Experiencing the Holy Spirit in Prayer

It’s best to read this post first.  Many are awakening to the love of prayer, and are seeking to connect with God in a deeper way.  Seeking to experience the Holy Spirit is a biblical, tangible reality.

In John 5 Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees; He says, “You do not have His word abiding in you, because [Him] whom He sent, Him you do not believe”   The Father sent Jesus, but they don’t believe Him. Why? Because they don’t have His word abiding in them.

• Verse 39 is when it began to really become clear. He says, “You study the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but these are those which testify of Me. You are unwilling to come to Me that you might have life (Jn. 5:38).
• Often we as believers confuse the value of bible understanding we get. We confuse its value, thinking, “It’s complete; it’s enough to have this.”  Yes, it’s valuable to understand the passage, but it’s incomplete, but often you end up with leaders who have head knowledge, but they don’t interact in a fresh way with the Living Son of God, by the Spirit.

• I read that verse once and I was shocked, I said, “That’s what I do. For hours a day, I’m searching”—you can also use the word ‘studying’—“the Scriptures. I’m engaging my mind. I thought that through Bible study I would experience life. That was the same problem the Pharisees were having; but here’s the key phrase, in verse 40: “But you are not willing to come to Me that you might have life” (Jn. 5:40).

  What came to my thinking the first time I saw this, changed me forever, it is that you can do Bible study all day long, but if you don’t take the Word to Jesus with a hungry heart, you don’t experience life. It hit me like a fiery arrow: “You’re not coming to Me, Brandon. You’re not dialoguing with Me. You’re not interacting with Me in your searching of the Scriptures.”  The written word must take us to the Living Word.

  So from that point on, I began to try and have a running dialogue with Jesus as I read the Scriptures.  Each passage is a door to knock on and ask Jesus for the Eph 1:17 spirit of Revelation.  The bible never says to read it in a year, but it says over and over to meditate on it.  A verse can be made a prayer quite easy.

• The implanted Word delivers our soul from bondage to filthiness. 21 Lay aside all filthiness…and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save (supernaturally deliver) your souls. (Jas 1:21)   7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you…ask…and it shall done. (Jn. 15:7)

• There are three components necessary for the power of the Word to live in us. First, we use our choice to pursue God with a spirit of obedience, faith (confidence He answers) and loving devotion. Second, we feed our heart continually on the Word (implant it in our heart) through mediation. Third, we need the activity of the Spirit to turn meditation into living revelation (turn water into wine, Jn. 2) to save or deliver us from sinful desires.  We must fellowship with the Holy Spirit by talking to Him.   Summary of the three components: we must obey God, feed on the Word and talk to the Spirit.

• The bible highlights two ways to focus our mind in seeking God: God on His Throne (Rev. 4) and God in our innerman.  The Spirit flows from our “innermost man,” its where the Holy Spirit lives in us if we are born again.  We know from Scripture that He dwells in our innermost man (John 7:38), but we only experience Him in the innerman.  The innerman contains our mind will and emotions (Eph 3:16) We turn the attention of our soul to the Spirit in our spirit to grow in the deep things of God.

1 Cor 2:14  But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

• Meditation must be made prayer to enter the heart.  Christianity is relationship with the Man Jesus, we are sanctified and transformed by beholding Him, via the Word and Spirit.  Paul reveals here, that Scripture verses aren’t too just be figured out by the mind, but require the Holy Spirit to impact the heart, we want living understanding.  It takes God to get God.

38 If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.  He that believes on me, the way the Scriptures say,  From his innermost being (belly, KJV) will flow rivers of living water.  (Jn. 7:38 NAS)

• By believing the Scriptures with authentic faith, we will connect with God and experience the Holy Spirit.  This experience Jesus likens to drinking from rivers of living water.  I’m going to talk about some very powerful activities that have been highlighted as a focus in the prayer movement.   Its easy to slip from the discipline of pursuing God, we must resolve to go after loving Him with all of our heart.  Getting the Word alive in your heart takes time and focus, it must become your main priority, and you must resist activity and speech that hinders it.  If we will commit to agressively feed our heart on the Love of God, we will take spiritual ground and be anointed by the Spirit to love God in yet greater ways.  If we are not agressively taking new ground, we will lose the ground we have, in stagnation.

