This One Thing..
In the last month or so, I have felt a bustle in my spirit to share a revelation I’ve had in my walk with Christ. After all this time, you’d think I would’ve learned this earlier in life, but alas, a revelation is a beautiful gift no matter how long it takes to find it. Jesus and I have been strolling along life for sometime now. In the beginning of our relationship I was so locked in on what I thought he was revealing to me that I was too busy talking at him to actually hear what he was saying. I think this is the fervor of any new relationship when you’re young, though. It’s a season of life, and I think at times Jesus reminds me of my vigor for knowing him as I did then on days where it seems like we don't get to converse back and forth as much as other days. Sometimes he and I have this rhythm where I just lock eyes with him at the beginning of the day after saying “Good morning” and I just ask him to lead me and give me supernatural energy, and he does because the day before may have been super hectic and I need to sink into the quiet space he makes for me to be refreshed. Other days, I find myself following him head first into crazy corners and swerves of whatever place I’m living at the time and running into absolute divine moments he’s placed along the path to bring a pocket of his presence to a place or person He needs to be in that moment on that day. Both kinds of days are beautiful, both days have different purposes. Both days are welcomed in God’s kingdom. Follow hard. Rest. Follow softly. Rest. These are good things. These are meant for our good. These will both impact the edges of heaven with a duality that is unmatched to anyone else around us as He leads us all individually. This is our walk with God. And this is normal. Embrace both days. One day recently during one of the days I was seeking him out desire just to solely be in his presence and rest, we were spending some time just in the sunshine and he high-lighted something to my mind and spirit that I think maybe I haven’t actually had the words yet to break it down in understanding, but in my subconscious, I knew and sensed something was going on here. During our conversation that day he pointed out to me, in all kindness, that while the sacrifices I’ve made in certain areas of my heart, mind and spirit were beautiful and honorable, I may want to be careful. He said that sometimes in life we can get so caught up in the idea of focusing on “dying to ourselves” that we follow our own ideas and actually “die to the wrong things.” Wait, what? In my pursuit of letting Christ envelope my being, was this even a thing? What in the world? HOW is it possible to actually die “to the wrong things”? Especially when my motives were only to follow him. I ask him to please explain. He did. This is where my mind was *BLOWN*. So put your seat-belt on and hang on. Throughout this life, many of us who follow Christ find out pretty quickly that instead of our yoke being “easy” and our burdens becoming “light” that we’re actually facing the most difficult moments and seasons we’ve or anyone we’ve ever come into contact with has faced. I know this was my story. When I came into true relationship Jesus and tried to understand what it was to actually follow him, I became completely lost in my circumstances on a daily basis. I would get lost in the fact that no matter how hard I TRIED to act like Jesus, that Jesus wasn’t actually living IN me. I was just acting like him, like any other sincere actor who wants to represent and emulate their given “character” well. I found myself burning out and becoming resentful for the seemingly easy life some individuals who were following Christ around me seemed to have. How did they have it so easy and yet God was just letting the hardships pile up in my own life?
It took me YEARS to realize that there were so many things in this life that Jesus had NEVER called me to do that I THOUGHT I had to do to grow in my relationship with him. I stayed in relationships WAYYYY too long, I wasted time fulfilling my own lust and desires in just enough of a “Jesus” way that it looked good and fine to those around me, but honestly were rotten at their core because my heart had never been truly replaced with God’s. I would let God clean my wounds and get me ready for the start of a deep intimate heart surgery, but every time when he’d come in with the scalpel to fix the broken and blocked values and arteries, I would find myself leaping off of the surgery table and running out the door the other way and then trying to fix my circumstances myself. Whether that be through self-help books, sincerely genuine but highly mis-led “advisors”, etc. I found that during these hardcore repetitive seasons, I kept “dying to the wrong things.” I died to my God given understanding of what it meant to have worth. I sold myself to things that didn’t reap anything except heartache after heart ache. I let my soul become numb to bad things that were destroying me, and as much as I wanted to be authentic in those times, I realize now that I was very much under the influence of spirits that did NOT have my good in mind. And so in this season, I have found myself looking back quite often and reflecting on the things that make SO much sense in hindsight. I have been looking back in absolute wonder of what God has done in my soul and that I’m still here pressing hard into him no matter what. It blows my mind. If I had only trusted then what I know to solidly be true now, I may have detoured a lot of heartache. But alas.... This is the part where I want to encourage you and jump up and down in front of you waving my arms like a wild woman and point you towards another path. BEWARE!!!!!!!! Just because we’re called to “die” to ourselves DOES NOT mean we’re to die to our identity so fearfully formed and created by the hands of a God who adores us. The ONLY things in this life we’re meant to die to are the things that hinder our relationship with Jesus and others. And by HINDER, I mean that block us from revealing Jesus to everyone around us and anything that keeps us from drawing closer to God. Satan is really sneaky here and he likes to take this concept and twist it just enough to keep us in a