The Battle Within

In building for the Lord, I have come across an interesting discovery that I had not considered in my walk before, that I must seek the Holy Spirit for help and enter into even a deeeper level of surreder.

What I am building?

God's Temple that is me.

God's Temple outside of me.

I have surrendered in many ways to the Lord, have lost my life to the Lord, have denied myself and taken up my cross to follow Him, crucified my flesh and have paid the cost for discipleship... in many ways.

But the further I venture into my walk with the Lord and this season of processing, I uncover the many ways in which I still am resistant, am holding to my life, desire to indulge myself and to not be uncomfortable.

Just when I think I have this process nailed down and am in the perfect will of God, ready to be taken up like Enoch, I am reminded of the limitation and fragility of my humanity- my flesh.

What did I expect?

I severely underestimated this process.

I have had decades of living in this world, in a worldly identity, in a system that is designed to serve the self in the pattern of Satan.

To undo the work that has been done, to come out of the world and purge it from my very cells will take time.

In the meantime, my mindsets, attitudes and behaviors shaped by the world is working against me in this building process.

You would think all I have to do in the place of surrender is just do what God says.

I have taught this before.

It is the easiest thing in the world, this surrender. No more having to figure life out, wonder if you are making good decisions or being concerned about the outcome.

You just give it all over to God.

You worship, praise, seek His Kingdom and righteousness,

In that, everything will come.

He will give you the steps and you take them. PERIOD.

This concept is wayyyy easier said than done.

It's fascinating that you can know something as your truest conviction but in reality, what is contrary manifest.

In this process of receiving instruction, I am noticing resistance, ALOT.

The problem is not that I don't trust God. (As I say that the Holy spirit whispers to me "I don't trust God")

Wow. So that's what I need to work on.

You see, I have decades of military experience, educational experience, training and developing every aspect of my being. relational experience, customer service experience and simply experience in the world,

And that experience is fighting God's instruction.

Although I am surrendered to God and am team God, His instruction to me passes through the filter my understanding shaped by my experience.

I could not have anticipated this.

I know I am not to lean on my own understanding, but I need to understand what the Lord is telling me to do.

I need to use my imagination to visualize it, my logic and reasoning to see how to put it all together, my experience to answer the 5 W's on how to bring it all together. 

I need to translate the step, the instruction from God's mouth to a practical action item for implementation.

Holy Spirit:

Stop. Jennifer, do you see what the problem is? You do. You are taking God's grand, divine, heavenly vision that only He can do and is His perfect will and trying to reduce it for worldly consumption.

You are trying to build for the world when you need to be building for God.

God does need QC (quality checks). He does not need checks and balances. He does not need it to pass through your filter of understanding for evaluation and correction. You are not His supervisor. You are His servant. 

Furthermore, you are His slave, in bondage to Him. A prisoner of Christ brought at an expensive price- His very own blood.

Humble yourself into your right position.

Restore God to His rightful position.

The world does not have to like or even understand what you are building.

It is not for them, it is for God.

Whatever God builds, it is not to keep man in their same limited prism of understanding and being. It is always to lift them up higher.

This means in contact with what is built, there should be a demand placed on them that forces them to be stretched, to grow, to become more in every aspect of their being.

It should be out of their reach, out of their understanding and beyond their current capacity.

As they struggle to even take in what they have been exposed to, if they should choose to lean into it, they grow and expand and develop a deeper capacity for the unknown, great spiritual matters of God.

This means whatever God gives you to build, MUST be far beyond your own understanding, experience and yes, even comfort to build what eyes have not seen, ears have not heard nor had entered into the imagination of men.

Surrender your own understanding, wants, desires, expectations and reasonings' to the Lord.

Don't let your intellect get in the way of God's blueprint.

It is perfect. It is holy. It is pure. All of which you are growing into, but currently are not.

Do not taint God's blueprint with your worldliness.

Do not reduce His blueprint to what is acceptable to your world.

Again, you are not building for the world.

It must be created with specificity so as it is in heaven, it will be on earth.

You don't create to the blueprint of the world.

You must create to the blueprint in heaven.

Just do what He says.

It's that easy.

Trust Him.

It's His anyway.

Understand Jennifer?

Me: yes.

Holy Spirit: I will help you.