The Mind Mouth Heart Method

Reading Scriptures gets them in our mind, and we need to love God with all of our mind, but speaking them over ourselves and speaking them to God, gets them in our heart.  John 15:7 reveals that if His words abide in you, you will have greater authority in prayer and see more answers.

4 ways to go Deeper-

1) Pray-Read Scripture to God (thanking Him, asking for revelation or power to obey).

• Jesus said “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.  But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40)   Scriptures will impact us when we pray them directly, not just thinking about them or studying them.  We when meet with Jesus, the Scriptures are our anointed conversation material.  ”We let the written word take us to the Living Word, Jesus.”

• So depending on the verse, we can thank God for the truth in it, and then ask for revelation on the verse, or ask for power to obey them.  The Scriptures are living and active (Heb 4:2) and are so powerful to transform us and renew our mind as we pray them.  They rewrite the code of our inner man enabling us to abide in God/Christ to dwells within us (Eph 3;16-19).  We renew our mind (Col 3:10) and walk as a new creation.
• So with a verse like 26 The Holy Spirit…will teach you all things… (Jn. 14:26) We would pray, Thank you Holy Spirit that you teach me, I ask for revelation on what it truly means for you to teach me, and help me to understand you leadings.  Or John 15:9 As the Father has loved Me, I love you.  We would pray, Jesus thank you for this love, strengthen me with might (Eph 3:16) to experience this love.  I ask for greater revelation of this love.  And we would worship and journal revelation.

• Continually asking for revelation is so powerful, we grow in revelation.  Each Scripture is like a door we knock on, as God is inviting us into encounter, in the Knowledge of God.
• The Holy Spirit is with us to teach us, like Jesus taught His disciples.  We must lean not on our own understanding, but seek God.  It helps to ask for the Eph 1:17 Spirit of wisdom and revelation and enlightening of the spiritual eyes.
• 26 The Holy Spirit…will teach you all things… (Jn. 14:26)
• 13 The Spirit of truth…will guide you into all truth; He will tell you things to come. (Jn. 16:13)
• 27 The anointing…abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things… (1 Jn. 2:27)

2) Sing the Scriptures to Him

• Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. (Eph 5:18-19 Niv)

• I believe Eph 5:18-19 is being emphasized by many Spirit-led ministries, as the way to be filled with the Spirit.  The verse says we should not answer the longing of our hearts with drunkeness, but rather be filled with the Spirit, by Singing to Jesus the Scriptures. I believe this is one of the most important verses in the bible.   This message of singing the Word is being spread all over the world through the prayer movement, and it needs to be a part of our prayer life.  God created the human heart so that singing opens the heart in a way that nothing else does.  Singing the Word is the main biblical prescription, the premier way, to be filled with the Spirit and set on fire for God.  Jesus was the Living Word before He became a man, and now we encounter Him by singing and praying/dialoguing the written word.  So we let the written word take us to the Living Word.  But we must grow our hearts in praying the Word.
• “Biblical ideas that you sing are ideas that you own.” They become yours.
  Premiere means to get the scripture deep in us: sing it, pray it, and not to the air, but to Him. Often.
  Is there anything as satisfying and powerful as singing about the details of Jesus, and declaring to Him that He is beautiful?
• To pray consistently, pray the scriptures. The word of God is the “chariot” the Holy Spirit rides on best in our lives and heart.
  To pray consistently, sing the scriptures. Singing unlocks the heart, causes truth to go deeper, and makes prayer enjoyable.
  Sing the word of God until you feel something on the inside move. Then sing more.
  To study the word and comprehend it is transforming; to then pray it and sing it – consuming.
  Prayer & the corresponding power of the Holy Spirit makes the heart fertile soil for the seed of the word to flourish.
• Click on the picture on the top right to see an archived worship with the Word set, with us at ihop-kc, a 24-7 worship and intercession ministry.
• When we stand before God on Judgment Day, He is not going to ask us how big of house did we get, or how big did we make our bank account, but how big did our heart get by experiencing His love and revelation (1st commandment.)

