Arrogance
When I doubt and lack faith, it is a symptom of arrogance. It is actually the rising up of my heart over the leadership of my spirit. God made the human enterprise to operate in a very specific order: spirit leading heart leading body. We are supposed to be led and to grow from the inside out, a lot like a tree.
This is because Jesus himself is the tree of life and we are supposed to eat from this tree. He called himself this more than once:
John 6:54-58 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
So, according to Jesus, HE is the food that brings eternal life.
We have to know how to eat this food. Jesus wants us to partake of the Tree of Life by being connected to Him like branches are connected to a tree. A tree or vine feeds it's branches from the inside out. The sap flows through the center of the vine and then into the center of the branches and results in the growth of the whole thing from the inside out. That is why you can cut a tree trunk or a branch in half and see the concentric rings of growth.
Jesus said He is the vine and we are the branches:
John 15:4-8 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
Jesus is saying again here that He is the Tree of Life. There is no life for anything not abiding in Him. Existence is an eternal guarantee...you are going to exist forever...but the quality of that existence is not guaranteed. You have to pick to abide in the source of life to live. The sap has to flow between the vine and branches for life to actually occur. Life is the quality of existence we were made to enjoy forever, if we want it.
Jesus is saying in John 15 that you can tell how much sap is flowing by your fruit...how much of His life you are manifesting in your own.
We should be desiring to see the same things done through us that were done through Jesus: casting out sickness and demons, multiplying resources, prophesying and interceding, even walking on water and commanding wind and waves...not by ramping up in our own power, but by insisting less and less on our own leadership and yielding more and more to the sap flowing through our center. This is how Jesus lived. He was very strong on His own! He IS God...but He set aside His own leadership and remained in the father.
John 5:19-20 Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
God is very interested in the world "marveling" at His leadership expressed through His family. His family is like a tree. The "sap" connecting us to the main vine IS the Holy Spirit. Abiding in our living connection to the vine produces the manifestation of His leadership as we get in touch with...desiring... God's good desires.
The enemy is interested in confusing us about faith. He tempts us to work hard to get confidence in our own faith. This is very slippery. Faith that spiritual activity works is different than faith in Jesus' leadership. Jesus was clear that it wasn't "faith in our faith" that would produce the greater works, but rather more of the Spirit flowing through us. Simply ramping up in "disconnected spiritual confidence" is rebellion, which is witchcraft.
We want to ramp up in the humble belief that Jesus IS the source of all life, that life is more than meets the eye, and more than our logic can explain. We really are not experiencing much life right now, the way the Bible describes life.
The Holy Spirit is the divine connection between God and mankind. It was this Spirit breathed into Adam that caused the dust to live. This is the way the amplified Bible says it:
Genesis 2:7 AMP. Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being.
Adam was alive and living in an open heaven. He saw God face to face and animals were talking. He used His spiritual authority and witnessed what we would called supernatural (natural for someone really living) things happen at the sound of His voice. That is living.
To live, you really gotta eat more from the tree of life. This is how we eat the tree of life: we share in the flow of sap that comes from Him into us...letting it be the center of our leadership. In fact, Jesus said "the more sap was flowing the more amazing things we would be able to do." Jesus said the sap flowing between us and Him was even better than living with Him face to face without the sap flowing!
John 14:12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
John 14:16-18 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.
So, if I want to really live, I need to change the leadership of my life more and more from me to the Holy Spirit in me. The fallen man lives outside of the divine order of spirit leading heart (mind, will, and emotion), with the physical body trailing behind. Fallen man does things that makes sense to his mind will and emotions and tries his best to keep the appetites of his physical body at bay. That is fallen, but it can get even worse than that...a man can become depraved. Depraved man has lost control of his appetites... what his physical body demands overruns what his mind, will, and emotions can control. this is where much of the world is heading. This is very bad news. This is Lord of the Flies at a global level.
The key to living in the time when the rest of the world is heading for death is to embrace the God given order of leadership: the Holy Spirit leading my spirit in ways I don't always understand...in ways that don't always make sense: giving away generously my resources, forgiving people who seem to not deserve it, blessing people who are clearly using me (even spitefully), making prayer my main plan to deal with sickness and trouble. Subjecting my mind, will, and emotions to second place. This gives me great strength to keep my physical appetites in check. The fruit of the leadership of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. There is no restriction on the free exercise of these, and these are the very things everyone else is hoping to run into by following their feelings and their appetites!
