Independent Spirit

 

 Independent Spirit

“For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3a

Paul said a lot he had a lot of words but these words were the very important. They are words that hold me knowing that I get to be made whole with a community of believers formed into Jesus more and more. My independent spirit apart from this truth can do nothing. I cannot produce righteousness on my own and the good news of the gospel is I am made completely perfect because of the sacrifice Jesus made for me. 

I was that independent kid. No one was going to tell me what to do. I had to get the last word in with my parents. I decided I was fine not following God. Why should I obey something that just tied me down? At least in my mind that was my understanding for many years. I had to discover God's love for me on my own but little did I know that would become the very relationship that brought me life. The Scriptures were always there in fact I was that kid that excelled at memorization of Bible verses but I didn’t believe in my heart that I could know Jesus. No fault but my own. I can look back and see all those times God continued to pursue me and let me know he had better for me but until I surrendered none of that was going to happen. The gospel had to work its way into the independent spirit that was in me. That still holds true today even more so.

God doesn’t need my mind, he needs my heart. Independence is ingrained in me. It has been a very slow process of unlearning my ways to embrace the life I was meant to live in Christ. I was with my small group the other day sharing something that seemed God has been teaching me over and over. Thinking I was good in an area to then encounter, I was back there getting that lesson again. This time realizing, “Oh yeah I am doing things my own way instead of inviting the Holy Spirit to guide me.” Father, forgive me and move me back forward the way you desire..

Do you think this surprised God? His word says that He knows our thoughts before they are spoken. So now I just tell God what is going on in my mind and ask that he remind me of his truth. Meditating on God’s truth reminds my heart and mind to be dependent on God alone. 

What if you did that knowing that the past presence and future of the gospel held you? 

It's Special

 

 It’s Special

We recently took a trip to Maui for vacation. On day one my husband decided to go explore the roads of the beautiful island. Knowing we would only be there for a week we wanted to be able to see all parts of the island and having a rental car gave us that opportunity. Taking drives is something we have always done as a couple and the back roads growing up in Kentucky was something we were accustomed to. Even ones without guard rails were something we used to handle with ease when we lived there but nothing could have prepared us for the road we took that first day in Maui. This was a road like I have never been on but the views couldn’t be beat but little did we know this road was the most dangerous road known to the locals. 

This one lane road without guard rails came with cliffs and curves you couldn’t see around at times. I remember thinking, this can’t be a normal road and silently praying to God. A fourteen mile road should never have an hour and half EST but that didn’t stop my husband from exploring it. It was at the middle of that long drive we came to a curve where we encountered another driver as we shared the one lane. Both cars couldn't fit around the curve so we had to back up to figure out the situation one of us had to yield. We were on the side of the cliff as the other driver said, “Go forward you have five more inches.” So my husband did as the stranger directed him and he was able to go by so we could get around the curve safely. I looked in his car and his wife had a look of what I was feeling intense anxiety and fear of what was coming next and the stranger said, “I know. It's special.”

Those words, “It’s special” didn’t escape my mind that day. Maui was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen and knowing that God created all that I couldn’t help but remember that as special as that was, his greatest creation was us. The relational freedom to live in a way of knowing the good road to travel and blessings as we travel is knowing the life giving Spirit inside us that can lead us.

"For we eagerly await through the Spirit, by faith, the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accomplishes anything; what matters is faith working through love." Galatians 5:5-6

Paul was reminding them that freedom didn’t come on their own and wasn't something they could earn but a abiding trust in Jesus and what he did for them. Like me they had to learn to trust walking in the spirit was a continuous lifestyle waiting and anticipating what was to come. Traveling with Jesus is remembering the roads I travel will have dangerous curves and blind spots but that the blessing will come when I remember the view is worth it all. Spiritual eyes to see things in a way that reveals the bigger picture is trusting in what cannot be seen. Trusting like my husband did with that stranger, moving forward and keeping in step with the Holy Spirit and yielding and moving forward a little at a time. I can trust guidance will come when I ask, “Father, show me where I am trusting is something other than what you have for me. Give me eyes to see joy and gladness amid the chaos and confusion.” Keep me focused on you King Jesus. 

