. If needed, the authorized one can begin to bring the power to bear (blockades, other units, and tack strips).
My power comes from God, not from my knowledge of good. So I wait to hear. If I don't hear anything, I can simply activate the authority I know I have.
What would happen if the police officer did nothing regarding a speeder. The speeder would not be stopped. Authority must be exercised. I must be under authority to use authority. My disobedience to authority will decrease my ability to walk in authority. Just as a police officer disconnected from the power behind him (on suspension) cannot walk in the same authority, so I must be connected to authority to use it.
My debit card is a representation of my name. If you take my card and use it (without my permission) you have used my name in vain. If you take it with my permission, you can use it (my name) properly.
Exercising authority in Jesus name, that he has not authorized you to use, it using his name in vain.
It's not about a magic phrase... "in Jesus name"... it's about knowing who you are in Him, connecting to that reality, and then waiting to hear what he would say and say that... That is authority.
You have authority over your life, and the spiritual realm. You do not have authority over people. You cannot pray for someone to get saved. You can pray that the spirit of deception is broken, and the veil is lifted, and they would see clearly the choice that they make.
4. Spiritual Warfare
The central issue of spiritual warfare is not about what is in front of us (circumstance), but the voices that speak to us about what is in front of us. The flat tire is not spiritual warfare, the spirit talking to you about that situation is spiritual warfare.
In your darkest moment of your life... the enemy is there to talk to you about that event and inform you about how you should view that event and what perspective to see it with. The best way to deal with dark moments is get right up into God's lap and let Him talk to you and inform you about that event.
Spiritual forces are empowered by human agreement. Your situation or circumstance will be affected and empowered by whichever kingdom you agree with the most at that moment.
The Enemy is trying to inform you about what you see...
God is saying: "I know what you see... ask me what I see..."
Israel is in the wilderness hemmed in by mountains and the sea. The enemy is coming from the open end.
Who is under attack? In the natural we might say Israel. God's perspective would say Egypt is under attack. Eventually, it is Israel who is free and Egypt is dead. Perspective is key. Prayer is where that perspective comes from.
If a tough moment comes and we listen to the enemy, the enemy has power in that moment. If in that moment we listen to God, we can gain His perspective and win. It's not a rational war, it's a spiritual war. Forgiveness overpowers hate. Giving makes rich. Serving makes leaders. Goodness wins over evil.
The power of God in you doesn't always change the circumstance, but it does change the power of that circumstance to dictate truth to you.
2 Cor 10
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
1. Arguments/Speculations:
Thought processes that are rational in nature and based on evidence. Knowledge based on evidence. The Enemy wants to use evidence he creates in order to get you to speculate (theorize) and therefore to dictate truth to you.
2. Lofty things raised again the knowledge of God:
Satan can't just not win again God, he cannot even fight God! Satan stirs of Egypt (I'm going to win), and God says "Whatever..." and then He wins.
Spiritual Warfare is the only war you win by surrender. When you write the rules, all things turn out for good. Everything the enemy does, works to God's plan. Satan pulls out death and sin again Jesus, and the result is that those are defeated. Satan cannot even fight God. Anytime he is allowed to operate, it serves God's purpose.
When we feel we are loosing, we are winning more than we realize. We just haven't waited and seen the deliverance of the Lord.
The enemy will attack us with thoughts and ideas contrary to God's. His power lies in our agreement with His thoughts, ideas, and concepts.
The power over the ideas (defining of terms), is the greatest power on earth. He who defines the terms wins the verbal war.
Will you use the enemy dictionary, or God's?
In other words... will will you #BeStillBeLed?
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And now I leave you with a question:
What do you think about Grace?
To Respond Leave A Comment on This Post
By Darrell Wolfe
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