The Secrets or
Illusions of the Kingdom of Heaven |
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| Mark 4:12..."To YOU
has been given the SECRETS or the ILLUSIONS of the Kingdom of
God. Who is Christ speaking to? What group is He willing
to share such secrets? How do I fit into this?? Christ had just
given the story of the Parable of the Soils to a huge crowd. After
His sermon, everyone was dismissed with 10 verses of "Just
As I Am" and they all went out for a Sunday lunch.
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| RECEIVING
SYSTEM -- Freedom from Addictive Bondage |
ACHIEVING
SYSTEM -- Bondage to Addictive Behaviors |
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To Following |
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Not to Becoming |
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| God's job is to make us become; our job is to focus on "following Him." Is your attention focused on becoming a better Christian and leading others on how to become more righteous? God's discipleship process is designed to get your focus off of trying to change your flesh and on to what it means to follow Him. Let Him do the becoming. Fleshly addictions are rooted in the need for us to try to control the process; freedom from the bondage of fleshly habits begin by letting go of control. | |||
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To Follow the Spirit's Voice |
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Not to Follow God's Truth |
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| The scriptures can easily become a "textbook or manual" in how to produce righteous behavior. We learn it in order to apply it so that we will receive the full benefits of living according to God's righteous standard. But, Christ made it clear that the one new agent, the Spirit of God, needed to come for His discipleship process to achieve its results in the life of his men. In a law-based system, God's truth (regardless of Old or New Testament) is the measure for human performance; in liberty, God intended for His Word to demonstrate we can NOT perform up to it's standard. He gave us His Spirit to be the one whom we grow in following Him, so that He would make us become. Change is a spiritually enabled process, not the result of an educational system. | |||
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To Trust and Repentance |
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Not in Learning, Doing & Applying |
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| Addictions are habits we have established in our flesh to get our needs met outside of a dependant relationship with God. The basis for Christian addictions is trying to get yourself "WELL" through mastered discipline of God's good truth and principles. The basis for Christian wellness and healing is allowing God to reveal to us where we are "SICK" and can NOT get ourselves well without his healing restoration and redemption. Growth away from our flesh is empowered through recognizing I am sick (repentance) and seeking God to bring restore that which is broken (trust). | |||
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To Endure in Following Him regardless of Cost |
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Not just Following to find Blessings/Comfort |
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| When do I find myself following God...is it so that I will get something out of Him to make my life more comfortable and convenient? Or, will I follow Him even when I don't get what I expect out of the relationship? God's discipleship process will lead us to a path that none of us would orchestrate for ourselves...the path of "denying ourself and picking up our cross." Will I endure in this "follow Me" relationship regardless of where it leads and how hard it becomes? Addictions are behaviors that bring me "short-term" relief, freedom leads me, one response at a time, to "long-term" redemption. Seeing these sins of bondage cease involves a endurance through such a suffering process (1 Pt. 4:1-3). | |||
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To Find My Identity/Purpose in Him |
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Not to Find My
Identity/Purpose in How Others View Me |
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| Is your identity tied into how others view you? Is how well you perform the basis for determining your worth to God and others? God is leading me to find my significance, security, and love & acceptance in my identity--not my performance with Him. But, performance is the basis for judging my worth in every other realm of my life (work, home, church, society, government, etc),.But, performance is NOT the basis for unconditional acceptance; it is the basis for us trying to control our relationships in which we don't want condemnation. So, we hide behind our "fig" leaves so that God and others do not see our "nakedness." Addictions are behaviors we are trying to control to get others to think we are well; freedom allows us to see the reality we are sick. | |||
| • To Seek God for Restoration |
• Not to Seek God for Relief |
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| Is your Christianity a means of performing for God so that He will give you a life of comfort and convenience? Or is Christianity a means of seeking for God's redemption through the pain and failures of live so that He will restore those areas where I have failed/ Christianity becomes a seed bed for addictive behaviors when we make it a formula to get what we want from God. The goal of God's discipleship process is "restore us through our circumstance" (make us become) not "relieve us from our circumstances (perform to get blessings)." | |||
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To Trust in God for Transformation |
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Not to Trust in God's Word for My Theology |
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| Seeking God can subtlety turn into to knowing and believing God's truth. Many church groups define "the faith" as being the doctrinal content of knowing God's Word in the right way and form. So, discipleship leads people to getting to know the truth of God and following it. But, God's discipleship process is centered around getting to know God and His transformational power through taking experiential steps of "faith". God will lead me to see how I am responding in a trial which is really what I believe in. As He shows me my fleshly addictive behaviors (what I am trusting in apart from Him), then I see the need to seek Him and change me in that area. Addictive behaviors focus around trying to measure up to God's truth; freedom focuses on seeking God because I don't measure up to His truth. | |||