So where could you yield to things you see in order for the view to become more focused?

Soul Rest

 

          Soul Rest

“The LORD your God is commanding you this day to follow these statutes and ordinances. Follow them carefully with all your heart and all your soul. Today you have affirmed that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in his ways, keep his statutes, commands, and ordinances, and obey him.” Deuteronomy 26:16-17

God's promised to lead the Israelites into the promise land.  Not just knowing about it but knowing it in a way that would move them to respond with a heart obedience. God has always been about reaching our hearts and knowing him in a way of following him alone. God was teaching them that honoring him wasn't just about religious or ceremonial observance but about leading them in ways that changed their hearts to know him. God is still about that today.

 

Learning to depend on God alone will be a life long process. I was meant to live in wholeness, delight, and utter goodness and some of those days I will choose the opposite. It can come as me wanting to feel something and following my thinking to end up again in an uneasiness in my heart once again and restlessness in my spirit.

I am like the Israelites and forgetful to getting off course to find myself wandering getting a nudge within my spirit for God to reveal to me once again I am relying on my thinking. Been there?

So how I continue to learn to rely upon something that can't be seen?

Sometimes I feel the quiet of God's presence within me. I am learning what can't be felt at times is remembering that God is with me. Weariness can settle in and fatigue will wear me down but I am learning that is an opportunity to sit in the quiet and remember. I will speak to Jesus like he is right beside me telling him all my thoughts and resting in him knowing. His Word reminds me He knows my every thought before I speak it.

The Israelites were learning to depend on God as He led them through the wilderness into the promised land. On the way they, like us, experienced trials, struggles, problems, and God continued to remind them, “I will walk with you” like He does with us.  In the quiet is the endurance He is building in me when my feeling won't stop. The choice is mine to remember God's faithfulness or allow those thoughts to consume me.

What if I came to Jesus instead of trusting my feelings to direct me?

Where would that lead me? 

Gospel Held

Gospel Held

“And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” Philippians 1:9-11

Paul loved his community and longed that they would know the gospel in a way that would be a witness of Jesus. We can be that witness of the gospel. 

Do you remember a show called The Magic School Bus?

The “Magic School Bus” is a show I can recall from my younger days. One day I was working and noticed a door in the school and it immediately took me back to when I was a kid. Little did I know that this show isn’t just from my younger days but one that has been around for forty years. The teachers that decorated this door was led by young adult teachers so it caught my eye that they were familiar with this show to realize it was still around. I recognized the bus on the door walking by one day but didn’t realize this show was still around and that these young girls would put that theme on their door is what stood out to me. The show is about a teacher who takes her students on a bus ride that transports them deeper into what she is teaching them. “Seatbelts everyone!” is the introduction song before the show starts and where the teacher takes them is different each time. A new adventure in what they are learning. 

The instruction is given to the students and what they learn as they are transported builds that understanding. Of course this is all fictional but this very thing got me thinking about the Bible and how deeper the understanding can come when I recognize the knowledge given is to engage my heart. 

The goal of my instruction is to know God better.  The knowledge that equips my heart to love, the renewal of my mind, and to understand with whom I engage in this world to love others through the love of God. 

The Bible is a book that has interacted with me in a way to show me what that looks like and deepening my relationship with God. Being held in the same gospel of mercy and grace growing my dependence more on Jesus and less on me. 

So what if I allowed God’s truth to mold me and make me more like Jesus? Where would that take me?

Father,

That you would place that door in my path is a the reminder that nothing is accidental in what you do. Learning more about how you desire to reveal your word in and through me is learning that Living Word can take me to deeper understanding of your heart. You are my portion, I have promised to keep your words keep revealing more of your heart in and through us Jesus so others can know you more.