perpetual state of death and constantly “dying” in hopes that we will take it too farther than it was meant to be taken. We start cutting out the good things on own our without God’s actual direction and we remove the things that God is trying to build into our lives that are actually really REALLY good for us. Those things we’re meant to come alive to. There are things we’re NOT meant to die to, y’all. Like, AT ALL. What.so.ever. And we actually DEvalue our God-given existence when we do it. And by trying to die to these things, we actually show a huge lack of respect for how God created us to individually be. Mindsets like this can actually lead us to a major misapplication of what it genuinely means to “lay our lives down for Jesus.” The pockets of joy that Satan (or even our own critical nature) tries to steal from us needs to be reclaimed and nurtured so that we can actually walk solidly into the moments that have been laid out for us since the beginning of time. What does it look like to die to the wrong things exactly? Dying to activities that genuinely make our soul not just come alive, but continue on thriving. What wrong things could we be dying to? OUR GOD-GIVEN GIFTS AND TALENTS. Those gifts that others may DESPERATELY need to draw closer to him, whether that be in nurturing musical talents or nurturing our understanding on topics to explain clearly how to help others to find the answers they’re looking for about God. What if an entire generation comes to a revelation of who Jesus truly is through one person coming into contact with God’s presence while we’re walking in the good moments He’s laid out for us? What if we actually ARE here to change the world? What if we actually HAVE been gifted for making a difference through our individual talents and skills? GOOD LOVE. When we die to love that is God-given-good in favor of love that we think we can “fix with Jesus’ help,” we’re probably walking in foolishness and need to realize that when we’re asking what Jesus would do in certain relationships, God may actually be revealing to us that Jesus would’ve never been in a relationship like that to begin with. OUR INDIVIDUALITY. Amongst all of our similarities, we have sown in these beautiful shades that tie together our differences. In these differences, we’re meant to thrive. We’re meant to understand ourselves on a deep level so that we can understand how we work. Weaknesses and all. If we’re constantly dying to our strengths and thrashing our weaknesses to become someone or some other “desired” piece of beauty than how God already created us to glow, we will find that we’re dying to the parts of us that were uniquely built into us for a specific kingdom purpose. Do not die to your strengths and weaknesses. Grow through them instead. Learn what it means to be weak before God so that he can use the strengths you’ve nurtured with him in secret for his glory. These are things we NEVER want to die to. God may lead us to lay certain aspects and pursuits of our soul aside for a season or two, but it’s only because he ready to hand us another thing to invest and grow for that period because he trusts us to take care of it and nurture it. No matter what Satan or the voices in your head tell us, God will not ask us to die to the parts of our existence that imports life into our souls. When you look throughout scripture, no one was asked to die to their God-given gifts. They were asked to hold them with open hands before the Father so that he could use them for good. Poets. Musicians. Singers. Teachers. Mathematicians. Doctors. Astronomers. Business men and women. Mothers. Fathers. Fishermen. Etc. These people completely cover the pages of scripture. Their individuality combined in a glorious story of redemption.
These are GOOD things. These are what give us individuality and life. These are things we’re not meant to die to but to come fully alive into. The things we ARE called to learn to die do everyday are as follows: Unforgiveness. Defensiveness. Arrogance. Hypocrisy. Judgemental Spirits. Finding our worth and value a part from God. Lying. Lust. Witchcraft (spirits other than God’s). Trusting more in others opinions before Gods. The convictions that we specifically have been given to walk out. etc. To sum it up, God calls us to die to our SINFUL nature. He does not tell us to die to what He’s fulfilling in our lives. He does not call us to die to our gifts or talents. He does not call us to die to leave us in a perpetual state of death. He calls us to die everyday to our old sinful nature so that we may LIVE. In HIM. Which ever area God calls us to die, we must know immediately after these deaths, God ALWAYS asks us to then COME ALIVE. So let’s stop focusing on what it means to die, and lift our eyes towards him as he points us in the direction of what it means to live. It makes the “dying” to our old nature much smoother and it also helps us to understand why he made it possible for us to do so in the first place. Dying to our old nature should not be terrifying like it once was as we lean into the joy that lies before us in learning what it means to really live. ...I hope that came out clearly. This one thing has changed my relationship in walking with Jesus the last month or so. And I’m really learning what it means to let my sinful nature fall to the way side because I’m WAY more excited now about the good things He’s set out before me. I’m way more curious as to what the God of the universe is doing and about the fact that he’s invited me to be in on this. The old ways of living are genuinely becoming so boring to me in comparison... And it’s basically the absolute NEATEST thing ever. Who knew goodness was so good. <3 Praying right now for revelation over the spirits and souls of everyone reading this. God wants you to know you have value to him. He has good set aside for you when you’re ready to walk in it and receive it. And He promises to work all things out for your good. And if you don’t believe me, ask me sometime and I’ll tell you where I’ve come from and where I am now. I can’t wait to hear about your stepping out to trust him. Because I’ll be right here waiting patiently for it to happen. until then, <3 xx and oo, Kristen