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To Seek God in My Spirit for Change |
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Not to Depend upon Flesh that is in Control or Conforms
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| The essence of addictive behaviors is trying to control. But, some have a flesh that wants to be in control -- The Controller. Others have developed a flesh that wants to depend upon others to be in control -- The Conformer. God's "follow Me" discipleship process will have to break down either extremes of these bondages in order to establish a healthy relationship of depending upon God (letting go of the control of controlling or conforming). Until this is established, true change is not possible. Religion uses the roles of a controller to be the "parent" that tells the "kids" what to do so they can conform to please. God's means of relating under liberty breaks such addictive patterns in order to establish freedom, even the freedom to fail. This breaks such unhealthy "controller-conformer" relationships, bringing the opportunity for God to bring His true dynamic change within our spirits. | |||
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To Follow God as He Reveals One Issue at a Time |
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Not to Follow God's Truth in Trying to Change Myself |
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| Do you have a fleshly behavioral problem you are trying to change and it just is not happening? Addictions focus on trying to change the symptoms (the surface manifestations of sin in my flesh); freedom from bondage is allowing God to change the core problem. Following God begins by allowing Him to reveal the issue He is wanting you to respond to in trust. God knows how to unravel the ball of my flesh by starting with one knot at a time. Stop trying to change yourself where you think the problem lies and start developing a heart that responds to what God is trying to reveal to you and your heart? He is the master surgeon, knowing if I respond to what He is showing me now, I can trust Him to lead me to a new area of trust and growth. God is in control of my growth process. Will I allow Him to change me by following Him through each area of breaking me to depend upon Him in a new way. Addictions are fueled by trying to change; freedom is found by trusting God for the change. | |||
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To Encourage the Progression of Growth to Occur |
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Not to Frustrate Under the Need to Get It Right Everytime |
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| Is it getting frustrating because you are trying, but you keep failing? Addictive fleshly habit patterns develop because we get frustrated trying to produce the end results which are not attainable. So, we find a substitute that seems to bring relief. God's process of establishing change allows for the progression of growth that allows for failure to occur. The freedom to become is found through the process of following God as He establishes first listening (not trying to work it out myself) to Him, then enduring (not falling back to the old ways), and then refining the impurities from my life (worry-what I am depending upon for survival, lust--what I am seeking for my significance, and appetite for material gain--where I am placing my security) and finally He produce the changes of becoming through this spiritual transformation process. God teaches us to become like a father patiently works with his child to become an accomplished bike rider. | |||
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To Train through Trials |
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Not to Try through Discipline |
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| God's Spirit will "put us in the boat" of life experiences to be the means for us to see what we are trusting in. All of us will find that we are trusting in our abilities or flesh which we have established to milk love and acceptance from our worlds. The Spirit is orchestrating and using these experiences for us to see how we are NOT trusting in God. Yet, when we come to the end of our flesh rope (trying to bail us out with our strengths and abilities which ultimately don't work), then we realize that we need to trust God for His supernatural work to be the means for hope in our worlds. Addictive behaviors are what always surface in the "heat of the battle" because it is what we programmed within ourselves to depend upon for results. But, God's Spirit is leading us to fail in trusting in our flesh so that we will find the freedom of a trust-based relationship with Him. | |||
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• To Move from Fear to Trust in God |
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Not to Allow Fear to Trust in Human Efforts |
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| We
prefer living under a law-based system, because we feel more in
control of following the rules to get the results. Fear is a great
motivator-- initially, it always will lead us to trust in our human
skills or efforts, based in logic or feelings, to achieve supernatural
results with natural processes. But, not until we realize that we
have made a mess of the results, fear moves us beyond the human
to trust in God by letting go of control, stepping out in faith
for God to produce the supernatural. Is God becoming "bigger"
in your relationship with Him, growing in a way that you are seeing
Him work in new ways you never knew He could do in your experience?
Addictive flesh patterns are deepened as we try to control the change
process; freedom only comes by allowing fear to bring us to letting
go of control. |
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To examine further How
Christ Discipled His Men and understand
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