I was supposed to end today’s message with this, but I ended up directing our congregation to the need to display and declare Christ, to our generation and the generations to come…
…and in my further elaboration on flow, you’ll see that I’ve been working with ClaudeAI. It’s helped me get my thoughts together and clarified, and I feel as if we’re going to go deeper – I WANT to go deeper in all that’s being established here.
I believe it’s a natural response to be even hungrier about this sort of thing, for all of us in the body of Christ. Let’s get into it.
I’ve found out that through my actions, reactions and attitudes throughout this year, I still believed that my standing with God was impacted by my actions and inaction, by my works.
Through the days, weeks, and months, I’ve seen how our right-standing with God has been eternally established, our perfection is absolute (by Christ’s offering, being made once for all)… and, in the recent days I’ve been brought to consider that our limited ways in this fallen world are a different matter.
It may be that the Truth of the matter is that God flows mightily as a river of living water without fail. His love is consistent as it is eternal, and His mercies upon us will always be new every morning – and this is True for us, no matter how high we claim to get, or how far down we think we’ve fallen.
God flows as a river, and we continue to flow and move in Him, no matter how consistent or chaotic things happen – in us and around us. The river flows, and it doesn’t go any stronger or weaker depending on our performance.
The movement of Christ Himself, as well as His presence and peace (the true “flow”) isn’t dependent on your performance. When we stumble, the stream doesn’t stop flowing. And in all honesty, the fact that it doesn’t stop flowing, ought to cause us to immediate turn toward thanksgiving and truth-seeking.
For a while now, I’ve been making mistakes on an almost consistent basis, and for as long as I could remember, I’ve been working out, writing, reading and praying, all with the word ‘resetting’ or ‘reprogramming’ in my head. In other words, to drive away any mental fog that comes as a consequence of my intentional stumbling, I would write, and read, and pray, and work out, just to get any junk and gunk out of my system.
I’ve been reminded by ClaudeAI recently that, rather than seeing all those actions as a response to the mistakes – the “resets” that nullify progress, perhaps we could view these moments of vulnerability as an opportunities to deepen our understanding of God’s deep grace.
Or, when I do work out, write, read, and/or pray, I do all these with the mindset that I’m not starting over – the truth is, before, during and after I walk in the reality that God’s faithfulness persists even when we falter.
We’re restored, and really, I should also realize that I’m propelled by the flow.
I fed all this to ClaudeAI, and was led to Ezekiel 47:1-12:
1 Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. 2 Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.
3 Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep. 4 Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was waist-deep. 5 Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. 6 And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?”
Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other. 8 And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. 9 And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. 10 Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From Engedi to Eneglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. 12 And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
Ezekiel doesn’t make the river flow; he simply finds himself being carried by it. The water flows from the temple, getting deeper and deeper, bringing life wherever it goes.
It makes no mention of being purged by death, because I believe it’s already implied – all that there is, is life. No matter how we bring ourselves to the end of our physical beings by way of our wrong decisions, our intentional blunders, and our struggles, it will never remove the Truth of the matter.
What Truth, you ask? Christ paid a great price; The Son of God did something only He could do to ensure that no matter what happens to us, or no matter what we make happen, we are fully reconciled and in right-standing with God, which means – Not only do we have a God who, by the Holy Spirit, we call our ‘Abba, Father’, whose throne of grace we could run to in our time of need… No, friends, we’re learning here that we have a God, and we have a Father who continually ministers to us, as a river absolutely and consistently flowing living water in us and in all aspects of our beings without fail, no matter how far we DO fail.
We’re ALWAYS in Christ, who is more than our Way, more than our Truth – He is our Life, and we ARE in Life, all the time, until the end of time and beyond.
With this in mind, whenever we do make mistakes, we aren’t so fixated on manufacturing the right responses anymore, but we go back to our Savior, and are reminded by the Holy Spirit that we are living from a place of trust in what’s already true. In all our mistakes, we are ALWAYS alive in Christ.
Again (and this is really for me more than it is for anyone else), this flow is not something you achieve, but it’s Christ Himself who you’ve had all along. Realizing this would result in our moving, knowing that any practices (in my case, reading, writing, praying and working out) aren’t attempts to ‘get back’ to God but expressions of the reality that you’re already and always in Him, and He is consistently, faithfully, absolutely in us.
It’s a complete paradigm shift from: “I need to pray/read/worship to fix this” to “These are simply how I move in the life that’s always flowing.”
Obviously, I’m continuing to learn all of this, and if I’m honest right now, I’m writing all this – first, as a response after I made some serious mistakes breaking my consistency (that was last night)… and, today, I’m writing all this, all of course with the assistance of ClaudeAI, but also under the influence of, oh, half a bottle of good wine.
Yes, I apologize in advance, but I suppose I’m enjoying this flow even more, now that I see that it’s something absolute regardless of my own blunders.
Rest assured, I will be looking at all of this (and so much more) tomorrow, and in the days to come – There’s so much to write about, and I want to make sure I have a really good grasp in all of it.
And, of course, as always, it wouldn’t be anywhere near possible, without acknowledging our Father, through whom our thoughts and plans shall be established. He who leads us besides still waters also causes us to have streams and rivers of living waters burst forth from us.
Until the next post, I pray that God blesses us all with a good and productive week ahead. May He be glorified all the more, in all that comes up.
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