Now we're going to be talking about how to actually operate from a place of rest.
So we've been talking about the fact that we have what God speaks about rest, what it
is, where it is, the fact that we have a right to it, in other words, how we can understand
it and our relationship to it, et cetera, and then how to shift into it.
So that's all great and wonderful, but we're so used to operating according to the other
way.
Now that we're here, what do we do now that we're here?
I wanted to talk about that, what it means to actually operate in spirit versus operating,
believing that we are dependent on what it is that we do, or we're dependent on what
it is that we know, or tips, tricks, strategies, or whatever.
So if we aren't reliant on that, what is it, if God is our source, what does that look
like to be relying on another source other than that?
How do we go from something that we have been able to tangibly see to this ethereal, conceptual
idea that God says is his source, and he's just like, you know, if you come into, remember
what he said about, he told the disciples this, he said, I think he used it in terms
of if they were arrested, he said, if you are arrested or if you're called before the
judge or something like that, he said, do not prepare.
He said, because the Holy Spirit will tell you what you need to know in the moment.
That's operating in the spirit, that's operating in rest, and God wants us to do that in everything,
in businesses, in our relationships, in finances, in every area.
So we're going to compare just really quick the idea, get a concept of what it means to
operate in life versus death, so that we can recognize when we're operating in something
that looks and feels to us like life, because we think, oh, surely this is going, me doing
this thing is going to result in something that we have termed as good, so therefore
this thing that I'm doing must be good.
But how do we recognize that actually what it is that we're doing is leading to death?
Because a lot of times we'll make a particular choice in efforts of obeying God.
That's why we made this choice.
God told me something, okay, I am going to try to do it.
How do we recognize when we're flowing in the spirit and being obedient versus we are
trying too hard to do it in our own strength?
But in order to understand that, we need to understand the characteristics of spirit versus
the characteristics of death.
So again, in other words, the properties, characteristics, so that we can recognize
them and be able to define, oh, I'm coming up against this characteristic.
That must mean I'm operating out of death instead of life.
And then we can choose to shift, as opposed to continuing on that trajectory wondering
why God's not blessing it, because that's the term that we use when we have accusation
against the Lord that he hasn't manifested according to the way that our formula should
have worked, because he's the one that gave us our instruction.
And we've obeyed him, and he hasn't followed through on his end of the bargain.
But okay, so what is some properties and some characteristics of spirit?
Spirit is ever-changing, but it's always the same.
So think of it kind of like a river.
So a river never looks the same from one moment to the next, but it's always water.
It never ceases to be water, and water always acts the same, meaning like it always has
the same properties, it always has the same characteristics, it always follows the same
laws, but it never looks the same from one moment to the next.
That's one of the reasons why operating in the spirit is so scary.
It's unpredictable.
Where is it going to go?
What's going to happen in my life?
I'm being carried around by it.
I'm supposed to be in it, and I'm subjected myself to it, and my future, including tomorrow,
is unpredictable.
So that is actually a characteristic of the spirit.
It's in constant movement, it's in constant flow.
That's what life is.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, in a certain manner of speaking, and I don't know
how to describe this any better than I'm going to now, but from a certain perspective,
the scientific community has defined death, not death of a living being, but like the
element of what is actually death,
they have described death as where
there is absolutely a complete lack of movement.
And by that I mean complete.
Not that a person is dead and they're not moving.
I mean like everything all the way down
to the fact that there's bacteria,
there's bacteria, there's cells,
there's microorganisms, there's atoms,
electrons and protons are encircling the nucleus
and there's always movement in life somewhere.
If an atom eventually gets to the point
where it completely stops, scientifically
that is what they have used to define death
at its very core.
Because they're trying to look for a,
they don't believe in the,
a lot of scientists don't believe in the spiritual
so they're trying to figure out,
okay well there's this thing called death
that we all know exists but how would we define that
and how it manifests and what it is that we see.
And so the way, the best way that they've been able
to come up with to describe it as non-believers
is well, ultimately death, again not death
of a human being or death of a living being
but just the element and the idea of death in the universe.
How would we define it at its very core?
It's a complete, total lack of movement.
That is what they've defined as death.
It's fascinating because it's actually true
as a principle, you know as a spiritual principle
in creation by the Lord that death,
spiritual death is lack of movement.
