Freedom from Depression | by Bob Hamp

Notes from listening to Freedom from Depression | by Bob Hamp.

1. What is depression?

Depression is a process and not a state of being. You are not on/off with depression. You are either full of life or lacking some life. The more life you lack, the more depression exists.

Depression is: Suppression

The enemy understands you were made in God's image, and He wars to suppress that image in you.


Depression is not: Expression

You were created to express God's image in your geography.

You are always moving further toward one or the other.

Life is a more or less proposition (not an on/off proposition).

Adam plugged into the source of Knowledge instead of the source of Life.

God didn't just kick them out of the Garden, He kicked the Garden out of them. They could once see spiritual Truth with their eyes, they could only now see with the eyes of their heart.

Knowing you need help.... to the degree that you are lacking life, you need more aliveness.

Getting well isn't about your trying harder to believe...

Getting into His Presence is reconnecting to the source, so you can fill up with Life.

It's not just enough to pull up to the gas pump, read the gas pump, be near the gas pump.. you actually have to connect to the gas pump.

Whatever you feed grows...

Sooner or later, you can develop an appetite that is so serious, you can't imagine anything else.

Shame is what happens when we're exposed and we run to our knowledge of good and evil, we run and hide.

Adam ran and hid not because nakedness was wrong, but because he became aware of himself. He felt the need to hide because he felt shame about being naked before Eve. They felt the need to cover from each other. He didn't want another human to see what he didn't want her to see.

*38:00

2. Depression is a multi-modal process

All of you is involved in depression, not just spirit or emotion. There are five arenas that we can get involved in our own recovery. Also, it's not about pathology (what's wrong) but about measures of health.

Don't think "nothing's wrong with me"; rather, "how could I be more alive tomorrow?"

1. Physical (body)
2. Cognitive (thoughts)
3. Emotional (feelings are chemical experiences)
4. Spiritual (spirit - core of our identity)
5. Social (connection - we were designed for connection, not designed to be alone. Also, connections affect our mindsets (for good or bad))

Isolation: Often people who start to experience shame (something's wrong with me) begin to isolate. The opposite of isolation doesn't mean that you lay bare in front of everybody. In fact, baring all to everyone can be another way of keeping people at a distance. You have to let someone in, way in.

The opposite of Isolation is purposeful choices about intimacy. Who can I share myself with, and what will be mirrored back to me is God's opinion of me.

If you feel the need to pull back, and you don't even know why, don't worry about why. You were designed to be connected, just re-engage and you'll discover why.

If you use the internet to reach out to someone, that can be a first step. But if you don't continue to form a relationship in person you are still isolated. The internet can serve you as a way to foster connections, but cannot substitute real connections.

Those who do the truth come to the light... light exposes and lifts up.

Truth/Uncover: The solution to bad is not to do better, it's to do Truth/Uncover.

Body: Your body is amazingly complex. Chemicals, electrical signals, blood, all perfectly balanced. But when it gets out of balance begins to work against itself. Any machine that doesn't get used, or doesn't get used properly, falls apart.

Nutrition: Comfort food is a biological thing. Some food functions like Xanax. It numbs, and numbs, until you spiral out of weight balance. This causes negative chemical reactions in your emotional and cognitive arenas.

Sleep: Insomnia (lack of sleep) and Hypersomnia (too much sleep) are both symptoms of depression.

Body Chemistry: Interplay of chemicals and hormones and electronic signals are required for you to function normally.

Medication: Medication can temporarily help re-balance the chemicals. This is like a little donut spare tire. Don't expect to drive on the spare tire forever, but use it when you need to. Use medication while you work on other areas to get re-balanced, then change your tire.

Posture: Depression is linked to hunched/head down posture. It both causes it, and is caused by it. Your blood and electrical signals need to flow to the whole body.

• Stretch: Stand up, hands up high into the air, head back staring at the ceiling, stretch your hands high. Hold that posture for a 30 seconds. This will open the neuro-chemical flow and electrical flow of the body.
• Bounce and shake: Stand up, arms at your side, head up, shoulders back. Bounce, slightly, and shake your hands at your side. This causes the electrical and blood flow to get un-stuck.

