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Today, we're going to take a posture of peace by thinking differently about our low places

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and recognizing that when God looks at us, He doesn't see what's wrong, only what's missing.

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Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale. Posture is a podcast that serves as a short audible fist bump to remind

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you that God is in everything. Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture

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of perfect peace. So last week, I joined Graham Cook for a three-day challenge on Facebook,

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where together with people from all over the world, we explored this question. Do we really

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believe what God believes about us? And today, I'm going to be sharing a clip from a conversation

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that Graham and I had based on Roman 611 that says, so you must also consider yourselves

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dead to sin and alive to God, and 2 Corinthians 517 that says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ,

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the new creation has come, the old has gone, and the new is here. And Graham and I discussed

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the implications these truths have when our lives sometimes still feel dead. But you know,

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key number one, back to key number one, the three are only focused on the me who is alive. You know,

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I realized I have to stop thinking like a dead person.

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Exactly. And you know, you talk about the negative emotions, Graham, surrounding the

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sin habits in our lives. You know, sin is a memory for those who have become alive to God.

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And so that's why sometimes it feels like we haven't quite died because we still have some

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of those sin habits. And I've had to remind myself, you know, Jesus died and broke every form of sin

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over me, but he also washed away its residue, those negative emotions. So things like anxiety,

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panic, fear, chronic stress, self hatred, despair, those died with Christ, right? And they weren't

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raised again, right? And everything that made life punishing, right? So even those things like

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anxiety, you know, things that just make life suck, those Jesus took to the grave to stay.

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And he's given us this beautiful life that we can walk in, not just in the life to come,

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but in the here and now. And it's a life that they actually help us to live. Yes. The thing that I

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love about it is, you know, we all know that there are issues in our lives, some of them from our

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past, some of them in our memory, some of them because we've lived under performance or legalism.

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And, you know, we don't realize that we're fully dead. And the beautiful thing about the process

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is that is exactly where God chooses to live with you. He lives with you in the low places.

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He lives with you in your limitation, because he knows that's where you need the most help.

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So that's where you meet the biggest sense of his presence. When you're, you know, when you're

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learning how to come up, when you feel like you're struggling, but you're not really, you just you

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don't know how things work, mostly. And what he's doing is he's training your mind, he's giving you

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a new lens of how to see yourself, he's giving you a new mindset, and then he's giving you new language.

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But the beautiful part of this for me has been, in all my low places where I was learning how to

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put off and how to put on, I didn't always do it the best way, because when it's new,

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you know, it's a process, you have to keep doing it until it becomes normal.

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But the thing I loved about it was, that's where he never left me. That's where he showed up.

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Every single time, I'm right here. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. In all your learning,

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I am present. And that is a beautiful promise, you know, you consider yourself dead to sin,

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and then be alive to me, and I'll teach you how that works. So we're never dealing with that

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anymore, because it's dead. But we're dealing with this, I'm going to teach you how I see you, how I

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think about you. This is how I'm going to talk to you. And this is where I want to engage with you.

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I want to be in the places that you don't like. I want to be right there in that place. And I'm

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giving you a permanent helper, a permanent trainer. And life is going to be sweet, once you realize

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how we work in you. And so that to me is, it takes the struggle away, and puts delight in its place.

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This is a delightful process. And that's why I love it.

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I love that because the enemy, you know, his language is lies and accusation.

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The Bible said he's the father of all lies and he's the accuser of God's people.

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And so often he tries to use those low places, the places that God actually delights in because he's transforming us in those places.

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But the enemy wants to use that really to beat us up.

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And so we miss, obviously, often we miss the delightfulness of it because we're using it as evidence that we're not actually dead to sin and alive to Christ.

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Right, right, right, right.

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That's a weird thing is that, you know, why would we listen to a negative when the voice of God is so beautifully positive?

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He doesn't have a negative thing against us because he knows all that negativity got put away and so he's not focused on it at all.

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So this is one thing that I have loved for so many years, that when God looks at me, he doesn't see what's wrong with me.

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He only sees what's missing. And he's totally committed to giving me that missing piece.

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And he's standing in your low place saying, hey, got a gift. Hey, but look, I've got a gift.

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No, seriously, I have a gift for you right now that will resolve this.

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And he's there with patience. He's there with love and kindness.

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He's there with joy because he's not going to get mad that you're not learning properly.

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He's just going to say it's a process. We'll get there. But I'm committed to you in the process.

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So how about you being committed to me? Because I'll make it go a little bit faster and better and stronger.

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No negatives. Just the truth that sets you free. I love his heart in that whole thing.

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You know, I feel his heart every day. And when I'm in a weakness, it's just brilliant to be able to say to the Holy Spirit,

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you're my comforter and you're my helper. I need help right now.

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And it's just great to have that confidence that God knows exactly what he's doing.

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So today, remember, God is only focused on the you who is alive.

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Jesus paid with his life for it to be this way. Today is not a dread. It's not a measuring stick.

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It's not proof that you have fallen short. No, today is an invitation to be delighted in your secure relationship with a God

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who always delights in the process of making you even more like him.

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The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26, 3. And in Hebrew, it is shalom, shalom, meaning complete wholeness,

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nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus. Let's declare this together.

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Today, I am kept in perfect peace with my whole heart. I trust the Lord. I am strong. I am victorious. I am whole.

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Remember, friend, you are a living testimony of Jesus's ultimate win, not because of anything you did, but because of what he did for you.

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With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display and Satan's defeat on replay.

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