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Today, we are going to take a posture of peace by being lifted up in our low places.

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Posture is a short, audible fist bump to remind you God is with you in everything.

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Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.

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In Romans chapter 8, verses 6-11, it says the mind governed by the flesh is death, but

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the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

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The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God.

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It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

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Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

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You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh, but are in the realm of the Spirit,

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if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.

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And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.

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But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin,

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the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.

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And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised

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Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of the Spirit who

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lives in you.

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As I was preparing for this episode, Holy Spirit brought to my remembrance a conversation

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that we had together in a very low place.

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Maybe one of my lowest places ever.

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And so I felt prompted to share that story today.

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Before I share the story, let me share the ending.

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I'm not in that low place anymore.

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In fact, I could not find my way back to that low place, even if I tried.

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And I know it's weird to start a story at the end, but I want you to know that if you're

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in a low place right now, it's not your permanent address.

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You're not staying there.

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You're not stuck there.

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Remember, Colossians 3.3 from last week, it says,

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For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

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When you choose Jesus as Lord, many of those that call it their salvation experience,

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With Christ in God became your permanent place.

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So no matter what place you find yourself in right now, whether it's low or high, valley

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or mountaintop, you are in Christ.

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Christ is in you in that place.

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Your identity in Christ, your place in him, is not situational.

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It's relational.

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Your identity is not coming and going based on what's happening to you or around you.

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Your identity is secure in the relationship that you now have with God.

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And it's in a secure place, it's in a secure relationship because it's a relationship that

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he initiated, not you.

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You do not have a worldly relationship with God that can fizzle out or break up or break

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down over time and leave you all alone again.

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No.

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What you have with him is an eternal spiritual union that changed who you are before anything

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around you changed.

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Second Corinthians 517 says, in Christ, you became a new creation.

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The old is gone.

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The new is here.

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Now, you may feel more attached to the old right now, maybe through memory or habit or

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the environment that you're surrounded by.

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But the evidence of your new creation identity is Christ, not your current circumstances.

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Jesus is the proof.

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You and I, we can never lose our real life in Christ.

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We can't lose our awareness of it.

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And this often happens when we become more astonished or overwhelmed by what is happening

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around us than what is happening, the one who is living within us.

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When we believe that we are more body and soul, you know, our emotions, our mind, more

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body and soul than we are spirit, we live life really upside down because we're living

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life from the outside in instead of from the inside out.

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Remember what Paul wrote in Romans 8, verse six, I just read it.

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It says for the mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit

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is life and peace.

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I get asked a lot in my comments, my DMs, how did you overcome anxiety?

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Like what did you do before any I did anything differently?

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I became aware of something and that changed everything.

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So a few years ago, I was in a very low place and I was having a bad day in a low place,

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which is worse than just being in a low place.

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Having a bad day in a low place is no good.

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I was physically sick.

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I was emotionally burnt out.

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I was mentally overwhelmed and I was so disappointed and discouraged and actually really, really

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scared because the Christian life that I was living didn't seem to be working.

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I was doing all the good things.

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All the things.

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I thought a good Christian should be doing.

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I was serving, I was leading, I was attending,

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I was praying, I was declaring, all good things.

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But those things seemed to only bring temporary relief

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to what I was experiencing in my body and in my soul,

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you know, my mind and my emotions.

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I wasn't totally free.

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So on a day when I was having a flare up

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from my physical sickness, I was in pain,

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I was exhausted, I was anxious,

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I remember I was in my bathroom

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and I was looking at myself in the mirror.

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I was just looking at myself.

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And I was thinking, am I always going to be this way

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the rest of my life?

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It's a scary thought,

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probably not an uncommon one though,

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for those of us who have been in long battles,

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who find ourselves having bad days in low places.

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But in that moment, I sensed the Lord asked me a question

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and he said, Linz, why do you identify most

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with the sickness, with the anxiety, with the bad days?

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Why do you believe that your good days

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are just an exception but your bad days are your normal?

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And I was honest with him, I said, Lord,

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because I identify with those bad days

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because I don't feel like it's authentic

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to pretend that the good days are my normal.

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Because at the time I was having more bad days

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than good days and when I was having a good day,

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it was tainted by the fear that a bad day was coming,

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that the good day wasn't going to last,

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another flare up could happen,

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another anxiety attack could happen.