Relationships: Poor and Good can cause issues. If your relationship patterns have caused you to shut down, shut out friends, stop your routines; that relationship is negative. If it can be fixed, fix it. If not, you may need to cut it off.

Exercise: Causes the body to flow and produces positive chemicals.

*1:10:00
Self-Talk / Agreement / Confession / Hearing: A dialogue can take place in your head and its completely you, but it could be God or the enemy. If you agree with negative ideas/thoughts, you take them in. Feeding true information does not counter false information. You need to deal with the heart. When you hear the voice of God, your heart is touched, not just your mind. It's not about you doctrinally arguing with yourself, it's about hearing God say it to you. What you say with your mouth isn't necessarily what you believe in your heart. Don't try really heart to change what you believe in your heart; rather, connect with God and hear his voice and that changes your heart. BUT, God won't yell over the noise. You must be still and listen to hear Him.If

Cognitive and Spiritual battle plan: "I'm ignoring this and listening to this..."

Spiritual: Spiritual forces are empowered in your life through agreement. They will either work to oppose the work of God or offer a counterfeit.

• Bondage - looks at our need to be fathered and says "I can do that", but then counterfeits. "This will protect, comfort, nurture you", it says. The opposite of bondage is to know (in your heart) that God is your Daddy.
• Spirit of Perversion (Isaiah 19:14): This is not just sexuality, but also doctrine and truth. This spirit distorts and twists God's truth about you or your reality. "I may say something, but you hear something else," is an example of the Spirit of Perversion. Distortion is caused here. If you find yourself not agreeing with God's Truth, this is a result of the Spirit of Perversion/Distortion.
• Spirit of Heaviness (Isaiah 61): The opposite of the Spirit of Heaviness is Joy. You don't win a battle over darkness by agreeing with it/joining with it. Joy is in you because it's a fruit of the Holy Spirit. If you are born again, it is in you (even if it's hidden away and it's been a long time since you felt it). If you just assume that things will always be bad, hard, awful, you've agreed with the Spirit of Heaviness.

So, broken or whole, "right or wrong", that's what I'm thinking about today,

Darrell W.

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Foundations of Freedom 5/5 | Life in the Kingdom

Re-Listening to Dr. Bob Hamp's Foundations of Freedom courses. Starting over at lesson 5/5, Life in the Kingdom. These are my notes from this go-around:


People get stuck trying to do God's job or trying to get God to do out job.

"Lord Humble me..." well that part is your job.

You can't change yourself, God does that. But you can participate or not participate in that change.

It's like Wind and Sail. The wind can pass by us with lowered sails and we never move. We need to lift the sail, but God does the moving.

There have been abuses in the church of the following concepts. These abuses are often the confusion between a man-centered kingdom and a heave-centered kingdom.

We live in a spiritual realm and natural realm at the same time. Both must be addressed correctly.

No matter how much we grasp Thinking Differently, the kingdom of God will always be higher and qualitatively different.

We are created in God's image, but He is not created in ours. There are things that are true about us because they are true about Him, but there are things about him that will never be true about us as created beings.

We are no longer citizens of this present world, we are strangers here. We are seated (authoritatively) in heaven.

"Your name is written in heaven" - Who you are has been chiseled into the material heaven is made of.

Your nature has been disconnected from Knowledge and connected to LIFE.

We are learning about to tap into the new nature and let go of old pathways.


So we will look at what's our part and what's God's part in the following areas:

1. Lordship (not man's lordship over man, but submitted to Jesus as Lord)

When we surrender our will to God.

This doesn't mean: I will try hard to do the things he's telling me.

God always does the hard stuff:

• I surrender my will.
• God does the changes.

Let's understand the difference between our "Will" and our "will about some things".

Your Will is your mechanism for deciding, not the decisions. With that Will you decide stuff. When we surrender our Will, we're not just giving up some stuff, we're giving all of it up. We use that will to make decisions about (relationships, money, drugs, etc.). When we say: "I'll surrender my will about money and schedule, but not relationships and drugs," we haven't surrendered our Will at all.