So we can choose to partner with life
or choose to partner with death in how we operate in life.
So if God is calling us to abide in him
and allow the spirit that is within us to flow freely
but if we find ourselves being given an instruction
by the Lord or we hear something within the Lord's heart
and we're like okay, this is what we need to do,
then if we take it as kind of an instruction
and think oh my goodness, God's holding me accountable
for this, I better not get it wrong.
What we tend to do is we tend out of fear,
we tend to grab a hold of something tighter,
put a stranglehold on it because we're trying so hard
to make sure that it is perfectly still
and perfectly right to ensure
that we get a particular result.
The problem is that whenever you tighten your control
on something, you're adding rigidity to it
and rigidity leads to death because there's no movement.
That's what control leads to.
That's why God says release control, let go.
That's why we're always going back to release,
wherever the sign is, be still and know that I am God.
It's all about release, it's all about let go.
When God wants something of us,
when we feel the desire within our Father's heart
for us to move in a particular direction,
to do something with him or whatever,
what he wants us to do is to let go and flow with him
and he will enable that thing to happen
while we're along, not for the ride
because we're just simply being carried along,
but the idea of we are being carried along
because he's doing all of the work,
but we are intentionally partnering with him
by choosing to submit ourselves to that.
That is, and then we just go wherever the spirit goes
and we're just gonna flow,
as opposed to starting to lock down
and okay, I need to make sure that I do
or I allow or I make happen
whatever it is that God has declared.
That is bringing, that's bringing death.
We see that if we believe that something
that God wants to happen on the earth,
maybe in somebody else's life,
that, let's see, let's come up with an example.
Say for instance, if God has given you a particular,
a particular dream or vision or something,
we're gonna be talking about all of this tomorrow
about how to handle stuff like that,
even things like how to handle
what feel like unfulfilled promises.
What do you do when it looks like God gave you a dream
and it didn't come true or it's not coming true
or however you would turn that, how do you handle that?
But before not actually getting into that,
let's just use this kind of as an example.
Say for instance, God gives you a dream or a vision
and it involves another, it involves another person.
Okay, you know what?
I thought of a better example.
Let me word it like this.
This will hopefully make it a lot more relevant
and down to earth.
Think of a parent with a child
that we, if we put so much,
we can be tempted to wrap our identity up,
our identity up in our role as,
and I'm gonna use mother because I'm a woman,
so it's easier for me to talk from that perspective,
as a mother, as a father, you know, whatever,
that it's easy for us, especially, you know,
if you're a mother, stay-at-home mom,
and your whole world is wrapped up in, you know,
taking care of the house and then being with your husband
when he comes home and before he goes to work
and all of that, and then the rest of it
is all wrapped around this child.
So often, people feel subconsciously identified
by the free will choices that that child made.
And we feel, if we're not careful,
that God is holding us accountable,
personally accountable, for how the child responds.
So we know that God desires good things for this child,
and they do something at two years old,
and we immediately, in that moment,
see them at 20 years old in jail
if they just continue like that.
And so we're somehow identifying with that,
and we're thinking, you know, we're at the, I know,
and we think, well, wait just a second,
what is this saying about me as a mom
that I have either, what is it that I have done
that made the child think that they could do that?
This must be saying something about me.
And because we think that, and we think,
God doesn't desire that,
God has spoken good things over my child,
I want to ensure that God's will happens,
what do we do?
Control of the child.
And what that does is it brings death.
It brings death in that child's life,
I don't mean physically.
It suppresses and stifles the spirit
that that child was meant to be fathered into
understanding how to express.
And teaching a child how to express his spirit
is a messy job because it doesn't always look pretty.
It sometimes looks like mistakes, it looks like messes,
it looks like destruction,
but a child doesn't know how to handle it.
I think of a, especially,
I'm just gonna throw this one out there,
especially a strong-willed child.
We see this very evident in a strong-willed child.
Strong-willed children are very challenging for us
for a multitude of reasons,
but understand the power of the spirit that God,
the power of their particular spirit
that God wants to express in such a very strong way
through that child because of what that child is meant to,
how that child is meant to release creation from frustration.
It has all of this and it doesn't know how to handle it.
It's a lot.
And so it looks very messy raising a strong-willed child.
