Workin’ It Out – Part 1

April 28, 2013 at 3:01 am (Remodeling the Mind, WSGD Newes) (discernment, God, insight, Jesus, spirit, study, testing, the Father, Walking with God, wisdom, working out, Yeshua)

1 John 4:1

Dear friends, don’t trust every spirit. On the contrary, test the spirits to see whether they are from God;…

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22

Don’t quench the Spirit, don’t despise inspired messages. But do test everything – hold onto what is good, but keep away from every form of evil.

Philippians 2:12-13

So, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed when I was with you, it is even more important that you obey now when I am away from you: keep working out your deliverance with fear and trembling, for God is the One working among you both the willing and the working for what pleases Him.

I have spent much time in prayer, sitting somewhere with an armada of books, especially my Bible, note books for note taking, and a good amount of “heavenly elbow juice” (this comes from the Spirit of the Living God – not my human “effort”); over the scriptures above. I will share a few of the jots I have been given, but I must emphasize that each of us must pursue, dig, scratch, scrape, wrestle, chew, ask, seek and knock for themselves for any scripture to come alive to them. What others have shared from their own seeking…has been of great influence to me, but I say with absolute 100% assurance; following someone else’s “prescription’s” for studying to show yourself approved exactly as they do it, will not work for anyone but the one the “prescription” has been written for. Not one thing does God intend to repeat, except that which writes a unique and individual name down in His Book via adoption. The “method” of adoption is different for everyone, the way He feeds them is specified to their particular needs and “make up”. That He will always use His Word, the Way is Yeshua (Jesus), the Spirit the Counselor and Enabler is the limit to our common ground in walking with God. Sometime God puts us in a particular class with others on a specific lesson, but each one comes away with different hues being “bathed in the same general color”. So my intent here is not to say “Do this exactly and you will “arrive” at the “same destination.” Rather, I am sharing some amazing things that have helped me in pursuing the goal of the scriptures above.

First of all in regards to the first Scripture -1 John. The word spirits always seemed to “throw me off”.  So much time has been spent on my part asking God to make clear what these spirits are. I will attempt to make clear what’s been given to me in clarification. Just like an action can not reveal the motive behind it, often words are cloaked in a spirit that is opposite or in conflict with the words spoken. Example: We have become habitual at saying “Hi” with a question “How are you?” Most of the time the spirit of the question is “Hi.” Not really wanting to know how the person is. 90% of the time its a situation where one does not have the time to really listen to how one is much less can one give an answer that correctly states how one is at the time. Grocery store check out lines would be lengthy should the spirit of such a question be followed :-).
Most of us answer verbatim “Fine” or “good” or at times some short form of complaint “I’ve been better.”
Another is how often the words “I’m sorry” get said. I could go on but I pray ya “get my drift” 🙂

What John is calling us to is a testing that uses discernment/insight. It takes listening with spiritual ears, not just the ones on your head. This takes a continual invitation for God to whisper in your ear moment by moment…which either seems extreme/absurd to us or “hits” a nerve that makes sense without our intellect really understanding it. Whew…hope that made sense 🙂
So testing the spirit is very important when we are looking to know God as He really is, and the best form of this testing is the Word of God. Especially if something we hear seems to “jar” our view of Him; either read or spoken. Hence, why we must be wise and never sever our connection with the Lord.

The third Scripture in Philippians also had a bit of a word war involved. The word work in connection to our own deliverance (often translated salvation); seemed contradictory to me. Since God alone gets the credit for and has done all the work for my salvation/deliverance, it threw me off a bit. I believe today, this work refers to the inward press to know God more each day. To the point that we really do learn from Him, about Him, something we didn’t know the day before. This work, rarely uses the physical body but is mostly done within the mind, heart and will of a person.

So this series will be very unique in style and tone from typical “work outs”. My “muscles” tend to get a work out a bit different than everyone else. The “muscle” that is always being either stretched or grown is the trust “muscle” for, with and about God. Seeing that each of us has been wounded in our trust departments differently, we need a God who understands more than we see and can even remember and has a personal investment in correcting how these muscles have been developed.

This is part 1, which is more of a description of what’s to come. I can guarantee an adventure, and pray that the Spirit use, as with every word you find here, this series to build up, His body.

Grace and peace in Yeshua the Messiah ❤