The foundation of belief that dictates how we live...
We as people operate out of our core beliefs in our walk with the Lord. Unfortunately, for many years of my life, my walk with the Lord would always be undermined by severe unbelief to the point that I spent a lot of time even questioning whether there even was a God. I think many Christians find themselves there. My problem was that I would never really grow in my walk with Him because whatever revelation or truth He gave me I would not be able to learn to operate out of because I was so busy living in questioning of His existence. I was certainly able to get a better grasp of Bible knowledge. But if one thinks that Bible knowledge makes for spiritual maturity, the Pharisees should become the heroes of the Bible.
The Bible emphasizes stewardship, if you retain what you are given, even more will be added, but for him who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. For many years I think I was unable to steward the revelation that I would here presented because doubt on foundational issues would undermine it.
But there is something magical in clinging to the Word. John 8:31-32 talks of HOLDING to the truth and then experientially knowing it to be set free. It is through the clinging that the truth/revelation starts to become us. It dictates how we act. And a bit of a foundation starts to begin to be created. I was blessed to have much opportunity to learn clinging to Jesus and His Word through cancer (although I obviously don't recommend cancer to anyone). I also was blessed to have numerous hours each day to cling to revelation given through preaching I watched on sky angel. What starts to happen is that the Word mixes with experience to become us. Then when more revelation is heard it adds on to the grid of truth that already exists. While we are all liable to have cracks in our foundation of truth, a part of the growing process is adding to the spectrum of beliefs while rearranging core cracks. Ultimately, we all act out of what we believe - as I have heard said numerous times from a variety of people - what you believe is true for you even if it isn't true. For example, a quality girl may think that she is worthless and doesn't deserve anything better than a loser guy so she settles and puts up with that or sabotages a good relationship she might have. What she believes to be true works out to be in her experience even if it is completely wrong.
I think the clinging to the truth and core principles is what creates a foundation for God's presence to rest on for our lives. Bill Johnson likes to say that "we can have the measure of the presence of the Lord on our lives as we are willing to jealously guard." I think a lot of that comes back to if we are willing to fight (so to speak) against ourselves, emotions, society, etc. to keep from allowing the foundation of truth we believe in to be eroded. Undisciplined thinking and beliefs create foundations that are not as conducive to the presence of the Lord and living filled with the Spirit. If our actions and words come from underlying heart issues and beliefs, then when I was very undisciplined in the revelation I was given, I was not creating a foundation for the presence of the Lord to rest on my life. As a result, He feels distant because of what I believe and the subsequent way I live my life. When there is no living filled with the Holy Spirit, there is no empowerment to walk out the Christian life and at best we live lives of legalism trying to legislate things that can only be changed at the heart level through an encounter with Christ. Religion then tries to make spiritual maturity and growth about how much one knows or what title they have rather than what beliefs and from whose empowerment they live out of.
As we grow in our walk with the Lord we can start to see trends of what beliefs destroy freedom in our lives. A common one that I think we are all prone to walk into is to make something other than God our source. I think this is why doubt is such a common way the enemy tries to get Christians distracted. If God is no longer our source then we have to control and manipulate to get our agenda to pass. But if God is our source and we no longer live to do our will but His (to the best of our understanding) then certain ugly fruit in our lives just disappear because we no longer live to get stuff out of people and things but rather to be a blessing and add value to them (which is the starting point of loving others in my opinion).
I think part of the key is to have a variety of anointed people who influence our lives who not only are bright theologically but teach from a place of victory in the issue such that we can receive an empowerment from the word spoken to change us. As a result, there is an impartation given as we attach what they have said on to our own grid of truth which grows us more and more.
I think one way that the word of wisdom works is that as a problem or discussion is occurring, the Holy Spirit will quicken either experiences and the principles behind them from our own lives or truths to share. Most of the time that happens the person giving the word of wisdom walks away thinking that what was presented came out far better than they could have done - they know it was from the Holy Spirit. I think this is part of the reason why living positioned (or filled) through His grace is so important to the Christian life. The 1 Cor. 12 gifts are manifestation gifts (i.e. when His presence is manifest) so they seem to come into operation much more frequently when we are living positioned, filled, or the corporate annointing is such to minister from that.
