EPISODE 19. LIVING IN WATERFALL IN THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST
The Waterfall Journey is all about our relationship with the Father,
Jesus and the Holy Spirit
and our accepting the invitation to join God in His Story.
Along the way through these podcasts
we have learnt the ‘How do I do that”
of travelling in company with the living God.
THE ELEMENTS OF THE WATERFALL JOURNEY
We have learnt the ‘how to ‘ of the essential elements of TWFJ
We now understand God’s story and His invitation for us to join Him and to play our full part in it.
We have seen the sweep of God’s story from the perfection of our Almighty loving God’s creation, through the Fall
where the devil engineered rebellion by Adam and Eve
to the Father’s word, His authority and His goodness;
To the divine rescue plan in Christ Jesus,
where we, redeemed and restored can fulfill all God planned
for His extra-ordinary children, to stand with Him
and to finally vanquish the evil in the world.
Jesus is the key: by living in the fulness of all He bought upon the cross,
by understanding and responding to the ministry
of the Holy Spirit as he restores us, trains and marshalls His troops;
and by understanding how to abide constantly in the Father’s presence
as we live out the Waterfall Journey, we honour the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross for each one of us.
We know the importance of where we stand to live our life: abiding in the Father’s presence : heart to heart, spirit to spirit.
Thus being the channels of the living God every moment of the day and abiding where all things work for good
because we are serving the purposes of God.
We have learnt to draw our identity from the Father, being who God says we are, no longer listening to the lies we once believed about ourselves
picked up in the Fallen world.
We now understand the roles and relationships on offer from the Father,
Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We have learnt of the importance of all that the Cross means
in forgiveness, redemption and restoration
and its everyday relevance to our lives,
as we grow in awareness of flowing in the joy of freedom
that being forgiven and releasing forgiveness brings.
We have seen that life is choosing to live in God’s will and purpose trusting Him for every aspect of our being .
That we can know when He speaks, know His voice and know His mind
that we are called to trust, to obey and to believe in all Jesus says,
in the Word of God and in the nature and character of God.
We have learned that the greatest importance is for us to be willing to allow Jesus to renew our minds and to be open to inner healing
so being equipped for our full ministries.
This leads to a maturing journey to wholeness and sets us on the way of holiness and an ever-deepening intimacy with our God.
It is being the friend of Jesus,
not a servant, but being a beloved and trusted member of the family,
about the Father’s business.
When God gave the Israelites the Promised Land it had very clearly defined borders. They took the land bit by bit, turning out the people
with the practices that did not align with God.
When God created you He defined your image precisely,
you are holy ground but as you live in the Fallen world your borders are invaded.
The Waterfall Journey is about taking back the ground,
of who you were created to be and redefining the God-given borders.
In spiritual terms the devil does not want you to be free,
He wants you to continue to believe and act out of the lies.
As you have travelled your inner journey through these weeks
you have learned how to recognise the lies you have believed about yourselves and to crush their power and be free
But If you continually allow the lies you have dealt with,
back across your borders, you have to do battle to get them out again.
If you stop the lies before the border they are powerless
and you need not do battle. Stand fast and hold your borders
Bar the way ‘STOP I am not entertaining such lies’ ‘IN the name of Jesus be gone. Stand with your armour on with Jesus at your side.
This will help you live in resurrection authority as an heir to the kingdom not just as a sinner saved by the cross, Jesus gifted us so much more.
The work of the cross was to free the sons and daughters of the king
for a high calling before the throne of God
When Jesus was here on earth, God took ordinary men and women and because by choice they committed themselves
completely to His will and purpose they became extra-ordinary.
The church, the body of Christ expanded exponentially
through ordinary people who believed God meant what He said.
In our walk we have all struggled through
the pull of the fallen world’s values, ideas and enticements
where control of our life seemed the only way to survive.
BUT if we have made the decision,
exactly the same decision that the disciples made,
and live abiding in the Father’s presence as Jesus did in the Waterfall,
God’s astronomic scale of happenings comes into being.
