Aligning Our Inner Conversation - David Mitts

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything, worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Php 4:8-9)

Click here to listen to "Aligning Our Inner Conversation"

Last session we began to look at compassion as the key to aligning our inner conversation with the conversation of God and bringing forth light and order which is life to our world. We recognized that there is also a background conversation that is destructive to our lives that draws us to chaos and devastation, what the scripture calls tohu bevohu, formlessness and void, chaos.

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. (Gen 1:2)

Formlessness and void are also a conversation. There is another voice which pulls to darkness. It is the voice of the enemy; it is the voice of destruction, it is the voice of death.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (Joh 10:10)

The abundant life and the chaos life both exist within potentially, as our inner voice, which is the faith we live inside of. In Genesis, “our faith”, the inner life is identified with the waters of our life. Waters can either be living and life-producing or stagnant and death producing. Genesis 1:2 describes this by the revelation that the Spirit of God incubates like a mother hen, to bring forth life and light from the waters. He does this by speaking into our conversation, our listening, our sh’ma.

Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. (Gen 1:3-4)

Light, “Or” is spoken by God’s Holy Spirit into the waters and it separates itself from the chaos. The waters, parallels and describes, I believe, the realm of the thoughts of the heart. Look with me at John 7:37-39:

Yeshua said,

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, (Succoth), Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (Joh 7:37-39)

The” living waters” come from the Holy Spirit which is the voice of truth that speaks over the waters and brings a new life, a life of light and order to the chaos. When we come to Yeshua to “drink”, what is actually happening is that a new language, the language of life rises up in us and begins to flow. This language is the fruit of the Spirit which comes out of our born anew heart!

Charismatic believers have focused on the gift of tongues, but the deeper gift is the new language of order and life, the language of love. At Pentecost-Shavuot what came was a new language of life that proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom of Light to all present.

"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language." Act 2:4-6

The real miracle wasn’t just the speaking but the speaking and listening, the conversation of life. The good news, the Gospel is a conversation of new life, love, and order out of a life of chaos!

Yeshua had them wait for this outpouring at Shavuot, the Feasts of the fullness of the spring harvest. Shavuot is the second of the 3 great Jerusalem feasts and is a joyous celebration of the first harvest, which is exactly what happened.

"Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. "For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself." And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation!" So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls." Act 2:38-41

Yeshua, however, spoke of the “living water” in the context of the last feast, Succoth. Why? Succoth is the feast of tabernacles or the dwelling place feast. It is the abiding feast. There is a reality beyond Pentecost-Shavuot. It is the reality of abiding, the place where the fruit manifests.

To come into this reality, we have to let Shavuot have its complete work in Succoth. This is where we move from drinking to gushing with living water.

Let’s turn to John, Chapter 4 and unravel perhaps the mystery of the waters.

"So He *came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There *came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus *said to her, "Give Me a drink." For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman *said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."" Joh 4:5-10

Context is super important in what Yeshua said and did. He comes to Samaria to have this conversation at Jacob’s well. Think of Samaria as the place of chaos, tohu bevohu. What is the source of chaos? Another gospel, the words of destruction. Sychar is actually the biblical city of Shechem which was the capital of the northern tribes of Israel. This was the place of rebellion and division that split the kingdom after Solomon. As such, the water of the well of Jacob which he bequeathed to Joseph was tainted by the worship of self. I’m not going to take the time right now to revisit the treachery of the northern kingdom but it the root of chaos in Israel. Let’s continue with Yeshua’s interaction at the well:

"She *said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? "You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."" Joh 4:11-14

Notice that she defines her greatness as coming from Jacob, which means deceiver. Really she is being used by Satan in this conversation. She is a picture of the bride that needs redemption because she has drunk of the world’s water. Jacob is the unredeemed father who must become Israel. As such he is the voice of ancestral pride, the voice of natural strength, good and evil’s children. Yeshua offers her new life, new living water, that becomes in us a spring of eternal life.

This is a shift of conversations! The “conversation” of God, the Word, is offering to transform what and how she hears. This is the true Sh’ma moment!

"The woman *said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw." He *said to her, "Go, call your husband and come here." The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus *said to her, "You have correctly said, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly." The woman *said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet." Joh 4:15-19

5 husbands! Living in adultery! Broken covenant! This is the voice of chaos! Chaos has infiltrated this child of Jacob. Yeshua chooses her to speak about a change in the waters, to those that produce life and light and order!

She correctly identifies Him as the source of the voice of truth, what she calls a prophet.

Can you see the connection now between the voice and the waters? The Spirit transforms the waters into waters of life.

Look at Genesis 1:6-8:

"Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day." Gen 1:6-8

Waters get separated from waters. They get separated by heaven, which is the word “sh-mayim”. Sham means there like over there. So the waters are separated into voices above and voices below. Heaven separates the conversations. Can you see the point? Let me add another scripture to help: Turn to Isaiah 55:

""Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. "Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight yourself in abundance. "Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, According to the faithful mercies shown to David. "Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples, A leader and commander for the peoples. "Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, And a nation which knows you not will run to you, Because of the LORD your God, even the Holy One of Israel; For He has glorified you." Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts. "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." Isa 55:1-11

Can you see the connection between the waters and the thoughts of God versus the thoughts of man? Separated waters!

So then how do we align to His thoughts His ways the light that shines in the darkness? We align through the ordering of our thought life. We choose to think His thoughts. This is called “washing by the water of the word”.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless." Eph 5:25-27

Water is the storehouse for the word. It is the recording medium for the conversation of heaven that separates the waters from the waters. Our brain is mostly water. We record thoughts in water. Water is changed by the words spoken over it or even recorded on paper and placed in front of it.

We align our thoughts by bringing them captive to the obedience of the Word, the conversation of heaven.

"We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ," 2Co 10:5

We align our inner conversation. How?