Posted: 07/17/2013 at 7:07am
|
IP Logged
|
|
|
The Life of Fullness and Significance
By Ron McGatlin
In many nations of the world, including America, we are living in the time of one of the great opportunities to further the work of God’s kingdom on earth. The remaining freedom to use media and move about is a powerful opportunity to connect and bring forth to the world the loving works of Christ in us by the Holy Spirit.
There is no assurance that the liberty that remains yet upon us will be the way of the future. Now is the time to employ every tool and asset available to us to reach the nations with the love governance of God that can change the world. It is more than possible that a mighty release of the love and power of God from every believer on earth could turn the tide of the current dissolution of the liberty and freedom in the nations of the world.
It will not be well to look back on this time from the future and regret not using the liberty we had to do all that we could have done to impact a troubled world with the truth of the love based governance of Almighty God that would bring peace on earth and goodwill toward mankind. How bad will it feel to look back from a place of tyrannical godless governance and persecution and realize that while we entertained ourselves with games and indulged our appetites for pleasure seeking that the time of opportunity to freely proclaim the kingdom of God had passed away?
Only turning to God with our whole hearts and seeking His kingdom first, above all else, can assure us that there will be no regrets. Having fully obeyed the will of God and given our all in pure love and obedience to His call and leading, we will know that our lives and the great opportunity were not wasted.
Regret with its resulting condemnation is one of the most troubling dilemmas of life. Because they are in the past, natural wisdom cannot help us with past failures. We must tap into higher wisdom for life from Spirit God rather than anything from natural human thinking. Most of the world uses human or earthly natural knowledge, human intelligence, or understanding to guide their lives.
Knowledge is not the same thing as wisdom.
There are only two ultimate sources of wisdom and two resulting kinds of wisdom. The two kinds of wisdom are natural or earthly wisdom and spiritual or godly wisdom (James 3:13-18).
Our value system that prioritizes our lives is geared to one source of wisdom or the other. To change our value system we must first change our source of wisdom. Our lives are the compiled results of the decisions we have made from the source of wisdom we have accepted.
The two wisdom trees in the Garden of Eden
The two trees, in the center of the Garden of Eden, represent the two sources of wisdom for our lives. We know that God’s instruction was and is to not partake of the tree of knowledge in the center of the garden of our lives. The serpent pointed out the fact that partaking of that tree would make one wise and become as god. Partaking of the tree of knowledge is depending upon our own human wisdom to guide our lives, thereby becoming our own god apart from the true God that made us.
Death is the promised result of partaking of the tree of knowledge. Death is separation from God and His much higher and better way of life. We will have regret if we partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is the tree of man guiding his own life by natural human wisdom apart from the full leadership of God. Experiencing regret and self-condemnation is the experiencing of a level of death while we yet live. Through the centuries, many Christian religionists have turned to partaking of the tree of knowledge and not the tree of life.
The tree of life refers to becoming one with God and being guided by His voice – His full direction in our lives that is not based upon what we think but rather what He is saying by His Spirit into our “ears to hear” by the Spirit of God.
Many if not most Christians have been tricked into a form of godliness that is in contrast to the reality of the power of the life God has for us. Traditional religion has cunningly been infiltrated with deceitful partial truths that can steal from people the life of the reality of greater intimate relationship with God.
Church system training – good but not whole
We have been trained to receive Christ Jesus as Savior into our lives. We have sometimes also added the term as our Lord. Though the part of being truly Lord of our lives is often negated by the concept that we should make Jesus part of our lives. We may even believe that we should consult Him about all major decisions in our lives. All of this sounds really good and it is, but it is not the whole pure truth of God.
The devil is in the details. How do we consult God about our decisions? We may tend to like the verse in the Old Testament about “come let us reason together” because it makes it sound like we have some say in the process of figuring out what to do next.
Wow! This is so tricky. Come on, do we not know that God is God and we are not? Are we going to expect Him be only a part of our lives and only a part of the deciding process of how and what to be and do in this life?