Surrendering our Will means that we actually surrender our entire mechanism for deciding.

Offering a ride to Jesus and saying "I'll go wherever you say to go" is not Lordship. You still have the decision at any given moment.

Rather, getting into the passenger seat and saying "Jesus, you drive" is surrendering our will. You no longer have any decisions to make.

We often think that we are to use our Will to choose good stuff and avoid bad stuff. The foundational problem with this is that this is an exercise of our Will through the Tree of Knowledge. We don't use our will to choose good vs. evil, we surrender our Will entirely. We don't have it anymore.

What is the proper use of the human Will? SUBMISSION

When we accepted Jesus we were saved by him and we will be delivered through him too. Sozo (saved) actually means (Saved, Healed, and Delivered).

Responding to hearing saved us, continuing to respond to hearing heals us, and continuing to respond to hearing delivers us.

*38:55

There are three types of bondage:

• Lack of Clear Definitions
• Bondage to Self
• Obstacles to Deliverance

If you start with the Obstacles you will miss the whole healing/freedom that you were intended for.

Choosing God's voice will always move you closer to your true self.

*40:00

2. Transformation (refer also to Levels of Change)

Our part is to understand the change we're engaging in (Romans 12). Our struggle is not good versus evil, but Life versus Knowledge.

The source of our actions must change for lasting change. You cannot be the source of your own transformation. You cannot logic/reason your way through transformation.

Change is not about me trying harder and doing better, but changing my source so I can change my perspective (which changes how I think/act/feel).

Am I allowing my flesh (mind/will/emotions) to empower the transformation process, or am I surrendering to the spirit (hearing and responding to God).

If all goes according to the Spirit's plan, over time, more and more of His Spirit takes over and less and less of your flesh.

BUT

If you are trying harder to act on your knowledge of good the transformation process CANNOT take place because you are strengthening the very thing that needs to die.

You cannot change by changing the content of your mind. He's not after Compliance and Obedience, He's after Surrender.

You cannot Surrender to The Law. The Spirit requires an intuitive sensitivity, that requires training and it's ok if you blow it. He's not after perfect actions, he's after surrender. Training requires failure, it's not merit based.

He's not after you "getting it right" he's after you "learning how to walk".

Consider an infant learning to walk. The infant stumbles and falls on the first attempts. No parent goes: "Only three steps huh, is that all you got?" The parent says: "Wow, he walked!"

This is because we as parents understand that our job is not to get the child to run a marathon tomorrow; rather, our job as parents is to raise him up so that what he's known coming into the world changes daily until he matures and he's ready to take over our inheritance and take over the business of His Father.

God has no expectation that you will get it right in the beginning. He expects that when you fail, you will turn to him (the source) and allow him to do it again in you.

"Psst... Hey Darrell." Autopilot is about correcting us when we get off course. Autopilot is off course more than it's on course. But the correction keeps us moving to our destination.

Common Fallacy: Death sets us Free

We believe that we will continue to progress with up and down struggles, and death will set us free. If we believe that, we believe that "my death can do for me, more than the death of Jesus".

"I'm trapped in this earth suit and someday I'll be set free. Because I'm not dead yet I can't be free."

Jesus has done for you more than you know he's done.

Baptism of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is a member of the godhead. He is the same person we've been speaking about the whole time. He is God. He's the one who saved you, and he can heal you and deliver you.

We're not here to do something FOR God, however, we're invited to do something FROM God through you to the world.

God doesn't want you to run ahead, he wants you to wait, receive, hear, and then go in response. The great thing about the original baptism of the Holy Spirit is that they didn't know what that was, and therefore, they couldn't try to "help God" make it happen. They couldn't engage their knowledge of good.

*I have the T-Shirt without the experience. I have experienced some gifts and giftings and speak in tongues... but I don't have the experience of the Holy Spirit in my daily life, and haven't felt in him many many years. I need to "wait" on Him, expectantly.

This is not a topic to be studied but a person to be engaged and embraced.

*1:07:03

We come to Him not with what we think we need him to do, but what we need (Power, His Fruit in our lives) via His HolySpirit.

