Allowing God to Lead // Listen To His VoiceExemplo

The Refreshment

I open your heart—wide-open, wider than you ever thought possible. What you have dreamed for yourself—freedom, the relinquishment of self-pressure, the abandonment of external pressure—is for you now.

I know it is difficult to keep your eyes on Me when layers of distrust—distrust you had trouble recognizing—has built up.

But I remove the layers, one by one, so that all that has been preventing you from receiving Me is gone, destroyed, eliminated.

You don’t need to mourn the removing of your false self. You don’t need to look back, wistful over lost moments when freedom and joy and hope felt impossible to find. For when the false self is removed—destroyed—you are feeling my presence anew. I am in you, and you receive Me. So you are not wanting, missing life, anymore.

There is much I have for you now—much that I have always had for you; but now you will hear Me and see Me and accept what I give. 

Can you imagine the refreshment that comes from abandoning the old rules, the beliefs you had adopted that were not true about Me? It is time to know Me in a fresh way, a renewed way. For you are ready now that the old self, the old life with its agreements, its untruths, is stripped away and thrown into the fire.

I refresh you—and your mind, your body, your heart, your soul are awake and energized and ready to receive. They are ready to be renewed.

Each day now, each moment you remember—and I help you to remember—ask Me to renew your mind, your heart. Ask Me to show you what gets in the way of you being with Me, being taught by Me, being loved by Me.

I increase your hunger for My love, and then I satisfy that hunger. You spread My love around and more freedom and joy is released.

I love this world. I love My children. I will give to you what you want most. Me, or the absence of Me. Let me give you things that will bless and equip your heart, not burden it, not break it.

I am right here.

Exercise:

New life is something we get to do, right now. We don’t have to wait. We don’t need to make complicated something that is actually quite simple. And it is simple, and available. But it is not easy. Because getting to new life requires a journey of descent—descent into death. Death to the way we protect and hide and manipulate and strive.

But when those ways of ours die, we do get to move into new life. Better life.

Jesus showed us how this all works. He was willing to die for us. And precisely because He did, He thereby defeated death and sin—and now offers us new life. “Life in its fullness until [we] overflow.”

But He didn’t just die for us. He also showed us how to die—ourselves.

He says in John chapter twelve, if we want to be His disciples, we must follow Him and go wherever He goes—even to the cross. In Matthew chapter sixteen He says, “If you truly want to follow me . . . you must be willing to share my cross and experience it as your own.”

Dying to live. That sounds odd. It sounds counterintuitive. But then Jesus simply points to creation—to nature—and makes all of this simple and plain and obvious. In John chapter twelve He taught, “a single grain of wheat will never be more than a single grain of wheat unless it drops into the ground and dies.” But, if it dies, then it will sprout and produce a great harvest of wheat—“all because one grain died.”

Death is how we come to life. It’s how we bring life to this evil, broken world.

Despite what culture tells us, new life never comes by grasping or ascending. Despite what the world teaches, new life never comes by striving for the right job, the right title, the right house in the right neighborhood, the right friends, or the right vacations. No. It comes by descending. Jesus humbled Himself—even to the point of an undignified death on a cross. And we must descend too. We too must die—in our own unique ways—so that we too can experience more and better life than we’ve dreamed of.

So, we must surrender the need to influence what people think of us or the need to win or the need to be right.  We must surrender the need to control and protect and the need for comfort. Life springs forth from death. So you must let go of these things. And when you do, it’s going to feel like death. Confession feels like dying. Admitting you’re wrong feels like dying. Asking for forgiveness can feel like dying. Forgiving someone else can feel like dying. Getting help—for addiction, anger, depression—feels like dying. Letting go of idols—like money or status or beauty—definitely feels like dying.

When you stand up and face these things, it almost always feels like you are gonna to die, but you won’t. You’ll actually come to life. You’ll move into new life—better life.

And isn’t everything else just too small? Too limited? Too unimaginative? Too boring? And too sad? Jesus says in John chapter ten, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Let’s settle for nothing less than that.

So, it’s time for some death. And it’s time for new life.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, search my heart. I am asking now, like King David did in Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart / test me and know my thoughts / See if there is any wicked way in me / and lead me in the way everlasting.” 

Listen for His voice now. And as long as the thoughts that come to your mind fit within the principles of Scripture, trust them.

Jesus: what, in me, needs to die?

Jesus, I don’t know what’s on the other side of the cross—but I know it is good. And I am willing to trust You and go forward.

I want to let go of my striving or my manipulating or my anger or my bitterness or whatever else. I want new life. I understand that that requires more than my just believing in the cross, but also sharing in it and making the cross my own. I am willing. But show me how. Show me now what I must do.