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Stirring The Deep

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Be a Tree: Rest

Be a Tree: Rest

One of my greatest temptations is to try to fix myself instead of entrust ALL to God. Not sure why it’s still an issue, as I’ve seen over and over again that my efforts avail to frustration, failure, and bondage while God’s work has brought deliverance. Perhaps until now I never really took time to consider just how useless my efforts are and more importantly how contrary they are to God’s instructions to rest in Him, thus a sin.

I suppose to be Mrs. Fix-it tempts me because this philosophy is everywhere in our society and it speaks to our desire to be in control (to be able to have life go according to our will). It paints the illusion that the changes I desire are occurring. This is why the self-help philosophy (as many religions are) is so captivating, you feel you are doing something, taking control, thus moving forward. But, it’s an illusion and instead places huge burdens we can’t really manage. Feeling the sand bags on my shoulders is a sure sign I’m striving when I should be trusting God.

God calls us to rest, wait, and trust. His commandments aren’t burdensome. 1 John 5:3 His yoke is easy and His burden light. Matthew 11:30 When we live His way, we are trusting in Him and not ourselves to perform ALL things for us. Psalm 57:2 God’s way is the only way that makes any real significant transformation for good, true good, in our lives because only He is good.

God calls us to enter into His rest. If we don’t we are being disobedient. Hebrews 4:10-11 Entering into His rest means to cease striving from ours works in all things as He did from His. Could God be that good? Yes.

Most every religion is about your works, about “the law”; what you do in your strength to be who you are suppose to be. They’re about taming your self-desires so that you live a life that is acceptable and good (according to that religion’s definitions of these terms). But what God, the Creator, calls us to isn’t a religion of laws, but to die to our self-will ruling altogether and become a new creation that is a part of His divine nature. As a part of Him, we desire what He does. It isn’t living out some law; it’s living according to His will because it’s who we are as a part of Him.

God is the Creator, not us. He invites us to be a new creation by His design and power. It isn’t taming our old self; it’s all the old things passing away and all things becoming new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 God is the One who works in us. Phil 2:13 We are His workmanship. Ephesians 2:10 It’s a completely different way of thinking that is unlike anything this world offers, because it can’t. The world can’t create something entirely new, but God can and does in us.

God’s gift of eternal life, His life, is real and powerful. The manifestation of His Spirit in us comes little by little, not all at once. This pacing is His design to teach us numerous truths along the way; mercy, love, grace, compassion, humility, perfection of His will, and His sovereignty. Think of all the things we learn by going through this process and it not being immediate. If instant transformation was best, then that is how God would have created it.

Because it isn’t an instant experience, when my impatience starts to intrude, I want to take charge and speed things up. It doesn’t work that way. I’m not the Creator, God is. My part is to rest in His work.

God compares us to trees to teach us about His process of design in making us into who He desires us to be. The tree is in the seed. But the tree is far greater than the seed. We start as a seed. As we are planted in good soil, God’s truth, we start to grow. A tree doesn’t effort its growth; it grows because it’s planted in good soil with proper water and light. We are to let God grow us into the plant He created us to be in all our uniqueness as we abide in Him. We are to let Him be the authority in who we are and what we do. He is God after all.

What is our part then? To abide in the good soil, God’s Truth, and leave the rest up to Him. We are the tree. Have you ever seen a tree strive to grow differently than it does?

When I think about being a part of the divine, I imagine God’s pure and perfect love united to truth flowing through me into the lives of others. Every thought, word and action is governed by His love. My temptation is to try to do this myself or at least speed things up. God gave us a much a better way than our own efforts. He gave us His Spirit and by His life dwelling in us, it changes everything. God makes my love abound, not me. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 When I try, not only am I striving and not resting, trying to tame my rebellious flesh, trying to do God’s job, embracing a “religion” instead of the power of God flowing through me, carrying a burden that I’ll never fulfill, but I’m disobeying God. 1 Thess 4:9

Be planted in good soil, and leave the rest to God. When you do, He will grow you into who you are supposed to be. You will grow in the manner and rate that is best for you. You will abide in rest and peace because you are doing your part and trusting God to do His. It’s truly a much better way to live and the only way to true and abundant life.

God is faithful, perfect in His care. Let go and trust Him. Have no confidence in the flesh or in your ability to “create” yourself. He calls us to this rest and level of trust.

Be A Tree

Workmanship of my Maker
Letting go of being my own creator

A beautiful tree of His design
Fashioned to a new state of mind.

Resting in the soil of truth eternal
Is my daily labor for this small kernel.

Nourished to a majestic tree
Fashioned as no other to be.

His light shines ever brighter
Lifting my soul somewhere higher.

To the heavenly places of His domain
Releasing the strongholds of suffering and pain.

My life I commit to His hands
Destroying the wickedness by His plans.

Breathing in my soul His life divine
A part of His nature, one of a kind.

All my striving is in vain
For I’m not the Creator, but the slain.