Don't try to act better on your Knowledge of Good, rather, wait on Him to empower you. Wait on Him to fill you today, and then again tomorrow, and again more the next day.

The Holy Spirit is to bring LIFE and transformation not rules and regulations.


3. Authority

Power and Authority are related but not the same. Authority is delegated to us.

Power is the ability to accomplish something, Authority is delegated power.

God has the Power (we never will). We have His Authority to use His Power.

Stop and ask God what He's doing. But when you know it's time to use your Authority, don't ask it to change, use your Authority and command it to change.

When Jesus commanded things, they happened.

However, "in the name of Jesus" isn't a tag that gives you license say whatever you want and have God back it. Using God's name in vein, is using God's name to tag something that He didn't tell you to do.

We must be submitted to Him and hear Him before we can act or command.

If you say something but don't trust/believe it will happen, you are not in Faith yet. You cannot take authority out of fear or authority over human will.

God will back it if He said it...


4. Spiritual Warfare

This is the central issue of Spiritual Warfare. 2 Corinthians 10 says we tear down speculations and lofty things against the knowledge of God.

The enemy is not likely poking holes in your tires, but he is there talking to you when you see the flat tire.

The central issue of the enemies' warfare is the voice of deception. It's not what's in front of you, but which voice you will listen to when you are faced with what's in front of you.

In the very worst moment of your life, Satan is waiting to inform you how you should see that moment and what's true about you because of that moment. And so is God.

Key: "Lord, you talk to me about this ___(flat tire, broken fence, bad thing)__. Tell me what's true about this and what's true about me in this moment."

Key: Agreement. Spiritual forces are empowered through agreement. What voice are you agreeing with?

The spiritual world is empowered by whatever you are agreeing with. What voice are you listening to?

The enemy uses what we see and tries to put a filter on your heart to get you to see it his way. God is there saying: "Ask me what I see?"

Children of Israel send 12 spies. 10 come back thinking of themselves as Grasshoppers. 2 come back thinking of themselves as giants.

When the children of Israel were under attack, but turned to God, the enemy died. So who was under attack? If the enemy died in the end, the enemy attacking was actually under attack and didn't know it.

It's about perspective.

If we look at that moment and see the danger, the danger holds the power in that moment.
If, however, we look at that moment and ask God how He sees the moment, God's power holds the power in that moment.

1. Speculations - Thought processes that are rational in nature, based on evidence. But God is bigger than the evidence available to your senses. The enemy wants to get your senses to agree with his interpretation.
2. Lofty Knowledge - Satan can't fight God. Spiritual warfare is the only battle you win by surrendering and waiting. Surrender doesn't mean "giving up" it means surrendering to whatever God says (that means waiting on Him to hear him).

God writes the rules, so anything the enemy does to oppose God ends up causing the enemy's loss.

When our eyes tell us we're losing we're probably winning more than we know.

Since the enemy cannot fight God, he will fight God's knowledge in our minds' eye. He just wants to get us to fear something or want something more than we fear/want God.

The enemy wants us to lift something higher in our heart than God.

• We always win when we surrender.

So, broken or whole, "right or wrong", that's what I'm thinking about today,

Darrell W.

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Foundations of Freedom 4/5 | Hearing God

Re-Listening to Dr. Bob Hamp's Foundations of Freedom courses. Starting over at lesson 2/5, Hearing God. These are my notes from this go-around:

Hearing God

When we change the things we've been focusing on, often times the things that that have been holding or harming us will change without our focusing on them.

The presence of God (oven) is what transforms us (dough into cookie). You connect to the source, by Hearing God. Faith comes by hearing.

If a plane flys by and you stop and hear it, what caused the plane's noise? The plane, not you. You just stopped to hear it.

"I am your person"....

God wants to talk to me.

Spirit to spirit exchange. He may not be trying to give us "information/knowledge"... heart to heart... bypassing the mind. Often what we receive is a reality, preverbal... preconscious.

Your spirit then translates that truth through your mind/will/emotions... it may come as an image, word, sense... etc.

Does that word from God align with the written Word (Bible), and does it bring the fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, etc.)