Galatians 5:18-26 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
This is because Jesus himself is the tree of life and we are supposed to eat from this tree. He called himself this more than once:
John 6:54-58 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
So, according to Jesus, HE is the food that brings eternal life.
We have to know how to eat this food. Jesus wants us to partake of the Tree of Life by being connected to Him like branches are connected to a tree. A tree or vine feeds it's branches from the inside out. The sap flows through the center of the vine and then into the center of the branches and results in the growth of the whole thing from the inside out. That is why you can cut a tree trunk or a branch in half and see the concentric rings of growth.
Jesus said He is the vine and we are the branches:
John 15:4-8 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
Jesus is saying again here that He is the Tree of Life. There is no life for anything not abiding in Him. Existence is an eternal guarantee...you are going to exist forever...but the quality of that existence is not guaranteed. You have to pick to abide in the source of life to live. The sap has to flow between the vine and branches for life to actually occur. Life is the quality of existence we were made to enjoy forever, if we want it.
Jesus is saying in John 15 that you can tell how much sap is flowing by your fruit...how much of His life you are manifesting in your own.
We should be desiring to see the same things done through us that were done through Jesus: casting out sickness and demons, multiplying resources, prophesying and interceding, even walking on water and commanding wind and waves...not by ramping up in our own power, but by insisting less and less on our own leadership and yielding more and more to the sap flowing through our center. This is how Jesus lived. He was very strong on His own! He IS God...but He set aside His own leadership and remained in the father.
John 5:19-20 Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
God is very interested in the world "marveling" at His leadership expressed through His family. His family is like a tree. The "sap" connecting us to the main vine IS the Holy Spirit. Abiding in our living connection to the vine produces the manifestation of His leadership as we get in touch with...desiring... God's good desires.
The enemy is interested in confusing us about faith. He tempts us to work hard to get confidence in our own faith. This is very slippery. Faith that spiritual activity works is different than faith in Jesus' leadership. Jesus was clear that it wasn't "faith in our faith" that would produce the greater works, but rather more of the Spirit flowing through us. Simply ramping up in "disconnected spiritual confidence" is rebellion, which is witchcraft.
We want to ramp up in the humble belief that Jesus IS the source of all life, that life is more than meets the eye, and more than our logic can explain. We really are not experiencing much life right now, the way the Bible describes life.
The Holy Spirit is the divine connection between God and mankind. It was this Spirit breathed into Adam that caused the dust to live. This is the way the amplified Bible says it:
Genesis 2:7 AMP. Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being.
Adam was alive and living in an open heaven. He saw God face to face and animals were talking. He used His spiritual authority and witnessed what we would called supernatural (natural for someone really living) things happen at the sound of His voice. That is living.
To live, you really gotta eat more from the tree of life. This is how we eat the tree of life: we share in the flow of sap that comes from Him into us...letting it be the center of our leadership. In fact, Jesus said "the more sap was flowing the more amazing things we would be able to do." Jesus said the sap flowing between us and Him was even better than living with Him face to face without the sap flowing!
John 14:12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
John 14:16-18 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.
So, if I want to really live, I need to change the leadership of my life more and more from me to the Holy Spirit in me. The fallen man lives outside of the divine order of spirit leading heart (mind, will, and emotion), with the physical body trailing behind. Fallen man does things that makes sense to his mind will and emotions and tries his best to keep the appetites of his physical body at bay. That is fallen, but it can get even worse than that...a man can become depraved. Depraved man has lost control of his appetites... what his physical body demands overruns what his mind, will, and emotions can control. this is where much of the world is heading. This is very bad news. This is Lord of the Flies at a global level.
The key to living in the time when the rest of the world is heading for death is to embrace the God given order of leadership: the Holy Spirit leading my spirit in ways I don't always understand...in ways that don't always make sense: giving away generously my resources, forgiving people who seem to not deserve it, blessing people who are clearly using me (even spitefully), making prayer my main plan to deal with sickness and trouble. Subjecting my mind, will, and emotions to second place. This gives me great strength to keep my physical appetites in check. The fruit of the leadership of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. There is no restriction on the free exercise of these, and these are the very things everyone else is hoping to run into by following their feelings and their appetites!
Galatians 5:18-26 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
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