And so a parent is supposed to guide the child
to help them understand how to express
who it is that they are.
That, and what a child's free will choices are,
are between them and the Lord, we guide them, yes.
So we're not talking about you permit bad behavior.
I'm not, please don't take what I'm saying to an extreme.
I'm trying to make a point here.
They are their own free will entity
and their choices do not define who it is that you are
and how it is that God sees you.
You just are whole and held accountable to the Lord,
to father or to mother them in the way
that he tells you to do,
but their choices do not define you.
They do not identify you.
But because we think that they do,
subconsciously we think that they do
and we emotionally, we react like that.
And this is my point in making this
and mentioning this example is whatever it is
that we think is suddenly getting out of our control
and we think is acting as a threat
to how God's gonna see us, a threat to our identity,
we start to try to control it.
And we don't understand that,
that idea of trying to control it
in order to do a good thing,
which is to make sure that we are always standing
in the right identity in Christ.
We don't understand we're doing the opposite
of what we're trying to do.
We're killing the thing.
We're not bringing it life.
So anyway, these are just some very brief examples
of how to tell the difference between operating
in a way that's actually bringing death
that we have always labeled as a godly thing.
We call it being steadfast.
We call it, we'll sometimes call it being consistent.
We'll call it hard work.
We'll call it endurance.
We'll label it all kinds of things.
I'm not saying that those words are bad.
I'm saying that we will take labels
that God has put on us and we will label it as a godly thing.
has used in the Bible attribute it to what it is that we're doing that is
actually operating according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and
it's bringing forth the death. All those things about being steadfast, enduring,
all of those are good things but they may need to be done from the tree of
life, which is free-flowing, we've let go of our, we've let go of control and
and we've released. So the difference between the two is not just, is not
movement and lack of movement but it's also, excuse me, it's also formulas versus
flow. So over here you've got all of the formulas, you've got all the do's and
don'ts, you have you have all of the if you do this you get this, if you if you
do this other thing you get this, if you don't do this on the other hand you get
this. There's all these laws, all these rules, it's rigid, there's no
exceptions, it's law. Remember what we were talking about, unfortunately it's on
the other side of the board because I'm about to write on this one, but remember
we were talking about, you know, in the soul and the body, it's knowledge of
earthly laws and spiritual laws. Earthly laws and spiritual laws aren't bad, it's
our dependence on them that's the problem and that just leads to
death. The reason why it leads to death is there's rigidity, there's no movement
in the law. We don't like the fact that people can go through the same law
process, you know, like say for instance with the United States government, they
can go through the same judicial process. We're not talking about anything, we're
talking about good laws, we're not throwing in any aspect of, well
my goodness, well was the judge correct or, you know, we're not talking about
anything like that, we're talking about just strictly the law, just strictly the
system itself. The law has no grace, there's no exception, there's no room
for sonship, there's no room for mentorship, there's no room for growth.
There's just, if you did this, this is the consequence, period.
There's no grace, there's no movement, it's rigidity, that's why it leads to
nothing but death and we don't like the fact that you can have somebody, that
you can have, that sometimes the law is so rigid that it can't account for
circumstances. It can't, you know, it can't, and so we've made our laws
extremely complicated, understanding that we're more, that grace needs to be given
and understanding that there's more than, that there's all kinds of exceptions to
the rule and so it just makes the laws very, very complicated, but all it means
is that we have to create more laws. Because the law has no grace in it, it has
no flexibility, it leads to nothing but death, but in relationship, everything
flows. In relationship, you can have grace. In relationship, there's movement. In
relationship, there is, there's flexibility. So that locking down,
remember? That locking down, that rigidity, this is resistance. So are we
making all of these connections now? Death, resistance, rigidity, law, all of that.