When you hear "You can leave" does it fill you with peace, love, and joy, or does it fill you with vengeance, anger, heaviness?

*30:00

Use The Word as a filter:

1. Does what I'm hearing/seeing/sensing line up with the Word of God and the Nature of God as it is revealed in the Word.
2. Does it produce, in you and the people affected by it, the fruit of the spirit in Gal 5?
• Flesh: The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
• Spirit: But the fruit of the Spirit is:
• love
• joy
• peace
• patience
• kindness
• goodness
• faithfulness
• gentleness
• and self-control.
3. Does it set people free?
• Not necessarily from the circumstance or suffering, but from the power of that circumstance over you.
• Sometimes Paul got free from prison, sometimes not so much. But the Word of God set him free in those circumstances to have peace, love, and joy.

2 Tim 3:16: All scripture is God breathed. The word scripture refers to "documents". This book is God breathed.

Hebrews 4:12: The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edges sword. The spoken Word is alive. The written word is dead until the breath of God is breathed into your heart through them.

The Word and the Book are not the same thing. The Book contains the words of God, but that is not the same thing as the spoken Word of God.

Language is a way we describe a thing, but it is not the thing. We say "car" but car doesn't come out of our mouth. Rather, a mental picture is communicated to another person who knows what car means. But they have different pictures unless they both know what that car looks like.

But when God speaks, the things he speaks come out of his mouth. When God says PLANET, a planet comes out of his mouth into existence.

If God says: "Peace be still", what comes out of his mouth is PEACE in a package that is deliverable and if you will tune into it, it will come inside and change you.

When we reduce the Word of God to a paragraph and a verse, we miss the point. The Word of God becomes a reality in and to us, if we'll allow it.

It's like when you say: "You just had to be there..."

Nobody else can experience your experience. You cannot left brain understand the Word of God. You cannot experience the Word by reading... but reading can help you access the Word which can bring you to the experience.

The Word of Faith is in your mouth and heart... only then is it an experience.

"I love you... and anything that stands in the way of me loving you, even if it's you, I will overwhelm it..."

When we tune in to hear his voice, and all we want is information or correction, He might do that... but what He really wants is to say "I love you" and for that to impact you.

The Word of God is the expression of his heart and intention toward you since before time.

Col 1:17: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 
Heb 11:3: The World which was made of the Word of God.

An atom is made of Quarks, quarks are made of energy/vibration/sound. E=MC2. Energy equals Matter times the speed of light squared. But if energy could be slowed down, it becomes matter.

God's Word is literally holding everything together.

The further things are from God the more things fall apart.... What we want to do is get a better knowledge of good so that we can get things right and get back to God.

The further we get from His Word, the more things break down. You cannot make yourself right or start doing right... you just have to get in tune with His Word, and those things will be made right without your trying.

If things are falling apart that is not a sign of your "failure" it's a s sign of your distance from Him.

He is saying: "Come back to me, and I'll bring peace where there was anxiety, health where there was sickness, soundness where there was confusion."

*57:50

Confession

We think of confession of "confessing sin". The word Confession comes from a compound word in the Greek. HomoLogos.

• Homo=Same
• Logos=The Expression of what's in God's heart.

Confession is to say what God is saying. If God is talking about your sin, and you confess sin, then you are confessing. If God is saying you are Righteous, but you are talking about sin, that it not confession.

He convicts the world of sin and righteousness, not just one of the other.

Confession is when we hear, believe, and speak/act.

Here's where that goes wrong. What if we confess not what God's saying, but we want. "I want to be rich and have a Cadillac." We are confession our desires and passions and wants. But if that's not what God's saying, it will only lead to frustration.

A Prayer Offered In Faith Requires Hearing God

The reason most of us don't have our prayers answered, is because we don't take the time to hear God before we pray. So we're just praying out of our desires, not out of hearing.

A prayer that's offered in faith CANNOT be offered in faith unless it came from hearing.

Praying our motives doesn't count and doesn't work. God won't do magic for you. Prayer is not a magic formula to get what you want.

Check your motivations.

• "I got up early for you and I have all these things that I need to hear from you about..."
• "So you got up for you, huh?"

