Declare the Decree part 3
I think in the last however many years I've been doing these Rants--somewhere around a decade, I think--one of my main thrusts has been receiving and releasing. And the reason I've been focusing on that so much for so long is because I think it is vitally important that we stop chasing what we think we want (or need), and simply be still and know that HE is God. Stop trying to be someone we're not in order to get what we think we haven't got... and simply embrace who we are. Who we really are. Which is who God is in us. Who we are in Christ. Look at Romans 10:10, "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Believing and confessing. Receiving and releasing. That's the Divine Order of things. That's how this life works. That's how we experience the gift we've been given. Not by "getting" it (because we already have it), and not by hoarding it (because love is giving). We experience the gift we've been given by sharing it. By giving it away. It comes from the heart. You believe WITH your heart what is IN your heart. The righteousness of God. Which, by the way, isn't just what we have. That's who we are. "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Lamb of God took away the sin of the world. We are not sinners. Not even "sinners saved by grace." Perhaps before the cross we WERE sinners... but then we were saved by grace! And a transformation took place. That old man died in the watery grave of baptism and we rose up (in Him) as a New Creature. One without spot, wrinkle, blemish, or any such thing. That's our confession. Not that we messed up and need forgiveness... but that we have been forgiven and can now walk in newness of life! Not that we need a Savior... but that we have One! It's a total and complete mindset shift. From sinner to saint. From slave to Son. And one doesn't really have anything to do with the other. So we can leave one behind and fully embrace the other. It's not jumping from branch to branch on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It's not picking flower petals and hoping and praying that we end up on "He loves me" instead of "He loves me not." It's a totally different tree. The Tree of Life. Which feeds us the fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. Which is good. Because you are what you eat. When you get your diet right, everything else falls into place. What's inside flows out. What you believe in your heart is what you will confess. Because it will bubble up out of you like a river of living water. Whatever is in there--whatever you BELIEVE is in there--is too big to stay in there. It comes out. Even when you try to bottle it up. Especially when you try to bottle it up. That might work for a little while, but then it explodes, doing more damage than ever before. So my point is--receive it and release it. Let God love you, and love Him back by loving people. Declare the decree. Share what you've witnessed. Believe it... and confess it!