Father's Amazing View of You

As I ministered to several people I realized how easy it is to see our deficits and the deficits of others.  As we become focused on our deficits we can become discouraged, angry at ourselves, and even despairing.  Does God really have the same view of us as we do of ourselves?  Father placed us "in Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:30) by His doing and now we have access to all that Christ is for us.  Since Father placed you "in Christ" is He going to relate to you as if you were still "in Adam"?

In being united to Christ, all your deficits, weaknesses, and even sins become the place for God to do His most brilliant work in us making for the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8).  His power (strength) is made complete in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12), so Paul boasts in His weakness because he sees the miraculous work Christ is doing in these places.  What if in order for Jesus to get His full reward and inheritance, your deficits and weaknesses need to be places of brilliant and powerful grace.

Could it be that Father sees us glorious whole, free, fully alive in Him, and powerful.  He has given the Holy Spirit to continually take our view of ourselves to a new height, freeing us from a low earthly view.  After all we are His Beloved sons and daughters, and all creation is groaning and we are groaning inwardly for the revelation of who we truly are.  God's original plan having children in His image, has been gloriously restored in Jesus Christ and He uses everything in our life to take our view of ourselves to a new place in Him.

Romans 6 tells us that the "old self" has been crucified, meaning that God is not trying to improve this "old self" because it is dead and gone.  Part of faith is believing the old you is dead, meaning really dead. We need revelation of our "new self" in Christ, so we can be excited for who He is for us but also excited about who we are in Him.  When God wanted to rescue the world, He did not just wipe it out and start over.  He sent Christ to be the firstborn of a new race of people who have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them.  The answer for the world's problems is not more government programs, more natural resources, or medical breakthroughs.  Those may come but God has invested in bringing heaven to earth through Christ dwelling in a people that will spread the glory of God over the whole earth.  The world is longing for you to see who you really are.

In Him,
Bret

Letting go to Receive His Love

I have found the very place Father wants to upgrade me in experiencing His love is often the place I am holding on to.  We have four core needs in our life:  Unconditional Expressed Love, Security/Safety, Value/Identity, and Purpose/Adventure.  When our core needs are met than we experience being loved, when our one or more of our needs go unmet we experience an emptiness.  Since life (being loved) is rooted in our needs being met, if we are not receiving Father's love in an area then we have a deficit and the flesh rises up to meet that need.  Heidi Baker once said, "Love is a need met."  Holy Spirit has revealed to have one or more of your core needs not met as you grow is the place you not only have a deficit but a wound.  Unmet needs for a length of time in childhood produce a wound, it is in the wounds that identity becomes distorted (believe lies).

I was realizing this as Father has been bringing me to a point to letting go of all attempts to get security outside of Him.  Father's love fills our deepest core needs but it also means death to all the ways we have been seeking to meet our need our own way.  Romans 6 that says our "old self" is dead, this is all our orphan living and thinking.  Since losing my earthly father at age 6 and having a single mother raise me, my need for security was shaken to the very core.  Father's invitation to me is to receive the security and safety of being a son because I have been placed "in Christ".  No wander rest has been difficult for me, since it seems that flesh often rises up to meet this need for security.

It seems we must be brought to the end of ourselves (our way of meeting our need) either by circumstances or the revealed Word.  Jesus said it clearly in Matthew 16:25, "For whoever is bent on saving his [temporal] life [his comfort and security here] shall lose it [eternal life]; and whoever loses his life [his comfort and security here] for My sake shall find it [life everlasting]."  The word first used in this passage about "his life" is for the soul.  We must be willing to lose our soul life to receive the life Jesus offers.  Holding on to our soul life is filling our four basic needs based on an orphan heart, instead of receiving the filling of our needs in Father's love. 

The life Father gives us "in Christ" is so much better, yet unseen in our lives till we are willing to give ourselves to love.

Growing in His Love,
Bret

Is it Believing or Doing?

I have found that in life it is very easy to focus on what I need to be doing, should be doing, could be doing, or didn't do.  Religion (leaven of the Pharisees that Jesus talked about) gets us to focus on what we should be doing for God.  When the focus is on doing for God I have found that I quickly become like the elder brother in the story of the Prodigal.  Elder brothers are really focused on what they are doing, how good it is, comparing themselves to how others are doing, striving to perform better, pressured, and often stressed.  I know I have an Elder brother some where inside who believes it's all about performing, striving, earning, and anxiously trying to be something.  The elder brother is more of a mindset in my soul but I think you get what I mean.  Do you realize that the Elder brother was seeking to earn what he already had (the blessing of the Father) and his inheritance?  The Elder brother longed to have the Father say how proud He was of him but believed the only way that would ever happen is if he performed up to it.  Elder brothers get a lot done in the Body of Christ but often leave others around feeling condemned, judged, and simply not good enough.  Not exactly empowering.

Jesus main commandment was to believe in Him, abide in Him, and do intimate relationship with the Father through Him.  It seems at times there is a war between the believing and doing, rather than seeing that faith (belief) produces works.  The main root of this struggle is really do we save ourselves, or receive blessing from God through doing more for Him or is salvation really all God's initiation.  I believe until we get revelation our believing and doing will be at war within us.  It amazed me at one point this week when I didn't have the desire to do what I believe God was leading me to do, He reminded me that Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work." (John 4:34). I believe Jesus resolved the war that often wages within us in Himself by fulfilling the Father's mission.  I once heard Michael Brodeur say, "God be's what He does and does what He be's."

If you are anything like me, you can get caught up in life being about completing your "to do" list.  If you are involved in a work to move forward in life there are things to do but believing and abiding in Jesus is what gives life.  When the doing comes out of our abiding then God guarantees there will be good fruit (John 15).  I believe those who are better at being in Jesus can criticize those who are "doers" as not truly having intimacy with God.  I believe Jesus being the exact representation of the Father held these two in a wonderful tension that manifested a new way of living.  Jesus was always fully present to the Father but maintained a schedule that would exhaust most of us.  I believe He was absolutely compelled by love.

In Him,
Bret