3) Fast

• Fasting does not ‘earn’ us more of God.  It does increace our capacity to experience the Holy Spirit, and accelerate the process of communing prayer.  I have found fasting on water, 1 day a week, to be unparelled in terms of its impact on my experiencing of God. Ihop-kc calls believers to fast at least one day a week.  The benefits are tremendous in fasting two days a week, but let desire for God drive your fasting, not commands or religious spirit.
• This depth of fasting is well within the reach of most people.  But we desperately need more revelation of Jesus as our Bridegroom who has burning desire for us and fiery affections toward us.  As we live in the truth of the bridal paradigm, we fast because we long for Jesus.  Jesus told the Pharisees the day would come when the Bridegroom would be taken away from the disciples, and then they would fast out of longing for Him (Matt. 9:15).  When Jesus ascended to Heaven after His death and resurrection, He was taken away in the sense indicated in this Scripture.  The Bride of Christ is meant to long for His return, His Second Coming, and fasting is one way we express this longing.
• By knowing Jesus as our Bridegroom and seeing ourselves as His Bride, we will become energized with a spirit of prayer and filled with courage to live lives abandoned to God in holiness. Only then will fasting seem appropriate, reasonable or

The Power of Revelation

THE GREATEST PLEASURE IS GOD REVEALING GOD TO THE HUMAN SPIRIT

There’s no aspect in the grace of God that more powerfully transforms the human emotions than when God reveals God to the human spirit. When God reveals God to our spirit, when the knowledge of God touches us, it shifts our emotions.  Its often little by little over months and years, but it makes a significant difference.
We should encourage people who are struggling with bondage, as they’re trying to get free, gritting their teeth to resist and break free from that bondage, rather than trying harder to resist the bondage, to put their focus and their attention on going deeper; gaining new understanding about God. Its good to encourage them to go deeper and focus on that instead of trying harder. Because you can’t grit your teeth and just by resolve free your emotions. However, you can go after information about God, and when the Holy Spirit touches our heart with it, it liberates our emotions, little by little.

THERE’S MORE TO JESUS THAN THE BENEFITS HE LOVES TO GIVE US
Now many people think about Jesus mostly in terms of a savior. He forgives us of our sin and rescues us from hell. I like that but there’s so much more! It’s part of His ministry to us. They only think about Him as One who heals, who directs, who provides, and who blesses circumstances. And that’s true! That’s what He does for us, but there’s so much more about Jesus than the benefits that He loves to give us and that we love to receive. There’s so much more about Him than the fact of what He does for us to enrich our life.

Now the witness to this truth is found around the throne of God in Revelation 4. The seraphim, the high-ranking angels, who are known as living creatures, cry day and night, offering unending, unceasing adoration and worship—not because they were forgiven; not because they were given financial provision or prophetic direction; not because the Lord healed them; for none of those reasons, but because they saw the glory and
magnificence of God. And the glory of God, His magnificence, always provokes a response in those that see it.
And this is the Jesus who forgives and saves, heals, directs, provides, and protects, but He’s so much more. And as we see Him, it provokes a response in us; it moves us on the inside like it moves the seraphim around the throne.

Philippians 3.

Paul is the premier example of this truth of how the knowledge of God changes people’s emotions and their emotional makeup and the way they think and feel. Paul gave testimony of this: he said, “I count all things as loss” (Phil. 3:8, paraphrased). He said, “I gladly give up everything.”
Now why? What would motivate Paul to give up everything? He said, “I’ve had a glimpse of the excellence, the magnificence of the Man Christ Jesus.” And as I grasp who He is even a little, it moves my heart in the deepest way.

David Sliker – Responding to the Sermon on the Mount

This message references this Mike Bickle Series on the Sermon on the Mount:

http://mikebickle.org/resources/series/sermon-on-the-mount

Every phrase of the Sermon on the Mount is key to our sanctification and transformation, to walking in what we were made to experience. Bickle’s series is quite in depth, but to take Jesus in Matt 5:19 seriously is to be provoked to search out the sermon with diligence and slowly devour relevant resources.

There is such wisdom in taking in these passages regularly in long and loving meditation, asking for a tender heart and the spirit of revelation to see what we can’t see on our own, that which we need Holy Spirit to see by revelation. Then we must also ask for His power to desire it and do it, to express it to God in our value system and lifestyle of love.

Declare Your Name

If you’re looking for a life verse, not that you have to have one, but I encourage you to take John 17:26. Jesus sums up His ministry. He says in verse 25, “Father I have known You, and these have known You, that you sent Me” (Jn. 17:25, paraphrased). If you put a lot of other verses together with this, the idea is that they have known God in a very introductory way.

