Neil's Commentaries
Freedom or Journey?
In Romans 7, Paul said that the things he wants to do, he don't and the things he don't want to do, he does. Its a war between spirit and flesh. Then, I remembered the scripture that tells me if I abate myself, God will exalt me, and if I exalt myself, God will abate me. For this cause, I now know what's been holding me back. Before I list all the willful sin I will now be delivered from, I want to announce the scriptures that support my decision. 1 John 1:9 says If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Mat 6:3-4 says But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
Eze 21:26 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this [shall] not [be] the same: exalt [him that is] low, and abase [him that is] high.
This is what the Lord has prompted me to do. I need to confess my sins, and abase myself. What's been happening is I have been lying about some of my credituals. I do not have any degree in anything and I don't have any kind of liscense. This means that when I was lying, I was exalting myself. The Lord did abase me all this time because I had not taken into consideration the consequences for my willful sin. I was lying to people about my degrees and liscenses because I am very, very skilled in those areas. In so much that I can and do work side by side with the liscensed people. None seem to notice me being any different. My error was at least in part that I was comparing myself with others and wondering why they are where they are and I ain't. All the while I had myself thinking I am contented. I was not.
Clearly I was not satisfied with my station in life, even though I know very well that God's grace is suffecient for me. I know full well that I can have all that I want or imagine. I need only ask in Jesus' name. Do you know what happens next? I do. The Word tells me that if I ask, I will receive. I don't have to lie and say that I already have it. All I have to do is tell the truth that I already have it. Do you see the difference? One is speaking things that aren't as though they were, while the other one is speaking things that I assume will never come to pass. This causes deception for others to believe that is not true. Instead, the moment I ask, God will begin to align ME to be in a position to receive that which I ask for. For example, if I ask God for a car, and I know that my liscense is expired, the first thing that needs done is renewing my liscense. However, to do that, I risk incarceration. I have a warrent for not going to court. This blocks me from getting my liscense renewed, AND several other things that I already know of.
The Lord don't want me to be blocked from my blessing. Sometimes the answer seems so exactly opposite from what is asked. That is not so with the Lord. You see, in my case, to be free might mean that I need to go to jail first... but not necessarily. Even though I do have a way worked out in my head, I don't think its wise to lean on that because it is in fact, my OWN understanding. God says that we need to trust Him with all of our heart, lean NOT to our OWN understanding, but in all our way acknowledge Him, and He will direct our path. This means total restoration. It might include a journey before I reach the position or reception. It took 40 years for our forefathers to reach the Promise Land. All of that depends on the seeker. I'm the seeker in this case. I seek total restoration. This wilderness can be very tricky sometimes, especially if I'm still in my own intellect (understanding). You see, the Israelites didn't need to take so long to arrive. In their case, they did in fact need to take that long because they were really corrupted by those Egyptians. The Lord needed to renew their minds. This meant that they needed many years of the Word to destroy the many years of heathen upbringing.
There is good news! It don't have to take 40 years! If we lay our "crowns" at the feet of Jesus, and tell Him that we surrender all, He will see that we have abased ourselves and He will exalt us. He will see that the teaching is complete and that we may enter our "promise land". Whatever we seek, we will find. Whatever we ask for, we will be brought to the stockpile so that we can have all that we want or need. I know that can easily become gluttious, but try to remember this next few lines. Everything that we possess ain't all necessarily ours to keep, even if we earned the money and paid for it with that money. All of the extra is for other people. We are blessed for the purpose of blessing others. We can operate in our ministry with just the overflow. If we show that we can be trusted with the small stuff, God will give us charge over HUGE stuff. Fortune 500 comes to mind. I think I would utterly LOVE to operate in THAT overflow!
Okay, to wrap it up, I was exalting myself. I will not do that any longer. I will instead, abase myself. I will learn many ways to do exactly that. The more I abase, the more the Lord will exalt me. Additionally, I was smoking marijuana. Well, I didn't make any significant effort to discontinue that. Instead, I resolved to say, if I can't get it, I won't sweat it. Yeah, you guessed it. All of a sudden even if I could find it, for reasons that very, I was unable to get any. It has been long enough now that I no longer care much if I have it or not. I am officially delivered. There, you see. My testimony has come full circle. I am now in the place that God wants me to be in.
Even though it took me many years to arrive at this position, in God's time, I'm right on time! No matter how we arrive at our conclusion, and no matter what the enemy meant to do, God meant it for life, and that more abundantly. We have arrived exactly on time.
by G. Neil Armstrong
Thursday, May 17th, 2010 - 11:42pm
