God Teaches Us How To Walk In Freedom
God’s purpose is to teach us in practical terms how to walk in this life in freedom from the influence of the world, our flesh and the devil. That doesn’t mean that He removes us from their influence, or that He removes them from this earthly realm. It does mean that as we learn to walk in confident victory day-by-day we become impervious to their influence, like brushing the dirt off of our shoes. This is one of God’s major goals, and He spends 24 hours of every day doing nothing but thinking about us and arranging our lives and circumstances to draw us into perfect union within our being and complete unity with Him.
God Consumes Our Flesh
Another of God’s jobs now is to consume our flesh. It is particularly important to remember that this is His job, not ours, and that He is always working on this. Our flesh is the only thing that truly stands in the way of our resting and relaxing in our new identity, and it is the only thing that interferes with God’s life working in and through us. So it is His priority to consume the flesh, though because of His love for us, and because He knows how fragile we are, He doesn’t strip us of all our flesh at once… we just couldn’t stand it. So He’s got His own time-table, and we can rest assured that He’s working on what’s most important to Him, though it may not be what we want Him to be working on. It’s also reassuring to know that by the time He makes us aware of an aspect of the flesh He’s working to consume, the vast majority has already been dealt with, so we’re involved only in the bonfire of victory.
Remember here that God, though He hates the flesh, doesn’t hold it’s presence against us. He knew from the very beginning that we would create the flesh that we’re contending with today. From the very beginning He has been arranging circumstances to expose our flesh, so that we can receive healing and enjoy having our needs met.
We are on God’s side in this; who we truly are — spirit beings — is in full agreement with what God is doing; but flesh doesn’t want to die, and our soul has never been this way before. Here we cannot be reminded enough to be patient with ourselves and with God — God Is Love, and He Is a Consuming Fire! He will finish what He’s started! Jesus will put His finger on what stands between us and knowing God, which is eternal life. Though we often don’t understand what He’s doing, we come to understand that although there is a way that seems right to us, its end result brings separation from the things of God. We cannot expect God to share His dominion and authority with our flesh.
God Directs Us
God wants to reveal Himself to us in part so that He can direct us. Very often we want to be led by Him, following after Him, but as we grow to depend on Him, more and more He wants to point out the way, then move with us as we proceed. This may seem contradictory to walking in dependence, but what actually happens is that our confidence in our resting and abiding deepens. Likewise, our actions and behavior line up to such an extent that we find ourselves moving in Him and “obeying” Him without thinking or deciding to. As our soul and body line up with (come under the control of) our spirit, there is a unity that truly knows the way to go, and goes, without the need for signs, confirmations, or proof-after-the-fact. The knowing of confidence becomes all. This is an experience that is better “felt” than “telt,” but we must hold out for knowing Him by spirit, rather than settling for the natural and supernatural manifestations of the Lord we will experience as our supernatural and natural senses are tuned.
God’s Purpose Now: God Reveals Himself
One of the ways God gives Himself to us and through us is by revealing Himself to us and through us. Each of us needs to have our senses tuned to His wavelength, so we can recognize Him and learn to know Him on His terms. Though God often manifests Himself to our natural senses, and enjoys doing so, He is always manifesting Himself spiritually — in the spiritual realm, His Spirit to our spirit — and desires to make Himself known, to manifest Himself, more and more clearly on the supernatural level. But this requires ears that hear and eyes that see on our part, so that we don’t insist that He only reveal Himself to our natural senses. None of us can possibly have any idea how He wants to make Himself known — what He has in store for us! But as we become trustworthy, and pursue Him with expectation and persistence, we will come to a place where whatever He is doing or saying, He can share it with us.
God’s Purpose Now: God Gives Himself
God’s purpose now is to give Himself to us and through us. Since this is His nature, and it will not change, receiving what He wants to give is something we’d better get good at. From our perspective, this giving is evidenced by His meeting our needs for unconditional love, acceptance and individual value. There is no limit to His meeting of these needs, and He shows no partiality in the way that He meets them. In other words, He doesn’t meet our need for unconditional love more than He meets our need for unconditional acceptance or individual significance. Love without acceptance is meaningless, as is acceptance without the recognition of a person’s individuality.