WBS.170
FUNDAMENTALS OF DISCIPLESHIP
THE
TRANSFORMATION OF THE SOUL – VII
Matthew 6:10 Thy kingdom come, Thy
will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
We can 1. give
thanks in all things, 2. rejoice evermore and, 3. pray without
ceasing knowing with confidence that they are the will of IAUE for our
lives. We can also be confident that they
manifest the Kingdom of IAUE in the earth and bring the power of the Kingdom of
IAUE to bear in and through our lives to those around us.
If
you have begun to practice these three activities, you may have observed at
first a degree of difficulty. Do not
give up on them. What usually occurs at
first is a “choice” to give thanks, to rejoice and to pray; but the activity is
based upon whatever thoughts are in your mind…your academic collection of what
you have heard or learned in Scripture. Let’s
call this “priming the pump.” We could
also call it “planting the seed.” When
you plant a seed, you do not harvest the wheat the next day. A farmer absolutely knows without a shred of
doubt, however, that once the seed is planted, the seed begins to release its
power to begin the growth process.
You
might give thanks for Messiah’s sacrifice on your behalf, for the Holy Spirit
in your life, then move on to thanking IAUE for your house, your job, your
family, your friends…and five minutes later you have run out of things for which
to express thanks. You really haven’t quite understood how you can give Him
thanks in the middle of financial difficulty, pressure at work, relationships
that have gone sour. That’s okay. Unless thanksgiving was already a natural
function of your life, that experience is going to be common with anyone who
has chosen to move into discipleship from just being a believer.
The
same is true for rejoicing. Now,
rejoicing is an even less common experience to most because we do not tend to
think in terms of rejoicing. This
activity might not have come as easily to you as giving thanks or even praying.
The difference between thanksgiving and rejoicing is this. Giving thanks expresses appreciation for what
IAUE or Messiah, or even other people have done for us. Rejoicing is celebrating over the impact of
what was done. For example: If you are deeply in debt, that problem has
caused many ripples of other problems in your life. If someone comes up to you and hands you a
check to pay all of your debts, you would “THANK” that person profusely with sincere
gratitude; but when you got home to your family, you would REJOICE with your
family that you were now debt free and liberated from all of the bondage it
brought into your family’s experience.
You rejoice over the ramifications and impact of becoming debt
free. You give thanks for the gift. You rejoice over what the gift means to you. When the gift is temporal, as in our
illustration above, the rejoicing is short-lived because the effects of the gift, that of
being debt free, will eventually become the normal experience; and we will no
longer consider it a matter for rejoicing.
When the gift, however, is eternal, there is no way the rejoicing can
ever become tired or without foundation.
Understanding
this helps us to understand the “bridges” we discussed last week. (A bridge is
a transfer of life and light and power from our newborn spirit through our soul
into and out of the body.)
When
at first our activity proceeds forth from academic facts stored in our mind,
the corresponding bridge does not appear instantaneously. Until we have tapped the thanksgiving, the
rejoicing and the unceasing prayer that is in our newborn spirit, our obedience
to the command of Scripture to give thanks, rejoice and pray begins the process
of building the corresponding bridge.
Until the soul embraces thanksgiving, rejoicing and prayer as a way of
life, a life of obedience to the will of IAUE that becomes a core value in our
hearts, we have not provided the corresponding image to our spirit in order to
release the power of the Holy Spirit through us to others.
In
the above image, we see illustrated how the choice in our minds to give thanks,
rejoice and to pray without ceasing begins to reach through the soul into the
heart, seeking its counterpart in our spirit.
Here,
we see that by maintaining the determined practice of DOING THE WORD OF IAUE
(giving thanks, rejoicing, praying) and not just being a hearer of His word,
our planted seed grows until it finds its counterpart in our spirit. Do you recall our illustration a few weeks
ago of the “Concentration” game, where you try to match the images behind the
tiles? When you make a match, the tiles
are removed from the board, and the image behind the tiles is exposed. THAT is the completion of the bridge; and the
glory of IAUE is revealed to shed abroad His life, light and power in our lives
to others.
This
illustration is a bit busy, but you can see that once the bridge has been
completed by persistent obedience to the will of IAUE, first begun as a choice
in the mind, it becomes forever after a release of the spirit. Thanksgiving and rejoicing and prayer are now
fueled by the grace of IAUE; and they become effortless and natural to us. They
become a way of life to us.
Through
this transaction, the Kingdom of Heaven is manifested in our lives. The treasure in earthen vessels is exposed to
the world around us; and how is this made possible? It is by simple obedience to the Word of IAUE…simple
obedience to what we know is our Father’s will.
Now,
I want to introduce why this process works, and how it has the power to
manifest the Kindgom of Heaven in and through our lives.
Luke 17:21 …behold, the kingdom of IAUE is within you.
We
have discussed many times in this blog that man is the pinnacle of the creation
of IAUE; and that the purpose of man’s creation, his design function, is to do
the will of IAUE. Man was created in
IAUE’s image and after His likeness; but that was forfeited in the fall of man
in the garden of Eden. Yahushua came to restore to man the image and likeness
of IAUE and to restore his ability to fulfill his design function. Doing the
will of IAUE is what makes that happen; it is what transforms us into His likeness
from glory to glory. This transformation
is effected by the Spirit of IAUE. What
I want us to see is the role of the Holy Spirit in this process.
Genesis 1:1 In the
beginning Elohim created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the
earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of Elohim moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And Elohim
said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Note,
the Spirit of IAUE was moving upon the surface of the earth waiting…waiting for
Elohim to speak. Once the word was
spoken, “Light be!” the Spirit created light.
Each time Elohim spoke, the Spirit of Elohim created. The words spoken by IAUE are full of creative
power. They are filled with the faith of
IAUE. He speaks, and His Spirit brings
it to pass.
When
IAUE speaks regarding us, His creative power and His faith fill those words;
and the Spirit of IAUE is prepared to release the creative power to bring
manifestation to those words; but the Spirit is now waiting for us. He is waiting for US to speak the same words
back to IAUE to complete the connection.
Why is this? It is because IAUE
gave dominion to man over all the works of His hands in the earth (Genesis 1:26-30). IAUE provided to His man everything pertaining
to life and godliness (the manifestation of the likeness of IAUE…the manifestation
of righteousness); but man must now appropriate it with his own words of faith
by concurring with the words of IAUE.
2 Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of IAUE,
and of Yahushua our Master,
3 According
as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and
godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and
virtue:
This
opens up a whole new concept for us in the transformation of the soul; but you
will have a first-hand demonstration of what we will be discussing over the
next few weeks if you continue to persist in giving thanks, rejoicing and
praying without ceasing. Keep building
your bridges. This is about to get really exciting.
Kingdom
heart: a heart that offers no resistance to the
performance of the will of IAUE.
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