He goes on in verse 26: “And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn. 17:26). He says, “I have declared to them Your name, and will continue to declare it.” That’s a very interesting phrase. Jesus sums up His earthly ministry in the same way He summed up eternal life. Someone might say, “Give me one sentence on what You did on the earth in Your three and a half years of ministry. How effective was Your ministry, Jesus?”

Someone could say, “Well, He raised the dead.”

Jesus is kind of saying here, “Well, that wasn’t the real highlight of what I did. That’s not the mountaintop. Certainly I did raise the dead, and I healed thousands of people in mass healing crusades, and I calmed the storm. I multiplied bread and fed the multitudes and gave them all kinds of things, but the summary theme of My ministry is that I declared the name of God to human beings. I made God known to humans. I revealed the knowledge of the Father to them. Not only the love of the Father, but His power over Satan, His power over the ocean, His majesty, His omniscience. If I had one sentence to summarize the theme of My three and a half year ministry, it would be that.”

He gives it right there. He tells the Father, “I did what I love to do and what You sent Me to do. I revealed Your name.” In other words, “The essence of your personality I revealed to them.” If Jesus’ ministry is summed up in one sentence, “I have revealed the nature and the personality of God to the human race,” what higher definition or preoccupation could we have than revealing what God is like to the Church or to the world? We can’t reveal what God is like if we never have communion with God. We can reveal a little of what He’s like by virtue of being born again. That’s already a statement.

We want to be a voice and not an echo. We want to have internal, experiential knowledge of the person of God. We don’t want to read a book and get it, that’s only the start. We want to experience God in our secret histories, our private lives in God. We want to say something that’s resonating within us, not something we memorized from a sermon. That’s what I mean by an echo. It’s OK to be an echo, you have to start out there, but there’s more that we have on our hearts as the people of God, if we are pressing in.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AWAKENS LOVE IN THE HUMAN HEART
Now look at the impact of the knowledge of God upon the human heart. Look at what happens inside the emotional chemistry of people when Jesus declares to them the knowledge of God at the right hand of God through the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the Word. Jesus is addressing the Father. He says, “That the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn. 17:26). In other words, “Father, they will love Me the way that You love Me. If I reveal the knowledge of God to them, it will so touch their emotional chemistry that they will love Me, Father, like You love Me.”

The knowledge of God awakens love in the human heart. That’s why I go back to my premise statement. It’s clearly the most powerful aspect of the grace of God—the knowledge of God. It’s the thing that Jesus defines as the thing that awakens love in the human heart. I go back to one of my earlier statements: it’s the most neglected issue in the Body of Christ. The greatest deficiency in the kingdom of God is the knowledge of God.
Do you think that’s an accident to Satan’s kingdom? No. His raging accusations have come against God where people haven’t caught the vision for how powerful the discovery of the knowledge of God is in their life, in the church, and in terms of world evangelization. This will be, I believe, the distinction of the end-time church. God will reveal God through the Holy Spirit to the human heart, and it will awaken such fiery passion in them. The only way to describe it is to say that the love with which God loved Jesus is the love with which we will love Jesus. Then we will love one another in the overflow of it. We’re going to love Jesus like God loves Jesus. Isn’t that awesome?

Yeah the more we feed our heart on His love, the more that same tenacious love back to Him is awakened.  This is what we want to set our hearts on, talking to Jesus, feeding our hearts on His love, seeking His affections by the Holy Spirit, that we would declare His name to us!

Do we really know Jesus?

I don’t share other’s posts often, but this one I couldn’t resist. You want to read this:

http://www.joshuahawkins.com/blog/2010/01/intimacy-god-do-we-really-know-jesus

Blessed are those who Mourn?

Why did Jesus say those who mourn will be blessed?  It kind of seems that mourning is neglected in the church of America.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. (Mt. 5:3-4)

Being poor in spirit(Mat5:3) speaks of how we see ourselves; spiritual mourning refers to how we feel about what we see. When we see differently, then we feel differently. The result of seeing our great need is that we feel pain as we mourn for more experience of God’s presence in our life. It does not mean mourning over difficult circumstances, but for a spiritual breakthrough.

