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Yesterday I introduced a quote from my friend Ken Baugh. This quote came from a presentation Ken is giving entitled "Abundant Living In Christ." You can check out this amazing set of lectures for yourself by referring to the text of this podcast and clicking on the link included there.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4yqjWBtrQLsZh4PfRctI6A
Ken said the following...
"God’s love is like a mirror. The more we can see our reflection in His love the more we can weather the storms that come against us in ways that aren’t destructive. It is when we interpret our circumstance through the warped lens of our life that we create behavior that isn’t abundant living. When I see myself through the Father’s eyes and think the Fathers thought I will experience more love joy peace and hope."
Yesterday I took us down a bunny trail of how a mirror works. When we view an image in a mirror the horizontal is flipped while the vertical remains the same. In other words, left is right in a mirror while up remains up and down remains down.
I explained that I found this to be important because life is also made up of a horizontal component and a vertical one as well. When we view life in the mirror of God's Love our physical world, represented by the horizontal, can seem flipped in confusing and frustrating ways. The truly amazing thing is that the vertical component of life reflected back in the mirror of God's Love doesn't change. The vertical, to me, is the power that comes with a connection with our God.
I left yesterday's presentation off with a thought that I wanted to dig in more on today. It is when we try to take the vertical realities of God and apply them in a horizontal way that trouble happens in the life of a victor. I believe this contention is confirmed by Ken's statement on behavior we read earlier. Ken said that it is when we fail to view our lives in the mirror of God's Love, destructive behavior can be the result. Taking things of God that don't change in the reflection of God's Love and trying to apply them in a horizontal strategy, when horizontal is flipped in that reflection, can be a frustrating and victim making exercise when it comes to living out this life.
Let's take a promise from scripture and view it in the reflection of God's Love to see what happens. Check out with me now today's Bible reading.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
In the past, I have literally torn this Bible verse apart looking for ways to trap God into giving me what I want. I believe this was done as I tried to take a vertical promise and bend it to fit the flipped way I see my horizontal life in the reflection of God's Love. Let me show you what I mean by that.
What today's reading is saying is that if we figure out how to delight ourselves in the Lord, He is required to give us the desires of our heart. Believe me when I say I have researched the wording in this verse very carefully and this is literally what is being said. Now, all I need to do is figure out how to take delight in the Lord and I have it made - right? Here's where the left to right thing that happens in a mirror really comes into play.
Let's say I think that taking delight in the Lord means to read my Bible more. If I use Bible reading as a strategy to get God to do what I want, then I have taken a vertical promise that can't be changed and applied it on a horizontal plane that is always backwards when viewed as a reflection in the mirror of God's Love. The results of what I want when it comes to converting a vertical connection into a horizontal reality will never be what my soul wants it to be. It just can't. It is like trying to fit the proverbial square peg into the round hole.
It is when I take what is being reflected by God's Love and try to make it fit in my natural world the way I want it to fit, that life gets to be a frustrating exercise in futility. Hope is so easily lost when what seems to be the natural result of vertical principals don't work out the way I hoped they would.
Satan loves it when we take Godly principals based on His Love, and try to apply them in self serving ways. Not only do we waste our time in trying to make those connections happen, Satan knows that the frustration, that comes with repeated failure, will eventually get us to doubt that God's Love is for us. When those doubts are allowed to linger in our lives for long periods of time, behavior changes in ways that threaten to make victims of those around us. Trying to take vertical principals and turn them into horizontal realities turns God's Love into something that can make victim thinkers out of us all. That's the antithesis of Abundant Living if you ask me.
So what is Abundant Living in Christ if it isn't getting our horizontal to exactly match up with the vertical in our lives? Ken describes Abundant Living using four qualities. Those qualities are hope, love, peace and joy. Abundant living isn't getting all we want out of God. It is living in a place where hope, love, peace and joy is something that is a part of vertical connection, not solely the result of all we do on the horizontal plane.
It is when victors look to their actions to provide hope, love, peace and joy that behavior can be altered in victim making ways. Sure what we do can, at times, make these qualities be all we want them to be in our lives. What we have to remember is that all the things we do (the horizontal plane) are temporary. Hope, love, peace and joy that comes from the vertical is permanent. In the vernacular of the mirror illustration, when we trust in God's Love for hope, love, peace and joy, we get a connection to these characteristics that are permanent - they can't be flipped. It is when we rely on the horizontal things we do to gain access to these abundant living characteristics that life can flip things around in ways that confuse and frustrate us to no end.
What's the answer to all this confusion and frustration? I think Ken has it right. He says that, "When I see myself through the Father’s eyes and think the Fathers thought I will experience more love joy peace and hope" The answer to receiving an abundant life is in my believing God's Love is for me and taking steps to trust in that love. The only way I know to do this is to get so close to this God who loves me as to be able to see my reflection in His eyes. The more I believe what God says about me, the more my behavior will reflect that of the victor God sees me to be.
Want more abundance in your life today? Stop looking to the horizontal as confirmation of that abundance. Go after as much of this life as you feel called to do but don't let how successful you are at making your definition of abundance be what bolsters your identity. The fact that you are God's Child is all the identity you need to let abundance, that comes from a connection with God, be what empowers all you will do in your life today.
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