It cannot be stressed enough nor experienced more greatly. We were once in bondage and now through Christ and in Christ we are free. We live with a gravitational pull toward the old ways of the old nature. We fight for freedom! Learning how to live freely…this is what our training is all about. After our initial healing from our wounds (as many times as we need to enter into confession and repentance) we engage our will and we intentionally guard our hearts and say no to that which will impede or strip our freedom. We say yes to all that is available in Christ and from Christ that will secure and advance our freedom (Proverbs 4:23).
Training His Beloved Sons to see, hear and discern between the two kingdoms… life or death, this is what the Father is up to in the hearts and lives of His Beloved Sons. It is what Jesus practiced and so must we.
We have all heard the saying, “seeing is believing.” A large part of the training that Jesus is going to take us through is the ability to see. If we don’t see “it”, then it is impossible to discern “it”, and if a man cannot discern well, he will cause far more harm than good in his life. When Jesus was dealing with His disciples, He was dealing with the challenge of training the untrained and naïve men. They didn’t see well, no one had taught them. They didn’t know what they didn’t know and Jesus really wanted them to know… know what?...Know experientially who He was, how the Kingdom works and therefore who they are! See “it”, understand “it” and engage, step into your role.
Paul wrote, “Take every thought captive”. (2 Corinthians 10:5). This 10th chapter of 2 Corinthians is a chapter full of warfare training for the Beloved Sons amidst the spiritual battle they find themselves. Before a thought can be captured it has to be seen. You can’t observe what you don’t see. It’s the things I never saw coming or coming out of me that have either run over me or run over others. Will Rogers once said,
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of experience comes from bad judgment.
It’s the way training works. No one knows how at first. Just think about all the first times we have in our lives. There are too many to count and in those moments we usually “don’t know what to do” and therefore those moments usually don’t go so well. Why?...because we have never been there before. There is a normal and natural part of our training in becoming more like Christ. Along the journey we learn in reflection hind sight of our experiences and reflection we are to identify the things in us that are not us and are not “like Christ”. The things that are not of His Kingdom way have to be seen. Critical is the point that what isn’t like Christ in a Beloved Son, isn’t the Beloved Son. It is something else, namely the false self. But if you don’t see them…you don’t see them. It is just as valuable to know what you don’t want and who you aren’t as it is to know what you do want and who you really are.
