TOPICAL POSTS by SERIES | Norma L. Brumbaugh

God notices when we thumb our noses at Him and disregard His ways and leading. It must cause Him some measure of pain.

PATH TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM – LIVE A TRANSFORMED LIFE

I heard a story the other day about a man who bought some fries at McDonald’s for his four year old son. His son was eating the fries and the aroma was tempting the dad. He reached over to snag a couple of fries when his son stopped him. “Don’t, Daddy, these are my fries,” the boy exclaimed as he pushed his father’s hand away. Now, in reality, the boy wouldn’t have had any fries if his father hadn’t bought them for him. In essence, it was a moot point. However, what bothered the father was that his son didn’t want to share with him what he had given his son in the first place.

After the exchange with his son was over, the father began thinking about what had just happened.

It made the dad think about God and us and our reaction to God. He saw a picture in his mind of God with His children, how God must feel when He gives us what we need and desire, but then we aren’t willing to share back with Him out of what He has given us.

If we could just grasp this concept. All that we have comes from God. Why wouldn’t He want to be a part of our lives? He does. Our Father wishes to have His children’s love and loyalty in response to His great love for us that He desires to share and complete in us.

It is similar to when we wish to be with a person we love, but we find we can only see them for a limited amount of time. We alter our schedule and responsibilities in order to make time to see that person even at the expense of other things of importance.

God wants our love, our friendship, our time, our desire for Him to be of value, interactive, and reciprocal. I believe God to be this way. We are dependent on Him, but it need not be a contest of God’s will versus our will. We pull together. He in me, and me in Him. Our lives pivot with Him at His command. Even our bolting and erratic behaviors are not apart from His yoke, no matter how independent or self-motivated, actualized we are.

When we quit fighting and yield and lean in to God, bend our will to His will, as part of the team and with no form of resistance, then we find spiritual rest. This is a true state of rest for our souls, soul-rest, spiritual rest, formulated in trust. We find ourselves never alone. God is with us, always.

The key to supernatural spiritual rest is found in God. Spiritual rest will not and can not happen until we let go of ourselves. This will come as we yield. Come to Him. Look deeply inward. Ask to take His yoke, His life as part of yours.

Seek to learn, not just know.

Allow God to manifest Himself in you by actually surrendering your right to yourself. Then the rest will follow on its heels. With spirit-rest, there will be peace, joy, and genuine Christ-likeness. The end result? A person begins to change on the inside, and we stop being Christian phonies and become real spiritually.

What about our pain? Its healing becomes part of a renewal process as you give it to God for His tender graces as you seek Him for truth, righteousness, and healing. The healing may come quick or it may be slow. It is a part of the transformation that occurs as you seek to find God in a spirit of openness, humility, and with God-sufficiency. You are done with your own self- rule and self-sufficiency.

It is freeing to let go of ourselves. Let go, and let God. Many of us have found this to be true. It takes an act of the will. It takes trust in God. It takes initiative on our part. And it takes time. It takes all of these and always will. In time they become who you are and you are a new creature in Christ.

Those who seek God will find God in the intimacy of relationship, real and loving, and worth every problem and heartache it has taken to get there. God makes us new. He restores, heals, and renews our lives. In this, He refreshes our souls. I am so thankful that this is true. It makes life worth living. Freedom is where it’s at.

Joy comes in the morning.

Believe it. Know it. Embrace it. Start living!

Embrace your new life. God is there for you.

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There are times we want to quit. We want to lie down, We’ve had enough: Discouraged, disheartened, frustrated, unsure, disappointed, unhappy. The thoughts roll through our minds. This stinks! I quit. It’s too hard! I don’t want to do this anymore. Frustration is besting us.

God is the needle, and we are the thread.

Other times we want to rebel. I don’t like this. I’m going to do it my way. But God is with us in those moments too. The truth is, we are not in it alone. God has bound Himself to us. God is the lead person in the relationship, and we are the follower.

Remember this principle, because it holds true. As an African believer once said to a young minister, “God is the needle, and we are the thread.”

To quit would be to miss out on something, The Someone, the One Who is delightful and totally present. It is easy to stumble when it comes to who is going to be the boss. We like to be our own boss. It seems safest that way. The opposite is actually true. Contrary to what one might think, God is a wonderful leader. He gives and gives in the relationship. He also empowers us and gives us courage.

When God becomes our all in all, it is possible to live in victory regardless of everything and everyone in our lives. He gives us what we need at the time we need it and then some. If you have known anyone who walks close to God in this way, you will see that they no longer operate out of fear, doubt, bitterness, or uncertainty. They have a calmness and unhurried state, much like, it seems, Jesus did.

God is our friend. He seeks intimacy with us.

We either are in the real, or we are not in the real. The basic idea underlying the whole biblical story, creation through today, is this great compelling of God with His creation, specifically with human kind.

God desires close friendship with us.

God wants us to yield our cares, desires, needs, troubles, hurts—all of them, to Him. God wants to be our closest of relationships, to become the One whom we personally love the very most, more than any of our human relationships, even more than our own desires and wants, and more than our own right to self. God loves us. We are dear to His heart.

Why is this? We’re only human.

That’s just it. We are created for God. We are not complete until we find our full completeness in God. He has been drawing us to this union of soul-to-God connectedness. God’s love for us is strong, passionate.

God desires to be loved which is one of the reasons He created us in the first place. God longs for us, to know us and to be known by us, and to find our joy in Him.

God’s love is more fulfilling than any other love.

God’s love is totally unselfish, totally life-giving, and totally trans-formative in nature. God takes what we give Him, and then He inserts His healing strength. He understands sorrow for He has suffered. He understands pain, for He has experienced pain. He also IS love. His very essence is love. It is His wish to give us a taste of His beauty and to satisfy us in His presence.

God is a deep well which never goes dry. He offers refreshing water so that we will never thirst again. In Him, is life eternal. Those who seek Him with an open mind and heart will find the supernatural to be very close. God speaks today.

God's love transforms in a beautiful way ... and makes authentic Christians.

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We’re not quite done yet but getting close.

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