Godly sorrow or mourning are a supernatural work of the Spirit that will lead you to salvation or deliverance from a dull spirit and a powerless ministry. This mourning is God’s gift to us. Your desire for God is His gift to you. This gift of mourning is rare, precious, and powerful and it cannot be bought with gold. Therefore, we must refuse to be comforted by anything except the breakthrough of the fullness that the Lord promises us in His Word.  We must actually pray regularly and grow in this!

10Godly sorrow produces repentance [wholeheartedness] leading to salvation [breakthrough]… 11What diligence it produced in you…what indignation [against compromise], what fear [fear of God], what vehement desire [for Jesus], what zeal, what vindication! (2 Cor. 7:9-11)

We mourn because we see how much God longs to give to our life, ministry, church, and in the nations. It refers to the pain we feel in seeing the gap between what God has for us and what we are experiencing. Isaiah was undone because he saw the spiritual state of his life and nation.

So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King…” (Isa. 6:5)

We mourn over our double-mindedness, failures, and lack of follow-through in spiritual things. James developed mourning in James 4.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands…and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord… (Jas. 4:8-10)

Seeking More 

We must continually be aware of who we are in Christ and what we are experiencing in God. while at the same time growing in our awareness of how much more there is to experience. We experience a measure of joy with gratitude for what He has given us while yet mourning to experience so much more. Mourning does not negate our confidence that God enjoys us and values our small efforts and ministry impact (Mt. 25:21). We are grateful for all that we experience in God’s grace, but we are never content without pressing in for His fullness. We must never despise the measure of blessing that we experience, but must seek a greater measure.

 

Comfort

Feeling the pain of this godly desperation and holy discontent causes us to be extreme in rearranging our life to spend our strength, time, and money to seek God for all that He will give.  Our cry for more cannot be answered by a human solution. Our culture so values comfort that our tendency is to seek and give the wrong comfort. Refuse to be comforted by anything less than God’s highest. Refuse false comforts that are rooted are in human sentiment. Don’t let a well-meaning believer give you false comfort that steals your vision to experience all that Jesus has provided for you. Believers who have never been pained by their spiritual lack will miss out on much of what God desires for them. They are stuck in barrenness without being aware of it.

Powerful Video going deeper into Blessed are Those Who Mourn:

Mourning for Spiritual Breakthroughs

The Meek shall inherit the Earth

There is an unbiblical idea of heaven that most Christians have, it is bliss or nirvana, or it is angels on clouds with harps.  The truth is Jesus returns and brings heaven to the earth. Much of what Jesus taught is much better understood with this premise.  Jesus said the meek shall inherit the earth.   But right now Christians control very little of the earth.  The truth is when Jesus comes back He rules from the New Jerusalem and to the degree of each Christians meekness will be their inheritance.  In 1 cor 15 Paul taught that we each get different levels of reward of glory in our bodies, our reward also relates to our position in Jesus’ heavenly empire.  It is not about the reward of fame or position, it is about being closest to Jesus, doing what’s near and dear to His heart.  If He cares about Government because He is the King, then I care about government.  Not all saints will have government, but all are invited to it, we determine our role by our obedience on our lifetime before we die.

Repost from last week: (because of its importance)

The Sermon on the Mount Is the way to Greatness in the Kingdom (Matt 5:19)

In the soil of our heart, Jesus said the gospel can produce a harvest at the Judgment Seat of our Reward of 30, 60 or even 100-fold return.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to live out the 8 Beatitudes (5:3-12) as we pursue 100-fold obedience (5:48) resist 6 temptations (5:21-48), and pursue 5 kingdom activities (6:1-20) that position our hearts to freely receive more grace, anointing & power [in secret, meaning not for praise of man].  When He returns and establishes the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, there will be billions of believers ranging from least & great (5:19) in reward, the great will have taken the time to wrestle with them & pray for Spirit-empowerment to walk these out, regularly pushing delete on stumbling. He says the great also teach those He puts in their lives to do them(19).  Matt 6:1 Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of people in order to be noticed by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

He said if we love Him then we’ll seek to obey His commands (Jn 14:12), & we have the rest of our lives to ask for revelation of how to walk in them.  In this sermon Jesus attacks external church ritual & asks for all of our heart, soul, & mind, the first & greatest commandment (22:38).  He in meekness, asks for us to attack our passive love & let Him turn it into active love, with the promise that our lifestyle of meekness will give us a greater inheritance in the Kingdom.­  The foundational beatitude of asking to be Poor In Spirit establishes the need for time management & daily prayer to be dependent on the Spirit to walk in these. Implied in all of God’s commands is the promise of the enabling to walk out the command.

