THE WATERFALL JOURNEY
EPISODE 6. - LIVING IN THE WATERFALL Part 1
In this episode We are going to now explore how we live out the Biblical Truths that underpin TWFJ.
This is the “How” of journeying .
So, what does it mean if you make the choice to live in the Waterfall.
In this ministry For over 25 years
we have been helping people enter into the reality
OF ABIDING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE FATHER just as JESUS did .
IN the Gospel of JOHN CHAPTER 14
Jesus not only CALLS US TO DO THE SAME
But shares how to do it.
The simple and profound fact is that
with a change of perspective it becomes possible for us, but .
To do so we need to start from God’s perspective not our own.
If I wake in the morning and say I choose to live this day
in the presence of the Father.
I have positioned myself to be connected heart to heart with the Father,
Holy Spirit to my spirit and thereby to be aligned with the model of Jesus
who demonstrated how to walk this out on earth.
If I walk in the Waterfall God speaks into my heart the way He did to Jesus who did what the Father gave Him to say and
did what the Father gave Him to do.
That is He did what came into His head and His heart
as He was in continual communication with His Father
being led and guided by the Holy Spirit.
He then obeyed and fulfilled the purposes of God.
He did not always find that easy
as we see when He suffered, the death of his friend Lazarus
or in the huge challenge of Gethsemane
But He implacably followed the purposes of God.
This is often in contrast to our practice,
as having our feet mired in the things of earth,
in need we pull God down to our level and into our lives, our stories and agendas. However,God is inviting us up higher to bring our lives into His story.
Let us remember WE can be there because of Jesus.
He died and paid the price for our sin so that we could,
clothed in His righteousness and covered by His blood
be free to be in the presence of the Father.
It is where we are born to live.
There is a cohesiveness to God’s story and to ours, that we need to recognise. They fit together, because God has chosen to give responsibility to mankind,
to share and play a part in His story.
We are not just here to get through this day. We have Kingdom work to do.
Read Ephesians Ch 1 & 2 to see the truth of this.
For God’s purpose we must be prepared, healed, and equipped to see the vision and follow the call.
It is God’s part to get us there ;
our part is to be willing to enter into, all that Jesus died to give us on the cross and to take our rightful place alongside the Father.
It starts by stepping into in the presence of Father, where with trust and obedience, faith will be built.
To begin with communication is continual as a Father to a small child.
HOW CAN I BE SURE GOD WILL SPEAK TO ME ?
Psalm 138:8 ‘The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.’
IT IS A FATHER’S RESPONSIBILITY TO COMMUNICATE WITH HIS CHILDREN. HE TAKES THE LEAD.
IF A FATHER WANTS A RESPONSE FROM His CHILD, THE child needs to understand what is being asked of him.
The type and level of communication is adapted to where the child is on the journey to adulthood and maturity.
Just as when we mature and grow our earthly Father changes the way He speaks with us, so too this happens with our heavenly Father
JESUS told us HOW. ….. As He abided in the Father’s presence , He DID and SAID what came into His head and His heart
Because He was in Spirit to spirit communication with His Father.
In the Waterfall, the place of abiding, as we TRUST what we hear is from the Father and OBEY, we will see the hand of God on our lives.
Then by following in Jesus’ footsteps God will mature and grow
us as His disciples and build our spiritual muscle
to understand the rule and reign of the King.
From the simplicity of the child to the authority of an ambassador of the Kingdom,
the Waterfall Journey unfolds.
FOR SOME it can seem to be such a risk to step into this place of the Waterfall, into the arms of the Father.
When you have been kicked by the world and relied on yourself for survival the question is ‘ Can I trust God?’
At the point of decision it feels to be a great risk
because we have no evidence it is going to work.
It defies all our knowledge about life.
It denies all our experience and runs counter to our survival mode - where we try to control everything to keep ourselves safe;
Where we have lived on the love we can find and not on knowing
the absolute love and acceptance of the Father’s heart.
There was an old black and white film starring David Niven that told the story of breaking the sound barrier. In those days, planes were controlled by a joystick. The pilot pulled back on the stick to bring the nose of the aircraft up to climb and pushed it forward to dive. Several aircraft were lost at the point of breaking the sound barrier because the planes went into an unstoppable dive, even when the pilots were pulling back on the controls. David went up, tension crackled as he approached the sound barrier and as he hit the stall point, the aircraft began to fall away but our plucky hero, defying all his knowledge and experience, reversed the controls. He pushed the joystick forward and immediately, the nose of the aircraft came up. All was well!
This is such a good illustration, of how risky it feels to reverse the controls we have exerted in life and to surrender ourselves into the hands of God.
The tragedy is that many of us Christians live out our lives in the fallen world, not trusting God for much
though we sing differently for two hours on a Sunday!
Then we go home and the burdens of life fall back on our shoulders :- Money worries, family problems, work tensions, church demands,
future uncertainties add up to the reality
where we are driven by our wounds and the world’s pressures,
playing God, trying to survive.
Nevertheless, God meets us, blesses us and grows us but it is despite us, for we operate out of our own agendas.
If we step into the Waterfall there are some immediate changes. We enter the rule and reign of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Trusting God for every area of life, family, health, security, job, finances and allowing God to be God in our lives,
we enter the peace that the world cannot give.
It is not a place of striving but of obedience.
It is where disciples live.
It changes life and turns upside down what has gone before in our lives.
Life is now to be lived from God’s perspective not our own.
It is reversing the controls.
Now God can really do business with us.
This is ‘THE PLACE...’ Jesus spoke of and it is also THE PLACE
... where everything works for good for those who love the Lord and SERVE HIS PURPOSE. Romans 8:28
In the Waterfall I am saying, “I trust you Lord. I am aligning myself to your will and your purposes; you be God in my life.”
