We need to learn how to live in the secret place. Learning how to live in the secret place is learning how to live where God lives.
God lives in our spirit. The kingdom of God is within us. It is the place where we join our spirit with the Lord in oneness, in fellowship, in the place of first love, where we experience the fruit of His Spirit.
When our spirit is born from above, we desire to live a victorious life, but many of us have not been taught how to do this.
Many of us deeply desire to live a victorious life. It’s because we have a longing in our heart to BE with God… to experience the peace of His presence, the joy of His fullness, and the confidence of knowing we belong in His wholeness.
We dream of living in a place of absolute love. But this was God’s desire long before it was ours.
His dream before creation was for a people He could live with in fullness and abundance. A people on whom he could lavish His love and who would remain with Him in intimacy of their own free will.
When the Father, Jesus and the Spirit imagined us, their passion was to make us like them. (Genesis 1:26).
In the heart of God, you can hear them thinking. We’ll love them the way we love each other. We’ll make them joyful the way that we are joyful.
“We’ll give them Our creativity and imagination. And We’ll walk with them and talk with them so they can learn what We’re like… and they can become part of OUR community!”
You see this plan unfold in the Garden… the place of meeting created just for Adam and Eve to learn and grow in. You see God’s passion for partnership as He entrusts the naming of the animals to Adam…and then watches with delight to see what His man will do.
THE FALL OF MAN
The consequences for man when they partnered with the enemy in the garden was that they came into relational death.
Intimacy was replaced by performance. They were removed from the garden-the secret place. But throughout all of human history, God’s desire to live with us, to abide with us, to create a place of meeting for us, has never wavered.
Before creation God knew the choices man would make and he had already made provision for them.
Jesus had already agreed to die in our place and the Holy Spirit had agreed to become the Helper, teacher, and comforter we would need for a new life in God.
In the Old Covenant, after man was put out of the garden, God’s presence became an event. Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, and others responded to God’s presence…but the vast majority of people did not.
And self-achievement instead of relational transformation became the norm. When the self-achievement of performance overrides God’s actual preference for relationship … we have something coming between us and God’s desire for relational transformation through Jesus. We receive no permanent change.
That’s the nature of a visitational relationship, and it still happens today. We come to a conference or a meeting. We’re inspired and motivated towards change… but somewhere between the altar and the street the circumstances of life contest our revelations and we default to our previous ways of trying to earn our relationship with God through our good deeds or acts of service.
But Jesus changed all that. He came as Immanuel, which literally means, “God with us.” Jesus didn’t come to give us an experience of God’s presence… He came to give us Himself, to be with us, to be for us, and in us. Instead of a building to go to in order to come into God’s presence (like the Old Covenant temple), we become the building!
Ephesians 2:19-22 says, “ N o w, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
The dwelling place of God is no longer in brick and mortar. It’s in flesh and blood! It’s in the relationship that God initiates with us… and that we respond to.
We’re invited into the same relationship that the Father and the Son shared, empowered by the Holy Spirit. It’s Jesus’ prayer for all believers.
John 17:20 “I do not pray for these alone but also for those who will believe in me through their word: that they all may be one, as you Father, are in me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I IN THEM AND YOU IN ME….that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”
WE DID NOT CHOOSE HIM, HE CHOOSE US
Beloved, you are not the initiator of being with God. There’s no place to “get to” in Him. That’s an old mindset that robs us of the relationship with Him that HE promised us.
God lives inside of us; you cannot get more of God than that. What we must do is explore the treasure that is already within us, so that we can learn the keys of walking with God.
We keep looking for visitation, instead of habitation. It’s an old covenant lens for how God is with us… that He will visit us in a tabernacle or in particular moments of time when we’ve proven ourselves worthy of a relationship with Him.
But in Christ… everything becomes new. HE is the one who makes us worthy, He is the one who opened the door 2,000 years ago to the same relationship that He and the Father shared.
In Christ the “who” always precedes the ‘how’ which is a completely different perspective than what we may have been taught.
Jesus said in John 15:4-5 “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Because Christ is in us, we are being empowered to see through the lens of who He is in us, and the promises that He has spoken over our lives.