We do all this with confidence in His rewards (eternal/temporal 6:20-24 and His provision (6:25-33). We do this without criticism of others who pursue God with less intensity or who oppose us (7:1-6), while we seek Jesus to intervene in our relationships (7:7-12), yet without drawing back from our wholehearted pursuit of God (7:13-14) as we alertly discern false grace messages (7:15-20). We do all of this knowing that our obedience will be tested (7:21-27). Jesus said that by walking in these truths we will impact society (5:13-16), be great in His eyes (5:19), receive treasures in heaven (6:19-20), and live in this age with our hearts exhilarated in His grace (6:22-23).  We are in desparate need of regular asking for the Eph 1:17 Spirit of Wisdom & Revelation so that we can hear what the Spirit is saying about this vast lifestyle for much cannot be learned from a book or sermon but by Him alone. We also need regular encounters with the love of our Father for that which we do without love will not count.  We pray & talk to Him to be fueled by His love in all we do.

CULTIVATING 8 BEATITUDES: EMBRACING THE KINGDOM LIFESTYLE

The eight Beatitudes (Mt. 5:3-12) are expressed in all five kingdom activities (Mt. 6:1-21).

1. Being poor in spirit: seeing our need for breakthroughs in our heart, ministry, church, and city

2. Mourning for breakthrough: being desperate enough to be extreme in pursuing breakthroughs unto embracing prayer and prayer with fasting (Mat 9:15).

3. Walking in meekness: having a servant spirit in the use of our resources (time, money, etc., that He is truly Lord over us).

4. Hungering for righteousness: seeking Jesus for a breakthrough of righteousness in our heart, in the lives of others, & in the nations

5. Showing mercy: treating others with a tender spirit when they fail, attack, or disappoint us

6. Being pure in heart: seeking to walk in purity in our thoughts, words, & motives
 for real

7. Becoming a peacemaker: trying to bring peace or healing to broken relationships

8. Enduring persecution: bearing the stigma and pressures of standing for righteousness

These 8 flowers must be cultivated as we “weed our garden” by resisting 6 common temptations (Mt. 5:21-48) and as we “water our garden” by pursuing 5 kingdom activities (Mt. 6:1-20).

**Being poor in spirit is so foundational, yet most Christians passively resist it.  If we see our lack and how much God would give if asked we can respond in poverty of spirit.  If we do nothing about it it is passive resistance.  If we think we are fine we are in pride, and this was the issue of the Laodician church that Jesus addressed in Rev 3.  We need the anointing of the Spirit for ourselves and to move others, and must be intentional about cultivating greater measure (Eph 3:16-19).**

PURSUING 5 KINGDOM ACTIVITIES & SEEKING TO WALK IN THEM REGULARLY

Jesus described 5 activities that position our heart to receive more grace and strength as we consistently serve and give (charitable deeds: giving service and/or money to get treasures in heaven(6:1-4, 19-21),  pray (releasing the Father’s will by praying it, encountering His love & talking to Him about His word with devotion 6:5-13), bless our adversaries (fullness of forgiveness, 6:14-15; 5:44), and fast (voluntary weakness for spiritual strength 6:16-18). These are spiritual disciplines that position our heart before God to receive more grace.

RESISTING 6 TEMPTATIONS AND WARRING AGAINST OUR FLESH (Mt. 5:21-48)

Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to make a way to fully express God’s original intent. Jesus highlighted six areas in which we wage war against sin in our hearts. They are anger (spirit of murder, Mt. 5:21-26), adultery (spirit of immorality, lust, Mt. 5:27-30), disregarding the sanctity of marriage (disloyalty in relationships, Mt. 5:31-32), false commitments (spirit of manipulation to promote ourselves, Mt. 5:33-37), retaliation for personal inconveniences (spirit of revenge Mt. 5:38-42), and inactivity when mistreated (always responding in love, Mt. 5:43-47).