Letting go I surrender to His mold
New life awaits as I enter into His fold.

~ Rachel DiPaolo
August 4, 2011


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Victory Cry

Blog Talk Radio: Victory Cry: Part I

A PODCAST (click here to listen) is available on living in victory in our lives. You can also get it at itunes. Search for Stirring the Deep under podcasts.

Overview: Many of us are facing trials and challenges. It can be frustrating for a believer because you see the promises of God and then look at your life and wonder why the huge gap. Or perhaps you have learned that trials do refine your faith, but wondering when will they ever end. I hope to encourage you by sharing the deeper purpose and reason for many of those trials by giving a different perspective on the situation.

In this two part segment, I talk about two main reasons for why we experience what we do. In part one, I cover the first reason and part two I discuss the second reason and how to journey through them victoriously.

Blog Talk Radio: Victory Cry: Part II


A PODCAST (click here to listen) covering the second part to living in victory is available. Also available through itunes.

Overview: In the previous show, I talked about one of the reasons we experience the trials we do as believers and how we can battle them and come out victoriously.

In this show, I cover another reason we face what we do and again, discuss how to come through it successfully as God intends. We’ve been given all we need in Christ, we need to know what we have, how to act on it, and act on it.


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Why do Christians Seem Two-Faced?

Why do Christians Seem Two-Faced?

Two Face

Scenario One:
A married Christian friend, Sarah, vehemently expressed her disbelief about how a mutual friend of yours could cheat on her husband and claim to be a Christian. The next week you are out with some friends and Sarah starts flirting with another man.

Scenario Two:
You’re out one night with some friends, and your married Christian friend, Rebecca, starts flirting with another man.

These two women, Sarah and Rebecca, represent the two definitions of being two-faced.

Two-faced (adj)

1. The first definition is hypocritical or double-dealing; deceitful. It is the definition we most commonly associate with this term and is represented by Sarah. She claimed one thing then did another.

2. The second definition is literally having two faces or surfaces. True Christians have two conflicting natures – one driven by their flesh one driven by their spirit – in a sense two faces. This is represented by Rebecca. She didn’t claim one thing then do another, so she wasn’t being hypocritical. What we saw was the face of her flesh.

Christians who are two-faced in regards to the first definition are those who aren’t Christians and say they are or those who think or claim they are “good”.

We all understand hypocrisy, but what we often misunderstand are those who fall under the second definition.

This post touches upon an area that is often misunderstood in Christianity– even among Christians. How often have we heard from other Christians something like- “I can’t believe she did that – and she is a Christian!”

Battle between the flesh and spirit

In a previous blog, Where to Focus – A Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I talked about the battle authentic Christians face between the flesh and spirit. The more I abide in God’s Word the more the dissonance between my flesh and spirit becomes apparent. It is a strange phenomenon living with this duality. And one that people can’t understand if they have never experienced it. This is why many non-Christians can’t understand why Christians are so faulty. How can we talk about this new life and yet do things so contrary? How can we talk about the love of God in our lives and yet do something so utterly unloving?

The reason is we are living with two wills – one of the flesh and one of the spirit. (flesh being our self-will and spirit being of the will of God) Sometimes the one we don’t want, the flesh, is the one that shows up in situations. Romans 7:15-25 We do what we don’t want to do. When our self-will takes over, then bam we’re critical, inappropriately judgmental, complaining, hurtful, selfish, passive, prideful, arrogant, and so on.

If you are truly a Christian you don’t want to do these things, but you do and a lot more often than you want to. Growing in the spirit life takes time. It is a journey. God designed it this way for several reasons that I’ll address in a later blog.

In the beginning, Christians understand their corrupted nature. It is this awareness that helps them to grasp the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice. However, immediately after the awareness of a new life – sometimes it’s assumed that they are supposed to be immediately good. I don’t believe it works that way. It is a process.

The spirit starts small in us like a baby – it takes time for the spirit to grow. It takes time abiding in God’s Word, which is the nourishment for our spirit. (Which few truly do.) If we don’t abide, then our spirit stays weak and the flesh dominates. It takes years for our spirit to grow even with proper nourishment – like it does a child. As we learn and grow throughout our entire physical lives, so do we in our spiritual lives. We will never walk perfectly in the spirit while living in these physical bodies. So there will always be a falleness about us. But if we nourish our spirit, it will grow stronger and over time we live more in the spirit than in the flesh. 1 Corinthians 3:1-3

No One is Good

Usually our judgment of goodness is based on each other. Well I’m better than him! I’m better than most! I’m a pretty good person! But God views goodness from His goodness. And that is the goodness I’m talking about. No one is good against the standard of a holy, pure and perfect God. That is why God gave us Jesus Christ to stand in our place. He judges our goodness against true goodness – not our definitions which vary person to person. And His judgment is the only one that matters.

