When I was standing on Burleigh mountain, resting for a moment after walking around and up the whole mountain, I started thinking about physical conditioning. I realised that while physical-conditioning can enhance performance, your core-capability really has nothing to do with conditioning.
It has nothing to do with trying harder.
Nothing to do with training.
Diet and environment might help performance too.
But your core-capability has nothing to do with that either.
It's more to do with what you are - by birth. Irrespective of anything you do. You can because it's your physical nature.
Looking out over the ocean towards Surfers, I thought about migratory birds. Storm birds can fly all the way to Indonesia or Papua New Guinea every year, then fly back again to the very same tree, arriving on approximately the same week every year. Without conditioning or training - they just can. Because it's their nature.
Then I saw a Hoop Pine towering above all the other vegetation. Not because the Hoop Pine tried harder than other plants, or because it trained - not even because it had more sunlight, water or better soil, although those things help. Just because it's its nature. Hoop Pines are just tall.
Whales. They swim past every year on their way from Antarctica to Hervey Bay, and back again, mostly underwater. Your domestic cat can't do that! Not because the cat hasn't tried hard enough, or needs conditioning or training. Whales can do it just because it's their nature.
Like a donkey isn't a race horse by nature - and it can't become one by training. A racehorse is a horse because it was born that way - by nature.
"I do it because I just can," the words came to me.
See, there is a Divine nature. God is love. He is righteous. We weren't born with that nature. We were born in Adam, in sin - and death came by sin.
But here's the good part - we were born-again - and made partakers of the Divine nature.Therefore we can, because it's our new nature to!
Since God is love, and since He poured out His love into our very heart when we were born again, now we can walk in love.
And since Christ defeated sin by His death, and death by His resurrection - and we are in Him - now we have dominion over sin and death.
Walking in love, and living holy, isn't the product of trying harder. We do because we can - it's who we are, in Him.
God isn't asking us to walk in anything He hasn't already made us.
The old works of the flesh are contrasted with the fruit of the Spirit - not with new works. What we walk in is fruit (which originates from the Holy Spirit, in our spirit - we are joined to Him, we are one spirit with Him) - the new behaviours are not something external which we strive to make internal.
I thought it would be good to feed believers on a spiritual diet of hearing who they are in Christ. To put something in them - rather than require them to do something. Because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
In Adam, all die because all are sinners - but now you do (holiness, righteousness, good fruits, love, and have eternal life) - now, in Him, you do because you can, you can because you are, you are because He is.
It's just how it is!
It has nothing to do with trying harder.
Nothing to do with training.
Diet and environment might help performance too.
But your core-capability has nothing to do with that either.
It's more to do with what you are - by birth. Irrespective of anything you do. You can because it's your physical nature.
Looking out over the ocean towards Surfers, I thought about migratory birds. Storm birds can fly all the way to Indonesia or Papua New Guinea every year, then fly back again to the very same tree, arriving on approximately the same week every year. Without conditioning or training - they just can. Because it's their nature.
Then I saw a Hoop Pine towering above all the other vegetation. Not because the Hoop Pine tried harder than other plants, or because it trained - not even because it had more sunlight, water or better soil, although those things help. Just because it's its nature. Hoop Pines are just tall.
Whales. They swim past every year on their way from Antarctica to Hervey Bay, and back again, mostly underwater. Your domestic cat can't do that! Not because the cat hasn't tried hard enough, or needs conditioning or training. Whales can do it just because it's their nature.
Like a donkey isn't a race horse by nature - and it can't become one by training. A racehorse is a horse because it was born that way - by nature.
"I do it because I just can," the words came to me.
See, there is a Divine nature. God is love. He is righteous. We weren't born with that nature. We were born in Adam, in sin - and death came by sin.
But here's the good part - we were born-again - and made partakers of the Divine nature.Therefore we can, because it's our new nature to!
Since God is love, and since He poured out His love into our very heart when we were born again, now we can walk in love.
And since Christ defeated sin by His death, and death by His resurrection - and we are in Him - now we have dominion over sin and death.
Walking in love, and living holy, isn't the product of trying harder. We do because we can - it's who we are, in Him.
God isn't asking us to walk in anything He hasn't already made us.
The old works of the flesh are contrasted with the fruit of the Spirit - not with new works. What we walk in is fruit (which originates from the Holy Spirit, in our spirit - we are joined to Him, we are one spirit with Him) - the new behaviours are not something external which we strive to make internal.
I thought it would be good to feed believers on a spiritual diet of hearing who they are in Christ. To put something in them - rather than require them to do something. Because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
In Adam, all die because all are sinners - but now you do (holiness, righteousness, good fruits, love, and have eternal life) - now, in Him, you do because you can, you can because you are, you are because He is.
It's just how it is!
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