Manjeet. In the dentist waiting room felt God speak to her and say 'ask him about his honeymoon.' she didn't know that he was engaged. She entered the room and said 'what's going on about your honeymoon?' He was taken aback as the night before he and his fiance were talking about their honeymoon and planning it.
Then while the dentist was working on her teeth felt the HS say 'ask him about his new shoes.' so she did. 'how weird' the dentist said, I bought new shoes on Saturday! What's going on? How do you know these things about me? At which point she took the opportunity to tell the man about Jesus.
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Navigating Mystery
The reality is that when mystery comes/disappointment comes we often stop praying for breakthrough because it is too painful for us to go again and keep believing. The trouble is that when we stop praying for and believing for breakthrough, we don't see it.
Process the pain well, deal with the pain and get to a place of faith and go again.
How do we deal with disappointment. Disappointment comes when we don't see the things that we expect to see when we believe for and pray for God to move and he doesn't in the way we expect.
Most people just squash disappointment and don't process it well.
If you don't know how to process pain well it doesn't go anywhere. Time isn't a healer, Jesus is the healer.
How to process pain well: (Psalm 13)
- Express your pain out loud to God: unfiltered/uncensored!
- Spend time in the Psalms until you hear your own voice speaking.
- Speak out loud the truth about who God is: his unchanging character and nature.
- Lay down your right to understand.
The Kingdom
If you want to see miracles, work among the poor, because God loves to bring justice!
Joy: spectrum of responding to God
Reflective and contemplative at one end - manifestations, wobbling, shouting, jumping, dancing.
REFLECTIVE: These people look down on the others and accuse them of being 'of the flesh' attention seeking, shallow, emotional etc.
HYPER: Look at the reflective types and think 'bless' and accuse them of being 'bound up emotionally' and 'unspiritual' etc.
Most of us however are sat in the middle and look at both ends of the spectrum and judge them both.
Areas of influence we want to see Christians released into to bring the kingdom in:
- ARTS & Entertainment
- BUSINESS
- CHURCH
- Distribution of MEDIA
- EDUCATION
- FAMILY
- GOVERNMENT
- HEALTHCARE
Our Identity Battle:
The battle is on. We need not only to get information but also revelation. Understanding this
God knows who we are, the angels know who are, the demons know who we are; we're the only ones who don't know who we are.
For the disciples there was something about being with Jesus that made them feel significant. When Jesus rebuked the disciples for arguing over greatness Jesus didn't rebuke them for wanting to be great. He said 'if you want to be great, become like a little child.'
The only place that John is described as 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' is in his own gospel!
Jesus' baptism:
1) Our identity: we are also beloved.
- We are God's beloved sons and daughters. Beloved: cherished, dearly loved, the object of one's affections.
- We are Brand new creations in Christ. We have a new nature. We have a default DNA now to honour God.
- Heirs of God coheirs with Christ.
- Holy in God's sight without blemish and free from accusation.
- Seated with Christ in heavenly places. We have access to the resources of heaven.
- Ambassadors. Christ's representatives. When we walk into a room in some way it's as though Jesus walks into the room.
Humility is having an accurate description of who you are but it's recognising that it's all because of his grace.
When we understand this truth it gets rid of comparison. It's ok to be inspired by another person but you should never want to be another person.
Our identity isn't based on anything we do, it's all to do with Jesus.
2) God's pleasure in us: At Jesus' baptism I/we would have had an issue. The Father was pleased with him and yet... he hadn't done anything.
Because our identity in christ has nothing to do with us, there's nothing we can do to mess it up.
Story of bringing a prophetic song and it not going how she wanted. Sitting down feeling ashamed and sensing God come and sit next to her, lean in and say 'well I liked it.' She had been thinking about things in terms of her, and the church and God when in actual fact it was to do with her and God and the church afterwards.
When your identity is not in your performance it actually becomes fun to take risks and get it wrong.
Our measure of success is - did I get it right? God's measure of success is - did you give it a go?
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