God wants no part of being only a part of our lives. He will not be a part of our lives. He is only satisfied with literally 100% of our lives. Either he is God, or he is not. Our partaking of the tree of knowledge that is making ourselves as a god will never lead to true life but will eventually always come to being separated from His fullness and experiencing a level of death while we are naturally alive in these bodies.
Who says we cannot hear God?
Many of us have been subtly trained that we cannot hear God today and must try to figure out with our human minds what the Bible says in order to know how to live life. That is simply another big trick. We cannot naturally receive the word of God for it is only spiritually discerned (1 Cor 2:14). Therefore, we are stuck with reasoning out for ourselves what we are to be and do. Guess what? It never comes out exactly right, and we always have some form and amount of regret because we did what we thought was best but did not find out what God’s plan was for us.
God wants all of our life, not part of it. He does not want a tithe or an offering; He wants all of our money, all of our life, all of our time, our all abiding in Him and He in us by the Holy Spirit.
He does not want us making good decisions; He wants us to hear and represent what He has already decided.
Life is NOT all about us. It is not all about our wellness, our salvation, our hope of heaven, our good looks, our social and business accomplishments, our ministry, our sophistication, our reputation, our religion, our needs, or anything else.
This life is about Him, about becoming what He desires, about pleasing Him, about glorifying Him, about loving Him, honoring Him, praising Him, worshiping Him, depending on Him, seeking Him, serving Him, seeking His kingdom and His righteousness, knowing Him and being known of Him, representing Him on earth, and anything and everything else that He desires in or from His bride.
This is losing our lives for His sake and the gospels (Mark 8:35). This is the way to a miraculous life of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. This is seeking Him and His kingdom first and all other things being added to us.
We are spirit beings who have a soul (mind will and emotions), and we live in a body, an earth suit, a carton that contains our spirit and soul. These bodies are not who we are; they came from dust and will return to dust. Our spirit is who we are and the part of us that can become one with Spirit God, just as air mixes together with other air and becomes one air, our spirit can become one spirit with God.
The life we now live is His life living in us where we once lived. It is the most fulfilling, the most satisfying life that a human being can ever experience. In losing our lives in Him we gain His life in us. We become the best that we can be at everything in life: the best parents, the best teachers, the best farmers, the best business people, or whatever mission He has for us in this life.
There are never regrets to His life living in us. There is always righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit no matter what the circumstances. There is complete healing of all past failures, mistakes, and all painful wounding experiences, in the life of the reality of Christ in us by the Holy Spirit. We are not just filled with His Spirit, His life; we are saturated inside and out with His Spirit life.
This is the all-consuming fire of the love of God lifestyle that is available to those who truly seek Him with their whole hearts. It is a life of joy unspeakable and full of glory. A life in which experiencing His manifest presence among a group of His people in the presence of holy angels is far more exciting and fulfilling than all the riches and finery that worldly life can ever afford (Heb 12:22-25). It is simply life in the Spirit bringing heaven to earth.
In religious church we sought to get to go to heaven when we died. In the relational kingdom age church, it is about heaven coming to earth. It is about ruling and reigning with Christ in this life now.
God loves us so much and so desires to consume our lives with the fire of His love. God desires to take us to places in the Spirit that we have never even dreamed existed, places of rest and peace beyond measure – places of unspeakable beauty and graciousness in which there is neither press nor stress of life but unending power and wisdom to live this life to the fullest now and in the life to come eternal life.
It is never too late to get in on life in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. This is all clearly presented in the Bible and is available only to those who will seek Him and His kingdom with their whole hearts.
For more on all of this and more study the books by Ron McGatlin available for Free Download in PDF format HERE.
Keep on pursuing love. It never fails and His kingdom never ends.
Ron McGatlin
archive.openheaven.com basileia@earthlink.net
Edited by Ron McGatlin on 07/17/2013 at 10:38am
|