Don't go into prayer with a motivation, a list of things to pray about, just go in to hear. God may have an agenda that has nothing to do with you or your circumstances. Just go in with no expectation other than what He may want to talk about.

God is doing something in the world and wants me to come cooperate with Him. He won't bless MY agenda, but he'll bless me when I get on His agenda.

If power comes to my house through the in wire, to the stereo and back the out wire. If you snip the out wire the power will never manifest. If we study and hear our brains out, but never return it to Him, there's no completed circuit.

You do this through prayer back to him, and through you to others.

If it doesn't go through your life, the power coming to you can't be drawn on. Life comes to me, inhabits me, and go through me. It's a circuit.

"I only do what I see my Father do, say what I hear my Father say..." but then he said "stretch out your withered hand." He completed the circuit, and it manifested.

Sabbath is the frequency on which God broadcasts. It's those moments when you are still that he can speak. If you are constantly running, busy, listening to radio... He may try to interrupt you at a stop light, as you are going to bed or waking up, or in the middle of the night...

"In the stillness, in the quiet place..." God speaks in a gentle whisper.

Don't try to "think what God is thinking"... more like when you hear a plane or car going by... just hear what God is saying. It might just be a phrase or a single word, an image, a sense of something...

Listen.... Be Still....


So, broken or whole, "right or wrong", that's what I'm thinking about today,

Darrell W.

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Processesing my time with Dr. Bob - Session #4

Some of the stuff I talked to Dr. Bob about yesterday:

Arrival (2016), they attempt to establish communication with an alien race. But games made it more
competitive/adversarial. Symbols made it easier to communicate. Sometimes analogies can help.

• How do you pray if your don't Trust God, are mad at Him, don't want to hear him? What if you heard God, and did what He said, and it turned out bad?

"Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him."
"Lord, to who would we go to for answers?"
You have to be honest and open about your hurt, pain, frustrations... and not JUST when you are feeling angry and yelling, but in your calmer moments too. Don't just open the door, yell at God, then close it again when you're calm. Keep the door open, and let your conversations be:

I'm angry with you, I think you didn't do so right by me, here's why....

instead of:

I surrender all...

If that's what they need to be.

• How do you want what you don't want, or stop wanting what you shouldn't want?

Wanting the right things and not wanting the wrong things is a matter of source. The source you are connected to drives the wants. If you are disconnected from your source, the wants/desires will be skewed.

The short answer is... you don't. You don't change your wants... you change your source. But if you are mad at your source, you're wants cannot change. Deal with the source, and let the wants be what they are for now.

• What if God's answer is: "I'm not you?"

That is the crux of God's answer to Job. I'm not you. But what if that's exactly the answer you need. He's not us. He doesn't see like us, think in our limited way of thinking. His perspective is higher and eternal, ours is lower and temporal. Getting His perspective will help us think the way he thinks, which changes the contents of our hearts/minds.

Do to that, the only way to do that, is to connect with Him. Which means having those open, honest discussions, above.

• How do you feel about Medication?

Spare tire: If you have a flat in the dessert, you put your spare tire on. You don't drive that spare tire for ten years, but you put that little donut tire on to get you to a place where you can repair or replace the broken tire. Medication is your spare tire.

Missing glasses: If your sight (spiritually/emotionally) is malfunctioning, put on any pair glasses you can find (even if it's an old pair with the wrong prescription) just so you can see well enough to get where you need to be and get the right fitting glasses put back on again.

Went to Primary Care Dr, and got two at the Primaries suggestion:

Zoloft - takes a while to build up, but will help stabilize.

Xanax - works quick, but not long lasting. Take as needed.

• Helping others...

Helping others is a good thing, even and especially if you don't feel whole yet. LIFE is not an On or Off proposition. You have quantities of it. If you only have 2% LIFE, then you have 2% to give. If you have 51% LIFE, you have 51% to give to others. What you have given, pulls on the source to refill beyond what you gave.

Even if you don't feel whole yet, you keep giving, and it will be given back to you, pressed down, shaken together, running over.


