We can begin to see that as long as people are bothering us, we have reason to go to God and allow Him to cleanse us thoroughly, scrub our souls, if you will, as we forgive and forget. Our TRUE freedom is only found as we allow this process to occur. If we run from people, we will never be able to see what our deep inner workings, our heart, consists of. People show us our hearts. They are flashlights able to peer down into the deepest crevice of our souls. They are God's tools of revelation.

We, then, would have to be out of our minds to want to run from them and attempt to find peace on a desert island—and be alone at last. And this would be true. We, in this scenario, are not in our right minds, but attempting to dwell in our own perfect world, focusing only on our needs, making ourselves as comfortable as possible. What does this do for us, eternally?

When we ran from God by our rebellion in the Garden and began gorging ourselves on the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil (judging), we then had to set up many societal structures in order to enforce codes and laws and to help us properly conduct ourselves. Initially these structures were very God centered, following the laws presented from God to Moses in the Word, but, because of the nature of this world, deterioration occurred. Every one of these structures today (from the lower courts to the supreme court, from the local police precinct to the FBI and the CIA, from the Parent Teacher's Association to the Presidency of the United States) have become carnally influenced to such an extent that they no longer recognize God as active in them. We, as a society, are not capable of letting God actually do anything for us. One day, perhaps during Christ's 1000 year reign upon this planet, these (and all other institutions that have deteriorated so) will be restructured through Christ to be under God's influence once again.

Basically, right now, all I'm doing with you is giving a quick overview. We are a strange society that boasts a belief in God but refuses to let Him have control. The Bible says that what we pray believing will come about. We must recognize that we are the ones who have decided vehemently (prayed) that God is incapable of running the world. This decision, in and of itself, has “evolved” into mankind's belligerence and stubbornness in believing that God must be separate from our everyday lives. We want to step back for a moment and observe what we've done. Keep in mind, we would never want to throw away all of the societal structures that we've built. This would result in unnecessary chaos and pain. But, by realizing we have built these structures out of fear, we can begin to withdraw our purposes from them and let God put in His purposes in place of ours. God encourages faith, not fear. God will radically and smoothly replace the purposes we gave everything in our lives with His faith-filled one, a clean purpose that promotes the truth of His power rather than causes us to feel more separated from Him. Remember, however, that this earth will never be heaven, but it can be heaven-like. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This book is focused on maturity in Christ, relinquishment of our will, and the reestablishment of God's authority now as we strive to follow Jesus and listen to His Holy Spirit before we “fly away” to our eternal heavenly home.

Isn't it amazing that just about every societal structure we built tends to assume that this whole life of ours must be run only by ourselves with no (or minimal) help from our Creator? This is all a part of the rebellion we had in which we claimed our independence from God at the beginning of time. God is real, folks, and He speaks to us through His Holy Spirit. He is quite capable of unwinding all the red-tape we have plastered on our societal structures that say, “Dear God, Please do not touch.” He, consequently, had to place yellow “police” tape around our work, labeling it a crime scene. Jesus came, removing both our red tape and God's yellow tape, reconciling us forever to God, who loves His children with an intense love.

Can we say that living independently from God is really living? How do we trust God more? It would help if we could take the time to truly get to know Him again. Isn't this what time is for? What purpose do we give time? Is it to make sure we are properly entertained? Is it to fill our days and nights with our personal agenda and make sure every minute and every hour is properly planned for? Or could we squeeze in some time to know the truth and discover the freedom we can have in allowing God to take an increasing role in our lives, thereby assuring that there will be more divine blessings, both given to us as well as flowing through us to others?

Can we begin to see that the purposes we have given to most everything are given out of fear? Is it possible to trust God so much that we can begin to allow Him to give fresh definitions to everything we've made? First we must be willing to withdraw all previous fear-based definitions from our minds and hearts. This isn't done by us but only done for us by the Holy Spirit. All we need to be is willing. We want to be willing to allow Him to replace our purposes with God's purposes.

This willingness can be a fearful thing because it means we are letting go of structures man has leaned on for centuries. These structures, however, replaced God for us and their very nature continues to push God out of the picture so that we can continue with our tired old brush strokes in which we never even give God a chance to prove His worthiness and His ability to be God for us. He gave us free will and when He did this, we decided as a group, not to bother with His will any longer. The problem is our free will, then, became a way in which we became captive to our own limited carnal minds' desires. Now we linger, perplexed and depressed, in a world of our own making, no longer even believing that God is real or, if He is, we think that He has lost interest and doesn't have any real power.

As I stated earlier, Jesus said what we believe will come about. So we have taken the assumptions that we had to do everything for ourselves down through the ages and made societal structures to help us function. All these functions are based on fear—fear that people will treat us unfairly or kill us, fear that we will be robbed or taken advantage of, fear that justice will not be served by God so we must serve it ourselves, fear that we will get an infection and die, fear, fear, fear. Everything is based on Satan's influence of fear. Is it any wonder, then, that we walk this world with immense trepidation? Is it any wonder then that we peer cautiously around every corner before we continue our walk? Is it any wonder, then, that we raise our hands to the sky and shout, “God, do You really exist?”

Yes, He does. But He will not usurp the power He gave us. The only power that really matters is not the power that, through each of us over the ages, has built societal structures of fear and oppression. The power Jesus Christ brings us from the cross and by our acceptance of Him into our hearts is the true power of God. This is the power that knows no defeat and that, in truth, has no enemy. Satan's power says we must fend for ourselves in a frightening world of death and destruction where there is no hope, so why even try. Christ in us, however, allows us to carry ourselves truly erect, walking with a sure step, never once looking back and wondering about the city of pain and discouragement we just left.

Christ's message is not just about a one hour a week attempt which may or may not help us with our poorly laid out personal plans. It is a message in which He declares His actual manifestation in every part of our lives. It is not just a message of dreams. It is a message of awakening. It is not just a message of hope for us, it is a message of God's determination and desire to work through us. Through Christ all things are possible. Through us only, there is nothing but shattered and dismal dreams. Which is it going to be?

When we get down to the nitty gritty of life, we really don't know what is going on. We seem to be thrown into the middle of something huge, overbearing and ominous. It looks as if everything we see is really true and everything we hear, really happens and everything we feel is reality. But this isn't the case at all. Jesus told us not to judge by appearances and we've given that truth a slight nod of acceptance, then gone right ahead and judged by appearances, time and time again.

Let's go with God. Let's love Him. Let's enjoy watching Him be God and quit trying to figure everything out for ourselves. The time saved by praying to Him and getting to know Him better will be incredible. He is able to see the whole picture all the time. Therefore, as we struggle to get what we think is important done, He is grieved that we didn't allow Him to get what REALLY needed to be done through us. We must give up our agendas, our set ways, our crystallized thoughts and allow God to be God for us. It is then we will truly know what freedom is and we will jubilantly allow it to ring and ring and ring through our lives.

Back

TOC

Next