So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,
complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
🌿 Philippians 2⋮1–2
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God's focus on each of us is precise and distinct, with His will always being the seed and fruit of our success.
Believers who rest in the work of Christ's personal sacrifice (and his resurrected life to save our own) know and accept we will be tested on the path of securing more success.
As we mature, the call for each of us to sacrifice will increase. Destructive ideas, habits, relationships, jobs, and locations must be dropped. Opportunities to share our resources (not always tied to money) to benefit others will be required consistently, and more often. False beliefs about our own lack of value, and of those around us, will be pressurized and dissolved. Arrogance and hubris about our own importance, compared to another's, will be struck down.
My pastor often talks about how God cleans us up, as His beloved.
We are washed and purified, the old foundations being blown up that we strong-armed and haphazardly built our fractured lives on. In our Lord's presence, anything judged wasteful or obstructive within and around us will be destroyed – that prevents us from experiencing and thriving in His defined blessing (beyond our capacity to imagine). All inner life and external reality trash is bluntly swept away.
In these moments of stripping, it's critical to seek out encouragement – the process of being filled anew, made strong.
In the midst of being encouraged, we find "comfort from love" – from our Lord Jesus – to endure. The action of endurance now becomes a practice. A form of "participation in the Spirit" – the Holy Spirit of our Father, also known as The Helper, The Comforter. Cleaning up our life prepares us to prosper beyond the ego/carnal mind of limitation and selfishness we've been trapped in. This prospering is rooted in tenderness – the gentle, sensitive acknowledgement and acceptance that we cannot do any mighty work on Earth without our Father's direction and cover (His Spirit).
As we're stripped clean from within, we're softened to experience and express true "affection and sympathy" for those around us. We become receptive to the wounds and hurt that our loved ones, peers, and the larger communities we're a part of strive to heal within themselves. Understanding in Christ means we receive and operate from His mind and view of how to offer relief and restoration to others, as part of our own destiny fulfillment.
Serving, building, creating are all acts of worship – when focused through the directive lens of love – sourced from our Creator's prime example in continuing to serve each of us. God's service is found in the midst of our real-time living. Air to breathe. Water to bathe, cook, and hydrate in. Fire to keep us warm. The Earth that stabilizes us, where we grow our nourishment from. And: the complex ideations, innovations, and their execution from what we "download" daily while building a better existence for our own, and future, generations.
Joy experienced isn't dependent on perfection from us, as our Lord's beloved. We fail and mess up. This is the reality of being alive. The joy is found in knowing we are loved anyway – beyond and because of our frailness in not always "getting it right". God is good because His mind is one-pointed, toward helping us experience our unique portion of glory sourced from Him. God never fails, or messes up. Victory belongs to our Creator, who gives it back to us, in every breath we give and take. Our Lord's love abides and is enduring. Joy is felt when accepting that this quality of love tackles down all doubt – incinerating fear.
Sep 28 | 2024 ❤️‍🔥
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