Afterward, hear this on the radio:

Start being aware of the nuanced feelings you have. The more nuanced you can describe them the better.

"I'm noticing that I'm feeling...."

This can be a wonderful tool for helping you drive into the experience of those feelings and process them. Susan David, Emotional Agility

So, broken or whole, "right or wrong", that's what I'm thinking about today,

Darrell W.

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Foundations of Freedom 3/5 | Kingdom of God

Re-Listening to Dr. Bob Hamp's Foundations of Freedom courses. Starting over at lesson 3/5, Kingdom of God. These are my notes from this go-around:


There were two book ends of Jesus teaching:

• The Kingdom of Heaven/God is like...
• We often hear this as instructions on "how we should do earth"; but Jesus said The Kingdom of God is like...
• For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear...
• We often hear this as try harder to believe; but this actually has to do with seeing things from a new perspective, hearing a new way, having a new way of thinking (process/perspective) that causes you have new thoughts (content) afterward.

Jesus had a single message during his ministry, with multiple ways it plays out. The gospel Jesus shared on the earth may not be the gospel you've heard all your life.

You've heard: "You are a sinner. Jesus came and died on the cross so you can be saved from your sins and go to heaven when you die." This is truth, and this is a gospel, the Gospel of Atonement... but it's not THE gospel.

Consider: None of that had happened yet when Jesus was in his ministry. Yet, his ministry worked without his death and resurrection having happened yet. Jesus shared the gospel and healed them all, yet had not gone to the cross yet. So what gospel did Jesus preach?

Matthew 3:2 - Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

We see this message as "Straighten up, wait until your Father gets home..." but that's not what repent means.

Before the earth or universe ever was, the Kingdom of Heaven was. Everything that was God, everything he is and is in his Heart to do or be is all that was.

The Love of God is so immense, that there it would never stand in the face of anything that would harm the object of His Love, even if the thing harming the object of his love is the object of his love.

The Power of God operates through the Love of God.

So when Jesus steps into the planet, the power and love of God operated through him. Out of the compassion/love of God, flowed the power of God.

The Peace of God is a tangible part of His atmosphere. If you simply breath it in, it will overpower anything causing your harm/stress.

We tend to think of "righteousness" as the things we should do. But, the righteousness of God is simply the way he designed things to work/function/operate.

We tend to think of the Kingdom of God coming as "won't it be great when there's no more...." but in fact there is so much of what God is that those things that won't be, won't be because they burn away in the presence of what IS.

LIFE existed before living things.

We are to be his Re-Presentatives, to be his likeness on this earth, to be to the earth what He is over The Kingdom.

*28:11 - Repent Defined

For too long we've applied self-effort and religious pressure to Repent.

• Repent does not mean to turn and go the other way, but that is the fruit of repentance.
• Repentance does not mean to change the content of your mind. Replace one thought with another. I was going to sin, but I think I won't.

Repent: Metanoeo: To think differently afterwards -- Thinking changed after being with HIM.

• 3340 metanoéō (from 3326 /metá, "changed after being with" and 3539 /noiéō, "think") – properly, "think differently after," "after a change of mind"; to repent (literally, "think differently afterwards").

We change the way we see/think because we become aware that the Kingdom of God is AT HAND, right there in front of you, at arms length, just reach out and take it, it's here already, right now.

Don't change the content of your mind, change the way you think/see. Your perspective. Once you change the way you think, you'll think differently afterwards.

If you Practice His Presence, continually being aware of the fact that The Kingdom is here, now, with you, in you, in your grasp; you will see things from a new perspective and your way of thinking will be different; which will cause you to then think differently afterwards.

The Problem Jesus Came To Solve

Genesis 2:9: Two Trees, The Tree of LIFE & the Tree of Knowledge

• 2416: ha·ḥay·yîm / chay: age / life / Living Force / fountain of life / source of LIFE
• 1847: had·da·‘aṯ / daath: knowledge / cunning, ignorantly, knowledge, unawares wittingly

Jesus did not say: I came that they might do better, and do better abundantly.
Jesus said: I came that they might have LIFE, and LIFE abundantly.