Twelve disciples changed the known world as they walked in the Waterfall.
There, after an apprenticeship learning to hear and obey;
becoming trusted and faithful in Kingdom ways
they found power - cause and effect flowing on God’s scale.
It means we too, should think BIG.
If you are listening to this, God is calling you to move on a scale
that you probably will not comprehend until it happens
but you need to lift your head and blast away anything that confines your thinking.
Have big expectations. We have a big God.
Lets dwell for a moment on the importance of peace:
We have been exploring throughout these podcasts how to bring alive the teachings and life of Jesus,
to give spiritual muscle to our own walk of discipleship.
Indeed as we travel the Waterfall Journey as disciples
we are following the model of Jesus walking this earth
and He gifted us with another clue to the essence
of abiding in the presence of the Father when He said in John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.
I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
I owe a debt to my friend Phyllis for sharing her wisdom about God’s peace with me. She said that when you begin to walk with the Lord
you travel from hilltop to valley bottom and your peace
can ricochet up and down with the landscape
but when you step into the Waterfall you are saying, “I trust you Lord.”
Then life becomes a constant experience of internal peace as Jesus portrayed it, which flowed out of His rock-sure relationship with His Father
and His knowing who He was and what He was about.
HIS ABSOLUTE TRUST GAVE HIM ABSOLUTE PEACE that meant He always responded to situations out of quiet certainty.
In the Waterfall the same peace is available to us though many times it is hard won especially at 4 o’clock in the morning. But We are told to ‘seek peace and pursue it”.
SO 'HOW DO I DO THAT?'
Well when the world starts falling about your ears.
Stop and breathe.
Make a cup of tea and sit quietly with your eyes on Jesus.
Feel His presence.
Peace comes by reminding yourself who God is,
His character and nature and that He has not changed in this your crisis. Remind yourself of His faithfulness,
the things He has done in the past
the promises He has given to you.
Then give Him the problem.
Speak out your trust of Him in the circumstances and leave it to God. Then shut the door in your mind to stop chewing over the issue or event, You have given it to Jesus so all the resources of heaven are working on it. Choose to trust.
Perhaps play a significant worship song for you and claim the words.
Expect peace - Jesus says IT IS MY PEACE AND I GIVE IT TO YOU
Keep doing this until peace comes.
God is faithful and unchanging and BIG.
His peace that the world cannot give will be yours.
Owning God’s peace is another spiritual muscle we need to exercise.
At the moment in churches there are many sincere people who are not disciples; the majority are unaware of how damaged they are.
Rick Joyner’s “The Call” graphically illustrates how blind we can be to the situation. Many, in being saved, do not have the teaching
or the soul friend to walk beside them as they move through to full discipleship. Following the Waterfall Journey will take people along the path to maturity.
I believe it will be people, each walking in the Waterfall and joining up together, that will bring the church to readiness for battle and
to the purity to be the Bride of Christ.
The Waterfall Journey is based on that belief.
It is the Father’s heart.
There is still so much to explore as the landscape will continual change if we JOURNEY ONWARD. It will involve : coming up ever higher as we dwell in the throne room. practising the presence of God and living in God’s perspective minute by minute.
Engaging in the journey to maturity, building character and holiness in the sum of our choices.
It’s understanding army structures with an urgency to train the army of the Lord. It’s knowing how to take possession of the land, hold the ground, understand where the borders are,.
It’s understanding the structures of heaven – and spiritual warfare. It’s acting in authority with power.
It’s different forms of prayer, reaping and sowing, binding and loosing. It’s creating inheritance, passing on experience.
It is being heaven’s ambassadors – ruling and reigning.
It is God out of the box and us free of constraints.
It’s being naturally supernatural with flourishing gifts. It’s dancing and flying.
It is wearing the mantle of Jesus.
My prayer is that you may meet God within these podcasts at an ever deeper level so that you might become all that He designed you to be and accomplish all that He planned for you to do for His honour and glory.
Please share these podcasts with others.