Spiritual Reality - David Mitts


"For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God."  Romans 8:14


Last week we spoke about attitudes of the heart that affect the harvest in our lives.  We recognized that it is both the seed and the soil that affect the outcome in our lives.  The seed can be the voice we are listening to.  We can either listen to the voice of the Lord or we can listen to the voice of our carnal experience which the scripture calls in various places, the old man, the flesh, even our own mind.  The other key element is the condition of our heart, which is reflected in the attitude with which we listen.  Attitude is a huge part of communication.

Listen to Spiritual Reality

We looked at 4 attitudes from the parable of the sower.
Mark 4:14-20: (reader)
"The sower sows the word. "These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. "In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. "And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. "And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."(Mark 4:14-20

We called these attitudes:
1.     Adversarial
2.     Shallowness, or all about what feels good
3.     Distracted by worries, mammon, and prestige
4.     Yielded and submitted, thus bold. Living sacrifice.

These are all different listening attitudes.  Another label we can put on these are mindsets.  Our attitude or mindset hardens us in these realities of the spiritual life and the harvest we are getting usually is reflective of the mindset and the voice we are listening to.

It just is a law of reality.  Whatever we are experiencing in our lives, as spiritual beings, we are sowing seeds into a heart attitude that is manifesting that reality.

So, the good news is that we can change that reality by changing either the thought seeds we are sowing or the heart attitude they are being sown into and begin to manifest the 30-60-100 fold reality of the Lord. 

How do we do that?  Well first and foremost we need to become alive to a relationship with the Word of God.  Mostly, we have been taught and trained attitudinally to treat the Word of God like a thing.  By that I mean we approach God’s word like it contains things that were said by God and that they are powerful and can be used like weapons in a battle.  This is a kind of truth but one that tends produce adversarial heart attitudes.  Using the Word of God like a sword in battle presumes that we are in a war.   There may be a war and certainly are rumors of wars BUT, we are seated in heavenly places in a war that has already been won.

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,"  Ephesians 2:4-6

So when we relate to the Word as a weapon then that has to mean we have gotten up from the place of Shalom, peace, and entered a war that isn’t really ours to fight.  We do want to fight a war but it isn’t that one. It’s called the fight of faith, but more to that soon…

To walk in 30-60-100 fold return we need to recognize that the Word of God is a person, not just words of power.  It isn’t that His Word isn’t full of power and He does watch over His Word to perform it but to walk in fruitfulness we need to bear fruit.  Fruit is called fruit of the Spirit.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another."  Galatians 5:22-26

You can see from this verse that fruit bearing is the opposite of being boastful, challenging, and full of comparison.

To bear this fruit, we need to transform our relationship to the Word of God.  The Word must be a person!   Even one step further, the Word should become a person we enter into a deep relationship with full of intimacy and truth.  This is called the “abiding life”.

"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch, cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so 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, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples."  John 15:1-8

So, if we read this carefully we see Yeshua speaking of bearing fruit as an active interactive process. First He declares that we are “clean” because of the Word He spoke and we have believed.  This is a statement of forgiveness.   He forgives us, makes us clean by His Word.
Fruit, however, the 30-60-100 fold comes from abiding.  Now, abiding comes from the Greek word “menos”, which gives the picture of permanence.   To abide in the Lord means to have our address in Him.  This is reality of our salvation, we abide in Him.  We don’t “DO” anything to abide.  This would be mysticism and not the salvation of the cross.

So we abide in Him and live out of that reality which produces fruit in our lives.  In that place, we begin to have the life of God manifesting in our lives.  He manifests through our intimacy with Him.  Our role in this place is simply to trust Him.

What does it mean to trust Him?? Trust means many things to many people but one thing is for certain, if I trust you then my heart is fully open to you.  When our heart is fully open to Yeshua, our Spirit-man becomes alive. 

The key to Spirit-man life is to enter into the Spirit, the place of abiding in Him.  This is a permanent place meaning it is our home which is eternal in nature and so not subject to our efforts for its creation.  God is the vine, not us.  What we DO apply effort to is choosing, focusing and activating.  This is the place of humility where grace flows into our lives.

Humility is the access attitude of heart for the 30-60-100 fold return:

""Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.""  Mat 11:28-30 (NASB)

This is a picture of choosing the place of abiding which connects us with the flow of the life of God which produces fruit! Let’s look at it:
1.     Come= we have to turn to Him, the true meaning of repentance
2.     Weary and heavy laden is the description of trying in our own efforts based on our experiences, wanting to be in control, and applying our own “natural wisdom” which is sensual, based on our sense perceptions.
a.     "But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing."  Jas 3:14-16 (NASB)
b.     Notice the connection weariness, jealousy, selfish ambition and “natural, earthly” wisdom.  This leads to demonic involvement in our efforts which is a heavy, burdensome load to bear.
3.     Rest.  This is the key!  True wisdom comes to us as a flow of life when we rest in Him.  We quiet our monkey mind and in the stillness, we connect with the eternal, permanent life of God in us and our perspective shifts from the earth to being seated heavenly places with Him.  This is the banquet table of His provision.  You should sit down, Shabbat with Him.
4.     In this place that we labor to enter into we experience a whole new set of perspectives that our Spirit-man in communion with God opens up to us.  Our soul finds rest.  This means our soul enters into the realm of seeing with our spiritual eyes, hearing with our spiritual ears, smelling with spiritual fragrances, tasting with spiritual goodness, feeling with a spiritual feeling, the joy of the Lord.
5.     What do we receive in this place:
a.     His Joy!
b.     His Righteousness
c.     His Peace
d.     His Wisdom
                                               i.     "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."  Jas 3:17-18 (NASB)
6.     Activation:
a.     Let’s quiet ourselves by closing our eyes.  Let’s sit comfortably and uncross anything that is crossed including our minds.  Let’s breath a few deep cleansing breaths.   Ok let’s turn to Him.  Use your thoughts to focus on the joyful face of Yeshua.  See Him smiling at you with eyes of love radiating shalom, peace towards you enveloping you with His peace.   Now in this place open your heart and mind to Him.  See Him activating your eyes, your ears, your smelling, your tasting, and your feelings.  Feel an awakening of your spiritual senses.  Relax and experience whatever you are experiencing.  He knows what you need and you can trust Him.  This is what Shabbat is all about.  Now as you receive thoughts you might want to write them down.
b.     OK. Let’s share.
c.     Now, Imagine you go to sleep at night just like any other night. But tonight your dream-life takes you on an unexpected journey that will change your life forever. In your sleep you’re taken on a high-speed ascent, higher and higher until it seems like it will never end. Just when you think you can’t go any higher, you burst through a clear film and immediately come to an abrupt stop. On the other side of this film, you find yourself in an atmosphere of overwhelming peace, calm bliss, and an awakening like you’ve never experienced before. You have literally broken through, from one plane to the next, and have transcended into an entirely new realm. In an instant your mind is opened. Your state of awareness becomes a profound knowing. With this knowing you find yourself reconnected to something that you had lost. Well, what had been lost but later found was purpose..


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