The “Who” is always our priority. “God, who are You in me in this situation?” We need to ask the Lord questions and get answers. We also need to hear the questions that He asks us to increase our wisdom and revelation.
We abide in the “Who” of His presence so that we are fully engaged and focused on how His revealed Presence will ensure that we grow and change by being in Him. Beloved, when the spirit of Truth in our heart rises up into our conscious mind, we are fully aware of His presence.
Hebrews 13:5 tells us that He never leaves. He never forsakes us. Period. And never means never. We’re in Him. And the Helper, the Holy Spirit empowers us to STAY in Him… He does that by increasing our awareness of “Who He is for us” in the Abiding Process.
In this way, we give God preeminence. Christ in us is the reality that God is our Fortress, Rock and HighTower. We live from the inside out!
There is no stress, striving and self-effort. We come to Him to learn rest – Matthew 11:28-30. And how do we stay in this place with Him? Through a lifestyle of total delight, wonder and astonishment in Him.
LIVING IN A PLACE OF DELIGHT
Delight is the place where we have the best fellowship with God. The delight of God, is Christ in us, and this empowers us to live delighted and empowers our worship.
We receive delight because we are aware of Father’s passion for Jesus in us.
Know Who He is for you… and let your delight spring up inside of you and your sense of wonder to overflow into your life situation… so that any negative is overcome by astonishment!
When you are overwhelmed by who God is, you cannot be overwhelmed by anything else. Jeremiah demonstrates this astonishment.
Jeremiah 32:17- “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.”
Delight, and the worship it provokes, is absolutely essential for a victorious life. In delight, we are at rest in the goodness of God. We are living a lifestyle of being given over to rejoicing and thanksgiving.
Worship is a victory stance. The inner you in Christ, is always living life from above. God lives in victory. And we live in God.
We worship who He is for us when the outer world exerts external pressure. Delight and worship remind us that we are never without power and we are never without victory. This is GOOD NEWS. Think about what this means for your life. Think about what this means for all the God encounters you will experience in this world you live in today.
The inner life cannot be defeated by the external world.
INTIMACY
Intimacy is the source of power! Intimacy is a necessity, not an option. Please don’t miss this, you have a source of power. You are not powerless in Christ. Not in any circumstance. Not in any global crisis. Not in any national unrest. You’re never without power. Intimacy with God is the key to this power.
In the beginning of Scripture, we see the enemy separating people from first love. First love is the love of the Father to His beloved Son. In Christ we have a sacred intimacy of sharing in that First Love experience. This is what it means to be alive in God.
He is our all in all. His loving kindness empowers our rest. His delight in Jesus in us allows us to have the best fellowship possible in this life of God in us.
Not a visitational relationship, a habitational one, built on the Oneness and unity of God in us. The intimacy that arises out of the Father, Son, and Spirit in us.
In intimate fellowship, living in the secret place we are vulnerable to God’s majesty and inaccessible to the world, the flesh and the devil.
In Revelation 2, we see that the church in Ephesus was doing really well in the external effect of their ministry. But it came at the expense of their First Love relationship, which was a source of grief to the Lord.
But above all else, you are first a worshipper. And a true worshipper knows that intimacy is non-negotiable.
Our prime ministry is to the Lord. When He is our first love our capacity to move in power is hugely increased. First Love ensures that God has the pre-eminence in our lives. All other acts of service flow out of intimacy and delight in the Lord.
Being the Beloved of God creates a life of intimacy that produces power to work with Him in the cause of the Kingdom.
From our place of intimacy with God overflows genuine, lasting love and service to other people. But it is never the other way around.
Are you expecting ministries… organizations…governments… to do things that you don’t ask the Lord to do?
Are you engaging more with human beings than the Holy Spirit?
Are you leaning more on worldly wisdom than the Spirit of Wisdom?
We need the presence of God. He is the answer to every question that we have. He is the solution to every problem we face.
Lack of intimacy is why we are often weary and heavy laden- Matthew 11:28-30.
If we set aside our adoration of God, we stop being overwhelmed by who He is, then we position ourselves to be overcome by anything the enemy throws at us.
Lack of intimacy keeps us stuck in a place where we have no power in our lives, and instead of engaging with God, we just want everything to be given to us.