We're mentioning these in different sessions, but I'm continually trying to
reference other things that I've talked about or continually are telling you,
okay, we're going to be talking about that later because we have to understand
these are not compartmentalized topics. I've had to just kind of sort of
categorize them to kind of separate them as much as possible to kind of get us
help us be able to grasp a hold of a subject without muddying the waters too
much, but it's all doing this. It's all interwoven. So to lock down, to try to
control, that is another manifestation of the fact that, or another
expression of how it's expressed when we're in resistance, is there's
lockdown, there's control, it's all bringing forth, it's all bringing forth
death. It's all the same, all in the same thing. One way that you can
think about it is like what kind of a posture that we're supposed to have
because, okay, all of this is great, Ashley, but how do I abide here? What does that
feel like? What does that look like? What do I do? Because again, we're so used to
give me something to do. What is it that I'm doing? What can
that look like? And so we'll give ourselves a picture of what that looks
like to kind of help us. I think of open hands in that river, in that river of the
Spirit. It's not a perfect example, but it'll do. God calls us to keep our hands
open in the river. When your hands are open in the river and the river of the
Spirit is moving, of God is moving through your hands, you get to experience
so much more of the Spirit because you get to experience all of the water that
touches your hand all over, all...
a different surface area on top, in between the fingers,
underneath.
And then as those water molecules pass on,
the next ones come through.
How much of the river are you getting
to experience like that?
But if we decide, oh my word, this looks so good.
I love this aspect of the river, the spirit
that I'm experiencing right now.
I want to make sure that I am a good steward.
Again, another godly term that we'll
use to qualify our behavior is we'll think,
OK, well, I really like this.
I'm going to keep this.
I'm going to use this.
I think God's holding me accountable to make sure
that this is how my life always looks.
Because if it looks any different than this,
it's going to be wrong.
So I want to grab a hold of it so it doesn't escape.
So we try to grab a hold of the water.
But what's the problem when you have it?
We've all tried to grab water.
You can't.
You can't grab water.
The most that you can do is you can grab water like this.
It all drains out.
And as soon as you open up your hands,
you have a few water droplets left that evaporate.
You cannot hold on to water.
You can't hold on to spirit.
All you can do is submit yourself to it
and allow yourself to experience it and to be carried in,
to what we'll be talking about later, be a part of it
and be life-giving ourselves.
So that is the type of posture that we should have,
is this idea of always keeping our hands open in the river
and in the spirit and just allowing ourselves
to experience what God has for us right now,
instead of trying to control it and trying to make it something
and trying to keep it.
And another thing that I just want to point out,
well, let me mention this.
Talking about movement, how when something ceases to move,
it dies.
So in order for something to stay as life,
it has to continue to move.
And when something moves, it changes.
And that's OK.
We have got to be OK with change.
We're not heading towards a destination.
Our life is a journey.
God isn't enduring us until we get somewhere.
He says, no, the journey, this is it.
This is where you're supposed to be.
So it's in the movement.
So it's OK for things to change in our lives.
Our lives won't always look like this.
And that's very, very important to allow it to be like that,
because the spirit has to continually move in order
to bring life.
If it brought life, if the spirit brings life,
and then it's moving, and that's how it came into our life,
and we liked it so much, we tried
to stop, and control, and hedge, and create boundaries,
and create an environment in which we could try to keep it
as much as possible, what's happening?
We're stifling it.
And we eventually lose it anyway, because we killed it.
I had a vision about this one time.
The Lord, a vision?
No, a dream.
I always dream of sleep.
I was in a very dire financial situation.
I think it was a year ago, I think.
Yeah, it was a year ago.
It was almost exactly a year ago.
And wow, shockingly, almost to the day.
That's pretty wild.
Anyway, fun to be a year later telling this story.
But I was in a very dire financial situation.
I was trying to figure out, what message, Lord?
Am I supposed to speak to the world?
I know you have something in me.
What is this?
And am I supposed to have a business?
What's it supposed to look like?
Lord, I don't know what I'm doing.
And no money is coming in, Lord.
And my bank account is draining.
And I'm on the last few dollars, or whatever.
I was offered a job.
And so I thought, OK, Lord, I would prefer to do the other.
I'd prefer to pursue you.
Again, we can make it sound really godly.
I would prefer, Lord, to start a business,
but it hasn't happened yet.
And I know that you provide for me in a variety of ways.
Is this your method of provision for me right now?
Is your way of providing for me, for me to have this job?
I don't want to reject it if this is your provision.
If I'm praying and asking for your provision, and here it is.
So I got the job offer.
And I went, I think, I slept really late that morning.
I got the job offer, I think, at like 8 in the morning.
I just got it.
I got it by text, and I was like, I don't know.
I'd made a decision that I was going to take it.
But I'll wait for just, I'll go to sleep,
and I'll wait to answer it when I get up.
