-- A Message by Chip BrogdenDear Friend,
Let me explain to you, as best I can, what I am hearing and seeing by the Spirit of God. He is bringing me through a very deep and very penetrating season of adjustment. Now I just love that word adjustment. Adjustment. I know it is uncomfortable and disconcerting to have the sense that everything you thought you knew is wrong (or at best, incomplete), and God shows you a different way, a more excellent way, and usually that "way" is not a way that you would have chosen or come to on your own. It is not a process that anyone particularly enjoys going through.
Even so, we are all in need of a major adjustment. I have a saying that has served me well through the years, and I'd like to share it with you now: the purpose of revelation is not to SUBSTANTIATE your illusions, but to ELIMINATE them. Do not seek confirmation from God as to your thoughts and your perception of things, but seek instead to be disillusioned; seek to be rid of all your illusions about God, all your misperceptions and misconceptions about Who He is and what He is doing. Seek to know Him and His Will no matter how contrary it seems to everything you have heard and learned and experienced up to this point.
The Bible calls us to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus; and this growth is only possible through revelation. With this revelation comes adjustment, and that adjustment is continuous and it is ongoing, until we are perfectly and completely aligned with God's heart and mind, His purpose, His Will, and His Kingdom.
Repentance, in its truest sense, is an adjustment of the heart, an adjustment of the mind, the thoughts, and the attitudes of the soul; and this leads (or should lead), to an adjustment in terms of things we used to do that we no longer do, or things we have not been doing that we begin to do. It is a revelation of something that leads to a change of heart, which causes a change of mind, which results in a change of behavior and must result in a change of direction. That is repentance. Not this crying of tears and making of resolutions, only to go out and do the same things over and over again. But repentance is an utter adjustment to God - an adjustment to His Purpose, His mind, His heart, His will.
Because, you understand, that God will never - and has never - adjusted Himself to us. That is to say, that God will never settle for something less that His full thought, His full intention. He is after something, and He will never compromise Himself or lower His expectation to better suit our wishes. Obviously God's Kingdom and God's Will is not going to be centered around what we want, or what we expect. And that is why we pray, "Your Kingdom come, and Your Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." I have found it is impossible to pray this every day, and make this the focus of your prayer life, and still expect things to go according to your own will. It's just not possible. Prayer is adjustment, and if you are not adjusted through prayer then you haven't really prayed.
Listen to the rest of this message in MP3 format by going here.
http://www.TheSchoolofChrist.Org/webcast.html/