The Bible emphasizes stewardship, if you retain what you are given, even more will be added, but for him who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. For many years I think I was unable to steward the revelation that I would here presented because doubt on foundational issues would undermine it.
But there is something magical in clinging to the Word. John 8:31-32 talks of HOLDING to the truth and then experientially knowing it to be set free. It is through the clinging that the truth/revelation starts to become us. It dictates how we act. And a bit of a foundation starts to begin to be created. I was blessed to have much opportunity to learn clinging to Jesus and His Word through cancer (although I obviously don't recommend cancer to anyone). I also was blessed to have numerous hours each day to cling to revelation given through preaching I watched on sky angel. What starts to happen is that the Word mixes with experience to become us. Then when more revelation is heard it adds on to the grid of truth that already exists. While we are all liable to have cracks in our foundation of truth, a part of the growing process is adding to the spectrum of beliefs while rearranging core cracks. Ultimately, we all act out of what we believe - as I have heard said numerous times from a variety of people - what you believe is true for you even if it isn't true. For example, a quality girl may think that she is worthless and doesn't deserve anything better than a loser guy so she settles and puts up with that or sabotages a good relationship she might have. What she believes to be true works out to be in her experience even if it is completely wrong.
I think the clinging to the truth and core principles is what creates a foundation for God's presence to rest on for our lives. Bill Johnson likes to say that "we can have the measure of the presence of the Lord on our lives as we are willing to jealously guard." I think a lot of that comes back to if we are willing to fight (so to speak) against ourselves, emotions, society, etc. to keep from allowing the foundation of truth we believe in to be eroded. Undisciplined thinking and beliefs create foundations that are not as conducive to the presence of the Lord and living filled with the Spirit. If our actions and words come from underlying heart issues and beliefs, then when I was very undisciplined in the revelation I was given, I was not creating a foundation for the presence of the Lord to rest on my life. As a result, He feels distant because of what I believe and the subsequent way I live my life. When there is no living filled with the Holy Spirit, there is no empowerment to walk out the Christian life and at best we live lives of legalism trying to legislate things that can only be changed at the heart level through an encounter with Christ. Religion then tries to make spiritual maturity and growth about how much one knows or what title they have rather than what beliefs and from whose empowerment they live out of.
As we grow in our walk with the Lord we can start to see trends of what beliefs destroy freedom in our lives. A common one that I think we are all prone to walk into is to make something other than God our source. I think this is why doubt is such a common way the enemy tries to get Christians distracted. If God is no longer our source then we have to control and manipulate to get our agenda to pass. But if God is our source and we no longer live to do our will but His (to the best of our understanding) then certain ugly fruit in our lives just disappear because we no longer live to get stuff out of people and things but rather to be a blessing and add value to them (which is the starting point of loving others in my opinion).
I think part of the key is to have a variety of anointed people who influence our lives who not only are bright theologically but teach from a place of victory in the issue such that we can receive an empowerment from the word spoken to change us. As a result, there is an impartation given as we attach what they have said on to our own grid of truth which grows us more and more.
I think one way that the word of wisdom works is that as a problem or discussion is occurring, the Holy Spirit will quicken either experiences and the principles behind them from our own lives or truths to share. Most of the time that happens the person giving the word of wisdom walks away thinking that what was presented came out far better than they could have done - they know it was from the Holy Spirit. I think this is part of the reason why living positioned (or filled) through His grace is so important to the Christian life. The 1 Cor. 12 gifts are manifestation gifts (i.e. when His presence is manifest) so they seem to come into operation much more frequently when we are living positioned, filled, or the corporate annointing is such to minister from that.
posted by Seltzer at 9:03 PM
3 comments
