“But he who looks carefully into the faultless law, the [law] of liberty and is faithful to it and perseveres in looking into it, being not a heedless listener who forgets but an active doer [who obeys], he shall be blessed in his doing (his life of obedience).” Jam 1:25
Many of us laugh when we see some variation of the cartoon that talks about housework and laying down until the impulse to do it passes. Yet at the core of that moment, we are overcoming that impulse (regardless of origin), with our preference (to not do it).
These are not the Droids you are looking for…
Like in the Stars Wars saga – we have the ability to defeat our own internal focus – apparently with little difficulty. So what happens when a leading from the Lord, or a Word from the Lord, or Scripture reading rises up with the anointing of the Holy Spirit to target our active flesh, but is instead defeated and put down within us? How long do I have to lay down before this sense of leading is defeated, quenched, and passes? How often do I do this before growth and real progress within me is squashed in favor of my fleshly preferences?
I believe our practice and susceptibility to this, begins as a personal preference being exercised over and over – without conscious awareness or even with active resistance to the Holy Spirit, but it can easily become a place where the enemy comes to our aid to defeat us and the will of God.
This happens at a level of such peripheral awareness, that the enemy can quietly insinuate a thought, that we are unaware, and thus its potential for dangerous, habitual – knee jerk action…the simple indulging of our natural preferences – that have not been laid upon the altar and surrendered to God. And as our thoughts are to be brought captive to the obedience of Christ – so will the indulgences we lay down.
Let me provide an overview picture, and then some specifics…
See the landscape of your entire self laid out as a terrain map – geographically portrayed with hills valleys, rivers, etc. Now imagine the areas where you are most prone to default to self and flesh, where the spirit has the weakest rule — as being fault zones. They are places of collision between two realms: flesh and spirit. Like tectonic plates they clash and shudder, colliding together in a force that is both devastating and destructive. Where these areas plot out is where the Lord is working on you that you will see, and notice, and attend to your posture in that area. That you will notice the ground you are standing on is not undergirded in Him.
Where shaking is happening in your life is the very point of a battle, where even as a believer – you have been locked in a life-style of indulging your fleshly preferences yet all the while believing you were totally surrendered and sold out to the Lord. But in fact you have silenced the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and quieted the penetration of the Word. The word to us is clear in Hebrews 12:25:
“See to it that you do not reject Him or refuse to listen to and heed Him Who is speaking [to you now]. For if they [the Israelites] did not escape when they refused to listen to and heed Him Who warned and divinely instructed them [here] on earth [revealing with heavenly warnings His will], how much less shall we escape if we reject and turn our backs on Him Who cautions and admonishes [us] from heaven?”
This passage moves on to describe a shaking… a full and dramatic shaking of not just the earth, but of the heavens as well – so that a final removal and transformation of all that can be shaken will occur. The purpose of this shaking is so that what cannot be shaken may remain and continue. What cannot be shaken? Only what is totally founded and vested in Christlikeness. Only that what is characterized as faith, hope, and love (1Cor 13:13).
So some specific examples of this kind of thing…the remnants of our flesh and preferences being shaken up:
– Naaman the Syrian military commander afflicted with leoprosy, becomes angry because he wants his healing to come from a word spoken by the prophet – not by having to wash in the Jordan river
– Joseph, son of Jacob, gives a prophecy to Pharaoh’s cupbearer and the baker and hoping it will lead to an audience before Pharaoh and his discharge from prison, but further waiting in prison on the Lord’s timing is required
– Jonah, the prophet, is angry to be sent to Ninovah because he knows the Lord will spare them and he desires their judgment
– The nation of Israel, fails to recognize the day of their visitation from the Lord, and depending not on faith but rather on what they could do, stumbles over the Stumbling Stone
Some parting thoughts:
The exercise of fleshly indulgence may start small but it is a place of resistance and rebellion, possibly even deception that the enemy will assuredly try and use.
Some things to ponder: Things that are to provoke us to righteousness…
If you are a smoker, is it reasonable to ask God for healing of respiratory conditions or cancer, when you have no intentions of surrendering that habit?
If you are addicted to pornography, is it reasonable to expect God to heal your marriage issues without His torpedoing your addiction?
Where should the line be drawn in what the Lord expects I should give up in an effort to cooperate with healing? With obedience? With Holiness?
Isn’t it wrong for me to expect healing when I continue to insist on my rights for a particular preference?
Ps 103:5…"Who satisfies your mouth [your necessity and desire at your personal age and situation] with good so that your youth, renewed, is like the eagle’s [strong, overcoming, soaring]!
Rom 14:17… “The kingdom of God is not a matter of [getting the] food and drink [one likes], but instead it is righteousness (that state which makes a person acceptable to God), and [heart] peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”
What am I standing on? Indulgences? Rights? My way or agenda? Or am I standing on the promises, the Word of God and confidence in Him? They are not the same. And where I have become indulgent in a way that impairs the reality of God from increasing Christlikeness in me, I am looking at a shaking…
Obviously, any progress made in overcoming such indulgences small or large, benign or malignant – they are a work of the Holy Spirit bringing us to greater Christlikeness – not that of our own skill and reasoning
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