We think rescue is breakthrough, but Jesus didn’t die to just rescue us over and over again, He died to give us a life of His lasting victory and power. This is real breakthrough.
Part of this process is counting everything as joy. God is the most joyful person ever. We need to know the joy of the Lord. If we did know it, we would never be weak again because it is an ongoing supply and source of strength and power. The joy of the Lord is your strength (Nehemiah 8:10).
REJOICE ALWAYS
J a m e s 1:2 – 4 “Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Many times, I have read these scriptures but they had no effect on my life. I have defaulted to complaining, offense, bitterness, worry, anxiety, and panic. because they were normal responses for me and joy was not a normal response, to troubling circumstances.
But Joy is the most normal thing in the Kingdom. If you want to be a person of consequence in the Kingdom, you need to replace every negative with something amazing. Jesus died to give you that right. He died to empower you to live like Him.
Rejoicing is expressed in every part of your being, it is spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical. Give thanks until you become thanks.
Joy is in the Kingdom within, it is part of the DNA in our spirit when we are born from above. Don’t let your natural personality dictate your worship…you’re rejoicing. (“Oh, I’m an introvert” or “I’m just a very practical person. Or “I’m not an overly joyful person.”) That is not who you are in Christ.
Worship is designed to take you out of this natural world and into your kingdom reality. Do you ever come to God guarded, with walls? Like, “I love you Lord, but I’m not a naturally joyful person…this is not how you made me.” The Lord says “In worship, I’m making you like Me.”
In worship, you are engaging with who He is — His thoughts, His perspective, His fruit (love, joy, peace, etc…) His essential self.
We have to learn how to practice this very thing in our life. My old man has been crucified with Christ therefore I have shut the door on that kind of life.
I’m dancing. I’m shouting for joy. I am making a joyful noise when I am all by myself. In every circumstance I make my starting point joy and expectation in my walk with God.
Every time Jesus speaks to me now, it is to puts a smile on my face.
John 15:11 “These words I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full.”
I realize that being in Christ, dwelling in that secret place, every situation always holds an upgrade in my experience of God because I have learned how to appropriate an aspect of the divine nature in that situation.
We need to start seeing our circumstances from His perspective. Thinking the way He thinks, connecting with God in a new way.
If joyful expectation is not your starting point in your walk with God, then you’ll get tossed about by your circumstances. You’ll be double – minded.
The mind of Christ and your old man way of thinking do not mix. If the Holy Spirit is talking to you about possibilities and you can only see problems, you will be in two minds, you will have a disconnect with God. That creates confusion. God is not the author of confusion. We are.
When we don’t align with Him in our circumstances and situations, it creates a disconnect from our Kingdom reality.
Worship aligns us with God. It ushers us into the secret place of intimacy with Him.
The Secret Place is not a place of escape from your problems, it is a place where you engage with the empowering presence of God and discover life changing possibilities.
There is only one way to think about any situation. And that is the way that Jesus is thinking about it. Where you see problems, He sees possibilities. When you perceive failure, Jesus sees you practicing a fruit of the Spirit. Where you see lack, He sees what’s missing from your experience of Him, and has every intention to provide it to you.
When God looks at your circumstances, He already knows who He wants to be for you in them so the first thing He will do is make available to you an aspect of His nature that you can tune into and practice.
We are a new creation in Christ, our destiny is to live an overcoming life.
Are you responding to life situations like a mere human being? Or are you responding in the new nature, and growing spiritually because of your new way of life?
Worship makes us aware of what the Lord is making available to us. What you focus on, you give power to. For every negative, God has an opposite just for you.
What is the opposite of fear? Perfect love. What is the opposite of frustration? Patience
When you focus on what God has for you, you displace the negatives.
1 Cor. 15:57 says, “He always gives us the victory in Christ.” There is a breakthrough… a victory assigned to you today.
Many of us deeply desire to live a victorious life. We want to be the answer to Jesus’s prayer “…on earth as it is in heaven.” God wants this too. He wanted it before we did.
God wants worshippers because He knows what a blessing real worship is in your life. Worship can take you into a place that no teaching or mentoring can do. Become a worshipper and experience world-changing victory from the inside out.