So I went to sleep.
And then I woke up, I guess, about 10 or whatever.
And when I did, I had a dream.
And God, in fact, I may have even prayed.
I didn't think about that until now.
I may have even prayed before I went to sleep.
God, will you just tell me what it is?
I wasn't asking him to do it in a dream.
I was just asking, God, can you tell me, just to be sure,
is this what you want me to do?
Should I take this job?
Anyway, I went to sleep.
He gave me a dream.
And in the dream that I had, in the interpretation
of the dream, I had actually taken the job.
But I was leaving a house that I was
at where I had been performing this job that I had accepted.
Everything was chaotic.
The person who had offered me the job in real life
on the phone in the dream, they were mad at me.
They were saying that I hadn't handled things correctly
in the business, and da, da, da, da, da.
And so I'd just been reprimanded in the dream.
So I grabbed my little dog, Dasa,
and then I grabbed this other dog, this other creature
that I was responsible for.
I don't know whose it is or what it was.
It was just some little creature in the dream.
And I leave that.
I walk out of that house where I'd just been reprimanded,
and all kinds of things are going wrong.
And it took a 60-second walk in my dream
to get to my house, the place where I was staying.
Well, my dogs, I'm thinking, I don't want them to escape.
There's a lot of people out here between these two houses.
I don't want them to escape, and I don't want
them to bother other people.
I don't want them to be barking at other people.
Other people have allergies.
I don't want them to bother other people.
So I took the two animals, and I'm
holding really, really close.
So I walked just 60 seconds, 60 seconds in.
I opened the door, and I remember feeling, OK, good.
I can relax now.
I can let down my dogs.
I'd killed them.
I had stifled them, trying so hard to control what I thought
was going to happen.
To prevent something from happening,
I ended up doing the opposite of what
I had said I wanted to do.
I ended up killing them.
So I'm obviously in the dream.
I am horrified.
And so I'm praying to the Lord, Lord, Lord, please,
surely I didn't kill them.
I didn't mean to, Lord.
I am so sorry.
And even in my dream, I had been learning
about how we're called to be able to command healing.
So even in my dream, I was doing that.
I was laying my hands on the dogs,
and I was declaring healing over them and whatever.
Well, I never found out.
I mean, they never came back to life before I woke up.
But I had this kind of feeling like, I think they're alive.
OK, you're going to laugh at this.
Y'all remember Princess Bride?
So they were just mostly dead.
That's what they were really like.
I mean, it's just kind of like, you think that they're dead,
because everything seems to be pointing to that.
But really, they were just mostly dead.
So what God was telling me in that dream is,
he said, Ashley, if you take that job,
all kinds of things will happen.
You will not benefit the company,
and it will not be the best that you can have.
Because these dreams that you have of starting a business
and doing all of that, these dreams that you have,
that you're trying to put on hold, and trying to control,
and trying to stifle, trying to protect them,
and make sure that they're safe, so that after you finish
this other thing, you can come back to it,
you're going to kill it.
You're going to hold on to it so hard,
trying to make sure that it's there
to be able to pick back up later,
and you're going to stifle it.
I'm not saying that if you have a particular dream,
that if you were to let that go, and you were to take a job,
that you would be stifling your own dream,
and it wouldn't be there to pick it back up.
That's not the moral of the story.
The thing is that that's what God said was going
to happen in my situation.
He said, you will be able to revive this thing that I'm
trying to birth in you, which happened to eventually
be the message of rest.
But it took a while for it to morph into that.
But that's what he was trying to birth.
But I didn't know that then.
I didn't even have the word rest then.
And all I knew is there's something in me
that's trying to get out.
So anyway, it was this thing that was very, very precious,
that the Lord was giving to me.
It was birthing.
But it wasn't quite birthed yet.
And I wanted to make sure it was protected and controlled
and that I didn't lose it.
And God says that by doing that, Ashley, you're going to kill it.
You've got to let it go.
You've got to let it go, meaning release.
So what God actually ended up telling me in the dream
is, no, Ashley, you're about to come to your breakthrough.
You've been doing this for over a year, you're about to come to your breakthrough and I want
you to push through.
I want you to push through a bit more because this is what it is that I have for you.
But that was my own unique situation, so I'm not saying take what it is that I'm saying
and compare it to your real life situation about the difference between taking a job
versus starting off on your own.
