Today we are going to take a posture of peace by not getting stuck in the state we are in.
Posture is a short audible fist bump to remind you God is with you in everything.
Together we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
Romans chapter 6 verse 10 and 11 it says this about Jesus, it says,
For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So you, yes that means you, yes you, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin
and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Your starting place for truth cannot be what you are not or what you perceive yourself not to be.
It has to be who Jesus is for you.
Who Jesus is for you is your starting place for all truth.
You know this week we've been talking about the power we have,
the power we've been given in Jesus to prevail in every circumstance.
All this week I've been co-hosting a challenge with my friend and mentor Graham Cook called
The Power to Prevail.
You know, your enemy, Satan, would love nothing more than for you to see yourself
outside of Christ and then live accordingly.
You know, Satan wants us to stay frustrated with our lives and stuck in our circumstances
and disappointed and disempowered by the year that we're living in and all that's
happening in our world.
But you know, in that state we will create excuses and all kinds of reasons for staying stuck
and not living free and not being more than a conqueror.
So I want to share this clip from my conversation with Graham this week.
It brought so much clarity to me and so many of our challenge members,
I mean the comments went wild when Graham was sharing this so I wanted to share it with you.
Okay, so let's talk about gifts because again,
I think that's something we sometimes misunderstand.
Right.
There are so many gifts in the kingdom and I think that our expectation is really low
when it comes to gifts from God.
I think sometimes we limit ourselves by thinking it's only material
or it's only fixing the situation in the exact detail that I would like the Lord to fix the
situation or whatever.
But that's just secondary.
Those gifts are so secondary.
The real gifts of the Lord, well, first of all, we talked about one of them.
He gives us the gift of himself.
I want to ask you, Graham, and I don't mean to put you on the spot,
and I have an answer for me in case you didn't think about it.
But what's a gift that the Lord has given you recently that you're just loving receiving?
I'll tell you the first gift he ever gave me,
because it's the most important thing he's ever done apart from getting me saved.
You know, I was in that whole position of thinking my behavior was the issue.
If I could control my behavior, he'd be happy with me.
You know, if you be good, God will be good to you.
That whole religious nonsense stuff.
And he asked me a question one day, out of the blue, and he just said,
Graham, why is it that you are more aware of your state than you are your standing?
I'm thinking, I don't even understand what that means.
He said, son, there's a difference between your state and your standing.
Your state is how you see yourself.
I'm weak, I'm no good, I'm not good at this, I can't do that.
So your state is really about the context of how powerless you feel.
This is what I am.
And sometimes we live in that place for so long, we think those are personality traits.
Oh, well, you know, I'm not really bright.
I'm not this, I'm not that.
Well, this is the way God made me.
No, he didn't.
God never made you this way.
He made you this way.
No, he didn't.
God never made anyone stupid.
The devil makes you stupid.
So he said, how is it you're more aware of your state than you are your standing?
And I cried because I just suddenly, you know, when he talks to you, he's like,
I saw it.
I'm thinking, oh, my goodness.
Well, I didn't exactly say that, but I'm not going to tell you what I really did say.
It's like, shoot, I have never heard that in my entire life.
Graham, you don't have a state.
Jesus took all the things that comprise your state and took them to the cross.
And then he took them to hell.
left them there. You have a standing in Jesus. So from now on we're going to practice your standing
and we have been doing that for 43 years, practicing my standing. So it's like when
he talks to you, you know that he's making you aware of another level of your standing.
So peace became part of my standing. Resting in the Lord is part of my standing because I could
stand in it. I learned how to stand in it no matter what was occurring. So joy became my
standing and they're all things connected to his nature because he's making us in his image.
He's the happiest person I know. He has the sunniest disposition of anybody, of any 10,000
people I've ever met all at once. He's like majestic in his joy. He laughs at everything
and he likes laughing with me and occasionally he laughs at me because he thinks I'm funny.
So it's like Graham, you're not much of a challenge to my grace, to my love, you know.
So why don't you just get over that and let's concentrate on who you are right here. This is
your standing. This is what I'm doing right now. When he gives you a prophetic word, he's telling
you you're standing before him. When he gives you a promise, he's giving you a place to stand.
He said this promise is your standing. So I want you to live in it and we're going to practice that
until it becomes part of your lifestyle and then it just like flows out of you,
regardless of circumstances. So you're never going to be circumstantial or situational again.
You're going to be absolutely on point with who I am and what I am. So that for me,
knowing the difference between state and standing has been part of my foundation
of walking with the Lord. And we still laugh about some aspects of that and he still talks
to me on that level. So you know that when God talks about your standing, he's moving you out
of your state into a higher place of being. And so I love the fact that when God says,
come aside, he's saying, I've got something for you. So come out of that and come here.
And that to me is what state and standing is. I can't remember the last time I was ever
overtaken by a state because my standing now is ingrained in my thinking, in the way I see
and the way I talk. Perception, mindset, language. This is my standing. This is who I am,
regardless of events. The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26 3. In Hebrew,
it is shalom, shalom, meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken.
This is who you are in Jesus because of Jesus. You are a living testimony of Jesus's ultimate
win. With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display and Satan's
defeat on replay.