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So he asked me a second question.

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He said, okay, who are you trying to be authentic to?

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Are you being authentic to the permanence

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of your identity in Christ, your kingdom reality?

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What I've said over you, have promised and spoken over you?

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Or are you being most authentic

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to your temporary pain and suffering?

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Now he wasn't condemning me in this conversation,

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he was calling me up.

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Because somewhere along the way,

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I had begun to believe that authenticity

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meant cleaving to my brokenness,

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instead of fully embracing and identifying

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with Jesus's wholeness, even in the midst of brokenness.

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Why is it so easy to identify with brokenness

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and so hard to identify with wholeness?

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I think for me, it was because it seemed

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like the path of least resistance.

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I mean, the hardest thing to do

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in the midst of pain and suffering

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is to go against the tide of despair

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and believe in a greater destiny.

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At least I thought that it was hard.

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Remember what Paul wrote in Romans eight, verse seven,

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or let's say verse eight, he says,

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those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

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But then he writes, you, however,

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are not in the realm of the flesh,

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but are in the realm of the spirit,

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if indeed the spirit of God lives in you,

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which is what happens when you make Jesus your Lord.

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In my low place, my mind was so set on the flesh,

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what was happening in my body, in my mind, in my emotions.

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But I'm not in the flesh, I'm in Christ.

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I'm in the spirit.

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So that's where my focus should be.

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Because as a new creation, that is the most real me,

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the most authentic me.

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The old is gone, the new is here.

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Now, sometimes we're so scared of living in denial

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of what's happening to us or around us,

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that what happens is we end up living fully denying

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the life of Christ in us.

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So that day, I made a choice, a different choice,

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and I started choosing the truth.

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That day, I just refused to live another day

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in denial of Jesus in me.

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Now, I still had to deal with things in the flesh, right?

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We live here in this world, I had to take care of my body,

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and my mind, and my emotions.

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There's actually a lot to be enjoyed here in creation.

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The body, the mind, and emotions are not negative things,

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they're not bad things,

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they're all good gifts from a good father.

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But everything I experience here in creation,

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good or bad or ugly, I do so from a place of authority

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and power as a spirit being who is one with Christ,

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because that's the real me.

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I'm not a body and a soul, I am a spirit.

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And I am not subject to my body, to my mind,

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or to my emotions.

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Those things are subject to Christ who is now in me,

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and who is now in you.

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And it's time that we discover what that means.

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This is a journey of discovering ourselves in Christ

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that is actually a dynamic adventure,

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not a boring Sunday school lesson.

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We have been invited into the most majestic relationship ever

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the one that's shared between the Godhead,

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Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit.

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We've been brought into that relationship.

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Read Colossians 2, 9-10.

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through 10. It is now our reality. And you know what? If I were our enemy, I want us more engaged

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and familiar with the circumstances of our lives than in the divine life-giving relationship we

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have in God. If I was our enemy, I'd want us so aware of our low place, more aware of our low

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place than of our permanent place in Jesus. But even though we have an enemy who wants us aware

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of all the wrong things, we've been given power and authority over him. And I took that power and

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authority and I made a different choice after I had that conversation with God. Now when I had

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that conversation with God that day, the suffering didn't instantly change. But what changed in that

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moment was that I became more aware of the truth of who Jesus is and who I am and him. And I made

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a choice with that awareness. I chose the truth. Jesus is more true about me than the sickness,

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than the anxiety. And I became lifted up in my new creation identity even while I was still

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walking in that low place. But I began to walk through that low place instead of feeling buried

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by it because I became aware that the low place was in fact under my feet, not over my head.

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My point is this, you deal with suffering differently when you realize you are not subject to it.

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Paul writes here in Romans chapter 8 and verse 18, he says, I consider that our present sufferings

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are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. So I want to encourage you today,

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choose the truth and allow that truth to lift you up in every low place.

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And if you need some help today on getting a grasp of what's true about you, I'd love to help.

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I've put together a free resource. I've shared it before in past episodes. The link to it is in the

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description of this episode. It's a simple PDF, but it has a powerful list of who you are. Not

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because I say it's true about you, because of what God's word says is true about you. So feel

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free to use that resource, read it, pick one, pick several, pick all, meditate on the truth,

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meditate on his word and become more aware of what's true about you and allow the truth to

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lift you up in every low place.