Amen

 

Walking Out Truth

 

Walking Out Truth     

“For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all the power, according to the glorious might, so that you may have endurance and patience, joyfully." Colossians 1: 9-11

Paul prayed that they would know God and what he required from them. Growing in a spiritual understanding would take time. The gospel on the ground came in a way that was changing everything that they had known. God's grace made available as they had heard about this hope of truth as Paul sat in prison would reach them reminding them what they had learned. It has always been about God reaching my heart so I could grasp his truth.

Even as I don’t lead a classroom any longer, the beginning of the year is one I won't forget. When I led I would set up the classroom preparing for new students to open the door to receive little ones not knowing me or their surroundings to encounter the beginning of it all. A new school year meant a new start. Some kids came in and didn't have a problem leaving mom or dad but some didn’t know what that meant to constantly remind them, “Mom and Dad will come back” but those words would take time to take root. Learning to trust that process of what we were telling them and seeing that at the end of class that truth would come sometimes would take time for them to believe. The growth of that understanding was different for each child. So why do I forget the process of becoming more like Jesus is remembering to preach to my heart to remember my dependence is on God alone? 

Growth takes time. Like those little ones when the door shuts and I feel alone I will forget. But learning that my Father is there even when it feels like He isn’t is growing in my dependence upon God alone. Learning that the Holy Spirit in me is that transforming agent of helping me to understand that what occurs in my mind can shift what occurs in my heart. I can intentionally speak God’s truth, grace and promises to my own heart when I encounter discouragement, doubt, or any of those sins I think I am hiding away. “Father, reveal to me what is standing in the way of me receiving your truth not to depend on you alone. Search me and know my heart. Forgive me when I forget so that I can move forward and remember I have been set free from the way I think.”

So what if when the door of doubt, discouragement, or anxiety I remembered I’m not alone? What would that walk look like daily?

Walking in Freedom

  Walking in Freedom

“For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice evil that I do not want to do. Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me.” Romans 7:18-20

Paul understood his weaknesses as a human being. He knew that Jesus was his Deliverer. When I decided to give my yes to Jesus that was the beginning of learning what that meant to live for him. It has been a slow process learning what that means and sometimes growing closer to Jesus is stumbling in the grace given to me. The gospel must keep saving all of me. My heart, mind and soul.

I was on the playground at work and looked over to see a little boy sitting down on the sidewalk by himself. His hands covering his face and head down in a posture of knowing immediately that I could recognize he was in a time out.  As I watched him cry and sit there he started to acknowledge the choice he made once again as he shook his head saying,“Not again.” I see this all the time on the playground with the kids. The ones that have been warned not to do something that look at you to do that thing again. They get caught in the act to realize the choice made wasn’t what they intended and now has landed them somewhere they never meant to be.  

Knowing what we want to do and what we are instructed to do is a battle we fight within our minds each day. I am guilty like those kids in many ways of thinking I was meant to live my way and leaving my heart and mind to determine my path. I too will find myself in time outs making choices that God allows me to make to find out that wasn’t His intention but my own. Sitting in time out has become a place to recognize I have allowed sin in my heart.

My sin has a strength that can pull me in a direction that I am not even aware of until I am back in that place of realization once again knowing I am trusting in myself. I never meant to get there yet somehow I am finding myself there more times than I would like to recall.

Just like those kids I am still learning what it means to have self control. I have a daily choice of either trusting in myself or trusting in God. I think sometimes I have a better way of doing things to go ahead and blow through all the warning signs that I have been given to find myself in a time out forgetting that what I am allowing to lead me is pride in my heart. Not really acknowledging that one can lead me to thinking I can do things alone instead of inviting Holy Spirit to guide me. What is that for you?

I have been set free because I can know mercy and grace that shows me how to continue to walk in freedom. Dying to myself gives me freedom living in Christ.

I have to ask Holy Spirit to reveal those things that stand in the way of allowing God to rule and reign in my heart. What if you asked that question?

Father,

LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up; you understand my thoughts from far away. Search me and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way. Like David we can say these words knowing that you hear us. Forgive me when I forget. Gospel freedom is walking in way of knowing that your grace and mercy will never change. Thank you Jesus.

Amen