I am taking my hands off the controls and I am going to follow you.”
I am saying, I am loved and accepted and I am going to believe it.
I am going to believe what you say in your Word is for me.
Because You cannot lie.
Trust is a decision not a feeling and we can trust because of who God is.
God cannot act outside His character. He cannot go back on His Word. It is not in His nature. This is why He is faithful and unchanging.
Home with the Father is only ever one step away.
If we will commit to turning from our cisterns,
from the idols we have put in place of God and repent,
we are forgiven by the blood of Jesus and
by choosing to trust God and by stepping into the Waterfall
WE ARE THERE in the presence of the Father.
GETTING TO KNOWING WHERE I STAND TAKES PRACTICE!
SO HOW DO I GET INTO THE WATERFALL??
I learned to wake in the morning and declare, “I choose to live in the Waterfall today.” I would abide in the presence of the Father.
Often I would find that I had wrestled back
control from Him and was busy doing what I thought was best.
We need to Ask for the Holy Spirit’s help in becoming aware of where we are standing and what is going on within us. I would hear myself saying “I must do this” or “I know what we should do”
and I would become aware that I thought I knew best,
thought I knew what was right or wrong,
thought I knew what was good or bad in a situation.
I had made God redundant again.
Becoming aware of this, I would lift my hand like a traffic policeman and say STOP, I would look at the bucket in my cistern and what I was doing,
Then I would REPENT by saying sorry and turn.
I pictured moving from the well through the Cross,
I imagined RECEIVING FORGIVENESS and being cleansed, and in freedom I would step into the Waterfall and into the Father’s waiting arms.
Then I would raise my hands over my head and imagine standing in a waterfall in the flow of the Father’s love for me,
which would pour over me and through me and I would state, “I trust you Lord”.
Some days I would be doing this many times but
gradually I learned the difference between life in and out of the Waterfall.
Each morning in the shower I would imagine the water being the love of the Father flowing not only over me but through me
washing away the hurt, bruises and shadows and
bringing life and holy energy into my head, heart and limbs.
My desire to be home with the Father grew and I would hate moving out of His presence. I think this awareness was heightened for me because I was very aware of what life had been like in the dark years, when I had shut God out of my life.
God is inviting me into HIS STORY so I can be restored, made whole and play my part in His will and purpose. The key is for me to let Him have my life
and be willing to let Him take me on the journey.
God has a healing and equipping programme tailor made for me,
which will use my story for His glory,
as He ‘restores the years the locusts have eaten’.
In the Waterfall back in the flow of the Holy Spirit what comes into my head and my heart is flowing from the Father,
as I obey and follow His leading,
He will build my faith and take me deeper into His confidence.
This is not just about coming home but about being trusted by God for His purposes. Being moved up higher in authority and responsibility in the Kingdom.
It is about serving the living God 24 hours a day.
Jesus demonstrated all this. We can live where He lived;
we can do what He did;
we can be Jesus NOW in this world for the Father
In John 1:39 when John’s disciples come and ask Jesus where He is staying, He says, “Come and see the place.”
Jesus is standing in the Waterfall saying, “Come and see the place.”
My experience has been that if people will commit to life in the Waterfall
God will unfold what it means to be there.
So many things change. Because you have committed to God in a new way
you will find you have moved into a new level of relationship
with the three persons of the Trinity.
The Holy Spirit will illuminate the Bible in new ways,
you are aligned to God’s moving,
gifts sharpen, discernment has more clarity and
your progress is uniquely crafted by God.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, You are stepping into the fullness of all Jesus died on the Cross to give you, bringing your story into God’s story and under His Lordship, and into the full flow of the Holy Spirit
Lets just look at the reasons Jesus came:-
1. Firstly. As we have seen Jesus came to restore mankind to the presence of the Father.
By dying on the cross for our sin.
HE OPENED UP THE WAY BACK to the Father
to the place where we were created to live and now can do so.
2. Secondly, Jesus came to overcome the work of the Devil. In the Waterfall we can learn how to live in the victory Jesus won.
3. Thirdly, wonderfully He came to restore the broken image of the children of God. To deal with pain and emptiness.
To set us free from the bondage of the fallen world
to bring healing and wholeness and
to set us on the Way of Holiness.
4. Fourthly, Jesus was seeking His own, who would both believe Him and follow Him, who would be His disciples and go in His name, in trust and obedience
to share the good news with those living in darkness.
5. Fifthly, He came to share the kingdom of heaven, to define what the rule and reign of the King looks like
and to share how we can live as Ambassadors,
of all it represents here on earth.
IT IS WHERE YOU STAND TO LIVE YOUR LIFE THAT COUNTS.
JESUS DEMONSTRATED, HOW HIS MINISTRY, DEPENDED ON CLOSENESS TO HIS FATHER AND HOW TO LIVE IN THIS PLACE WHEN HE WAS ON EARTH.
THE WATERFALL IS ONLY EVER A STEP AWAY.
Let’s say again Jesus died on the Cross so our broken image can be restored, so that we can be healed from the inside out and
return to the environment where we were designed to live,
in the presence of the Father.
In the Waterfall of His love as we say intrust “I’ll follow you.”
God can do what needs to be done.
Things are speeded up, as we learn to co-operate with the Holy Spirit’s ministry. God can now bring into being His creative plan for our healing and equipping, to prepare us to accomplish for the Kingdom,
all He has destined for us to do.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
If we are not on the journey, we waste the fruit of the victory, that the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross bought with His blood.
If we are not on the journey, how can the church be the Holy Bride
and the battle-ready army of God’s intention.
Being committed to the journey, hastens the day of the return of Jesus.
What a challenge? What an adventure? Jesus says “ Come and see the place” and the door opens for each of us to join the living God in His story.