We would do ourselves a huge favor by removing this misnomer of goodness. Any true goodness is of God and God working in us. It is all Him. John 15:5

Being Hypocritical

If we accept the praise of goodness from others or call ourselves or anyone else good we are being hypocritical and fall under the first definition. Then we are being a poor witness to the truth that no one is truly good but God.

Matthew 19:17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

I love this verse because it lays it all out. We aren’t good. We enter eternal life not by our goodness, but by Christ’s. One of His commandments is to trust in His righteousness not our own. If we trust in our own, we will be judged by our own, and in the eyes of a holy God we don’t have a chance of standing for a second.

When you see Christians acting “out of line” – don’t be so quick to judge. We are to help one another not stand pointing a finger. It is a struggle for all of us. And the closer you draw near to God and His purity the more you see yourself as you are without Him, wretched, and the more understanding and compassion you will have for the struggle of others. God is judge. We are to encourage and exhort each other not because it is about being good, but when we walk in His commands and wisdom we walk closer with Him and experience more of the abundant life He came to give and His power is shown to the world.

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Left Standing – Ashamed or Glorified?

Left Standing …

Ashamed or Glorified?

When the purity of God’s truth invades our souls it exposes our true beliefs.

After spending a couple years of consistent time one-one-one with God in His Word, I had a life/spirit changing awareness about myself. I realized most of what I believed about Christianity was based on other’s words. Therefore the source of my trust was in others not God, which meant my confidence was in them. Up to that point I assumed I trusted God, but when prompted to take a closer look by God’s Spirit searching in my soul I found a different reality.

As I examined where my truth came from, who and where I went to hear and know truth, it was all centered around others and their words. True their words were supposedly based on God’s truth, but it was still their interpretations and opinions about God’s Word. Along with the multitude of warnings in the Bible about not trusting in others, but God, at that moment I set out to seek God and His truth from Him. Over the years, God has been an incredible and faithful Teacher about Himself. It seems I talk a lot about trust in my blogs, but who we really trust is the core of our faith. It affects everything.

I’ve been reading through Jeremiah and Revelations, some heavy books to say the least, yet amazingly rich. The verses below jumped off the page reminding of this awakening I had some time ago about my belief system, and reminding me to daily examine my beliefs in light of His truth because other’s philosophies can easily creep in unnoticed. 2 Corinthians 10:5

Jeremiah 48:13b “As the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel (house of God), their confidence.”

Jeremiah 48:7 “For because you have trusted in your works and your treasures, You also shall be taken. And Chemosh shall go forth into captivity, His priests and his princes together.”

Verses like these are what compelled me to a paradigm shift in my beliefs – seeking truth directly from God. If we take time to pause, these verses prod each one of us into a deep self-examination, Who do you trust REALLY?

Who do you trust for spiritual protection? Church, or God Psalm 18:30

Who is your shepherd? Church, or God. Ezekiel 34:23

Where/Who do you go to be fed (spiritual nourishment)? Church or God 1 John 2:27

Where do you learn about God? Church or God Jeremiah 31:33

Where do you learn about truth? Church or God 2 Peter 3:16-18

Who do you trust for the surety of your salvation? Church or God Hebrews 7:22, Proverbs 11:15

If we chose the first option – our trust and confidence is in the wrong place.

Many of us need to take an honest look at our spiritual lives – is the source of trust the church and others or God? And if it is the church (Bethel or House of God), then one day, as Jeremiah says, we will experience great shame for that trust, because we should have been trusting God. If it is God then we will stand with Him glorifying Him with our lives.

We all trust ourselves, the wisdom of the world and others in areas where we should be trusting God, but the question is – are we seeking God and spending time with Him so that our trust will be in Him alone? One reason for the multitude of denominations is that people are really following a multitude of different teachers and not the Teacher – one area of great misplaced trust. Matthew 23:10, 2 Timothy 4:3 A teacher’s role is to teach us to learn of God from God. I see very few actually giving this type of instruction. Most of them are spoon feeding us what they call truth, but it is their point of view from where they are on their spiritual journey. It may or may not be truth, and according to the vast warnings in God’s Word most aren’t teaching truth. Fellowship is great for sharing insights but the source of our truth, our Teacher is to be God.

God is to be the source of our trust. When He is it means we go to Him directly, to the Bible which is His words, to Him in prayer, to Him in stillness to hear His voice. He calls us to come to Him one-on-one with the Spirit as our mediator not man. Jesus came not to bring another religion but a relationship – an intimate personal relationship with our Father where we commune with Him one-on-one. So many have neglected cultivating this intimacy and will fall for it. Most have lost or never had a love for the truth, and will be lead astray. 2 Thessalonians 2:10 If you love the truth – you want to dwell in it daily, seek out its mysteries, live by it, and dedicate time to abiding in it.

Don’t give your life, your beliefs over to another. Don’t be one of those who stands ashamed at the end because you looked to others when God was calling you to Him and waiting to open up His magnificent kingdom to you. Listen to others this week – listen to yourself – where are you getting your truth – are you saying he said, she said or God said?

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