Kindle Notes & Highlights
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May 20 - May 26, 2020
Until we are delivered from the great deception that SELF has worked into the very sense of who we ar...
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The “Push-Pull Dynamic”
if you can get out of self enough to sense it, a sweet “pull dynamic” arises from somewhere deeper than self.
When this “over the edge” experience happened to me, I initially accepted Jesus’ peace for a few moments. Then I allowed self to regain its usual place of dominance and push me into greater pain. Peace made no sense to my tortured mind. My mind, which at that point in life I had identified as “me”, rejected it.
When a person is mind-dominated it becomes habitual to reason away gentle impulses from his or her spirit.
It was a two year process of seeing self and freeing the real me from it.
The instantaneous transformation on the rock had been preceded by a lot of preparation:
Prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord [clear away the obstacles]; make straight and smooth in the desert a highway for our God! Every valley shall be lifted and filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked and uneven shall be made straight and level, and the rough places a plain. A...
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The 12-Step work I had done, the return to daily prolonged waiting upon the Lord, the eventual joining with Him in one spirit were the ways I was led to prepare the way of the Lord in my wilderness. In order to “lift the valleys” I had to raise my level of commitment. To bring “every mountain and hill low” I had to humble myself before the Lord. To make “straight and level the crooked and uneven” parts of my life character issues of integrity and self-honesty had to be faced. To make the “rough places plain” I had to allow the gentleness of Jesus to show in m...
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“You can end it all,” they are told, “but do not use a gun; use a cross instead.”
It is an amazing observation that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us of the great suffering He began experiencing in the Garden—mental, volitional, emotional suffering. None of them describe the physical suffering He endured in the Crucifixion.
the physical suffering paled in comparison to the agony of soul He endured, far greater than any soul suffering you or I have ever endured. He went through it for us, so that we may experience healing of our grief and sorrows.
He who was “anointed with the oil of joy above His fellows” became “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” for us!
It is by taking up your own cross that you can end your suffering and begin life in a completely new realm. Your cross...
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It is nothing less than the inner dimension of the Kingdom of God which is presently on earth.
The Kingdom of God is Your Present Inheritance
“The Kingdom of God is near you” Jesus announced from the onset of His ministry (Mark 1:15). How could it be near then but far away now?
The part of us that eats and drinks is not where His Kingdom is in us, but the part of us that experiences righteousness, peace, and the Holy Spirit’s joy is the Kingdom realm.
It is hidden to the physical eye, but it can be seen with spiritual sight.
The Kingdom of God is the dominion of God over your life producing permanent peace within.
Self is a tyrant: Jesus is a King with a Kingdom.
Our King is benevolent and kind. Self is in league with Satan. Need I say more?
You can yield to the Spirit’s sweet “pull dynamic” any time you are ready to finally let go of self and surrender. If you are hungry for God, you can be brought into the Kingdom peaceably through allowing it to take place in your soul.
The Kingdom is the New Life Dimension
It keeps the heart and mind serene in utter calmness even during the worst the devil and the world can hurl our way.
a pearl in the hand in the here and now, not later in “the sweet by and by” (Matt. 13:44-46).
It is possible to enjoy Heaven on earth now.
Surface life is where you are glad when good things happen, but gloomy when they do not.
You can go within yourself to the deepest part of you where Christ presently lives. You can abide in that place. You can change location by moving from your head into your heart, then let all the things of life flow from it rather than from the mind (Prov. 4:20-24).
your happiness depends only upon the quality of your soul’s submission to the will of God,
This is the only moment you ever have—just this one ...
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The Narrow Gate is Inner Alignment with God’s Will
Inner alignment to God’s will is the narrow gate that leads to life which, Jesus observed, few ever find. Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad the road which leads to ruin, and many there are who enter by it; because narrow is the gate and contracted the road which leads to Life, and few are those who find it. Matthew 7:13, 14 WNT
The false self is that part of you which you have identified as you, but is not the real you at all.
The real you must expand out of your deepest part, your spirit, and include all your soul and body. This whole you becomes the “new man” Paul exhorted believers to put on, after they had “put off the old man” (Eph. 4:23, 24; Col. 3:9, 10).
It is only when you allow the new spirit in you to regain the prominence Adam’s spirit lost in the Fall, that the real you become...
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It is God’s responsibility to dissolve the false self in your soul.
Instead of finding something real and permanent, you have pierced your soul with many sorrows (1 Tim. 6:10).
you can find something deeper than happiness.
You will enter the Kingdom of God on an experiential level.
Righteousness, peace, and joy – merely the beginning of an endless list of infinite spiritual qualities – will become your constant internal delight.
It is possible to live in this realm of true bliss and blessedness always, not only at a powerful spiritual retrea...
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There is no need of continuing your past misery because you can begin your life anew by living life out of your spirit, instead of out of your soul. You can start over--even if you’re past 50 as I was when the Kingdom of God became my new dimension of reality, and the world (cosmos) in which my body lives became a temporary state...
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the management of outward life, which I had always sought but never achieved, has been gained since I lost focus on surface life and went deeper into my new man in Christ.
By seeking the rule of God over me, all these “things” in surface life were or are being added (Matt. 6:31).
It came as I let go of all mental concepts and went deeper into my spirit. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God does not come by observation, but rather by looking inside (Luke 17:19-21). His Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). When the Lord makes this real to you, great will be your peace.
External negatives will be viewed for what they are: temporary.
one’s entrance into the eternal state is realized more than before, after the false self has died.
You know eternity as your reality now.
Christians generally view themselves as time bound; the truth is that they are not. They are already seated with Christ in heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6).