Life is not measured in on/off, yes/no, life/death...
Life is measured in quantities, you can have more of it or less of it...

Sickness, disease, pain, disorder, brokenness (bodies and minds)... are signs of a lacking, in part, of this substantive source called LIFE. The answer to all healing is an inflow of LIFE.

Genesis 3: Describes The Fall

If I loose my glasses, I have two problems. I lost my glasses, but I also lost the source of finding my glasses.

Sin is no-where mentioned in Genesis chapter 3:7. The fall:

• Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

The results of disobedience were eyes opened to knowledge.

They lost their source, LIFE, and they had to work out of Knowledge (a lower form of knowing/being).

His knowledge of evil showed him something was wrong, but his knowledge of good was insufficient to take care of it.

We lost LIFE through Knowledge, and we try to return to our source through Knowledge.

Science and Religion both fail us because they are based on Knowledge, and not LIFE. Their solution becomes the very problem they are trying to solve.

The Pharisees knowledge of good was the enemy of LIFE himself.

Jesus said to the woman at the well, in Samaria, "If you knew who I was, you'd ask and I'd give to you living water,.... then he addresses her source... ".

The woman said:I perceive you are a prophet, searching her knowledge of good for an answer.

Jesus' invitation was for her to surrender to his lordship.
She perceived religion/religious debate, better behavior.

I cannot know enough good things, or avoid enough bad things, to become the person He made me to be. I need LIFE, and more and more of it.

*1:00:09/chapter 3

Jesus came to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. No leper can decide to be whole, Jesus had to do it for him.

The fulfillment of the Kingdom of God is about the power of God expressed to you; then in you; then through you to others.

Your knowledge of good/evil will not give you power, only data. Power comes through LIFE.

The Kingdom of God is like a Radio

You were created to be a receiver. If you are not hearing/receiving the Kingdom you are not:

• Plugged In
• Turned On
• Tuned In

• You can have a quiet time, seeking the knowledge of good, and get nothing but a religious exercise.
• Or
• You can have a quiet time, seeking the Presence of God; plugging in, turning on, tuning in.

What are you doing, right now?
What are you saying, right now?
What are you intending, right now?

The Kingdom of God is like an Oven/Microwave

The kingdom of God has it's own power and presence and imposes its nature on whatever is in its presence.

However, if there's a mixture of people in his presence, we can all cook at different rates/speeds.

So if I want change, I need to put myself into His Presence.


So, broken or whole, "right or wrong", that's what I'm thinking about today,

Darrell W.

 

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Processesing my time with Dr. Bob - Session #3

Music

We talked about how music has been a recurring love/hate music pattern for me. How every time I settle down just a little, God whispers music back into my life. I reluctantly agree, instruments flood to me. I finally realized last week that maybe God was just trying to get me to "play".

He suggested, that maybe switching things up (learning new techniques, styles, just playing with sounds without regard to technique, play with open tuning because it forces you out of the grooves and patterns you know) all may re-engage my right brain (emotional/creative) side. Music could really be the avenue through which I could gain access to the rest of myself.

He let me know about Tommy Emmanuel, and Martin XXX?, two men who were known Thumb Technics. Afterward I found this: My Life As A One-Man Band | Tommy Emmanuel | TEDxMelbourne. Chet Atkins inspired Tommy Emmanuel. It reminded me that I also wanted to learn more about playing BB King stuff.

Legitimate Needs

Addiction and broken behaviors can be an attempt to meet legitimate needs through counterfeits. The key is to learn what those legitimate needs are, and find ways to meet them legitimately.

Some of the needs we identified, are Nurture, Validation/Value, Connection, See Me... Can you get access to those Right Brain parts without another human/addiction taking you there? Can you can access to them on your own? Music may be an avenue through which I could gain access to a side of me that has long been locked away.

Central Processing Units (CPU)

The human heart is a CPU. CPUs are designed to have flow going in and getting processed and going out. They are not designed to retain or hold.

By shutting off Right Brain emotions, it creates a glut/backup in the CPU; which prevents the flow in and out.


So, broken or whole, "right or wrong", that's what I'm thinking about today,

Darrell W.

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