My whole point about this is talking about the difference between life and death and
how we can try to hold on to a good thing that God is giving us and we think that we're
preserving it in godliness and steadfastness and in consistency with the Lord and we're
killing it.
So we have to let it go.
If God has given something and he says that something is going to happen and manifest
into the earth through spirit, he will create the result.
He'll create the result.
We don't have to, we're not being held responsible for making sure that it happens, which is
what makes us feel that we have to control the thing to ensure that it happens.
You don't have to ensure that it happens, God will, but you have to make sure that you're
released to him and you're not in resistance against him so that he's actually allowed
to make it happen.
So regarding movement, everything in life, in order for it to remain life, everything
in your businesses, your finances, and your relationships has to constantly be in motion.
It has to constantly be moving in order for it to have life, meaning that your businesses,
your finances, and your relationships will consistently change, consistently.
They won't look the same from one moment to the next.
You go through seasons with your spouses, you'll go through seasons with what your finances
look like or what your business looks like or what your career looks like, what your
family looks like.
If you are or are not having currently a functional or dysfunctional family, everything's going
to look different.
It has to continually stay in motion in order for it to stay alive.
I was asking the Lord about, because I was very traumatized by even the word business
because of what it is that I had...
It's not what it is that I'd been through.
My environment was not the problem when I was in business.
The problem was what it is that I believed and what it is that I interpreted for my circumstances.
So I was very traumatized, and I do not use that lightly.
I was so traumatized by business that even someone saying the word business at this time
last year about themselves, like, oh, Ashley, I own a business, I would physically get nauseated.
So how some people might respond to something that they went through as physical abuse,
and they're getting that kind of a trigger, I got that from the word business.
It was that bad.
And so the Lord had to heal me of all of that.
So at this time last year, I began to seek the Lord, okay, God, I know you want to heal
this in me.
I know business is a good thing, and it's a beautiful thing because you created it.
I don't see it.
I don't feel it.
I don't want anything to do with business ever again.
I don't want to talk to business owners.
I don't want to have a business.
I just want to, like, hole up in some mountain somewhere where I literally don't even have
to go to a store because there's a transaction.
I mean, it was very, very extreme, and I literally actually thought that.
That's not an exaggeration.
I literally remember thinking that, and I remember wondering, okay, is that possible?
Can I possibly do that?
And I realized, no, you can't.
You're not a survivor.
So I began to realize, okay, well, the alternative then is to choose that God has given us a
good gift, and he wants to redeem that for me.
He wants to redeem what does business really mean so that I could receive it as the good
gift and the beautiful thing that it's meant to be as opposed to the corrupted version
that I had interpreted it to mean.
My paradigm needed to shift.
So I went to the Lord and asked him during this time, Lord, would you please heal me
with business?
And one of the things that I did one time is I went up to him and I asked him, okay,
Jesus, what is business?
From your perspective, when you created business, what is business?
And he went into two steps.
In other words, I said, what is the purpose of business?
I think that's the way I asked him.
And he took it in two steps, and the first thing he said was, he said, Ashley, people
think that business is all about money, and he said it's not.
The purpose of business is the movement of money.
It's to constantly keep money in motion.
In other words, not just money.
goods and services.
It doesn't have to be tangible.
That's what business is all about, he said.
It's to facilitate a flow.
Because in life, for things to be life and to be life-giving,
they have to be in motion.
Healthy economies are not economies that,
and economists tell us this, that healthy economies are not
those that have a lot of money versus those
that don't have a lot of money within their countries.
Healthy economies are those where
money is constantly moving as opposed to staying stagnant.
So that's why, whenever the economy gets very unhealthy,
the United States government will figure out,
how can we trigger the people to start buying and selling?
How can we trigger the movement of money?
Because it's the movement of money
that makes an economy healthy.
So this principle of movement applies
in all areas of life, in all facets of life.
Movement is vital to life.
Without movement, there is no life.
So he said, well, actually, business
is the movement of money.
Then he went deeper and he said, OK,
now that you understand that, let me go even deeper.
The purpose of business and the purpose of everything in life,
finances, so to speak.
There's layers to this purpose, but I'm just
trying to be simplistic here.
He said, what is going on in relationships and in finances
and in business is just movement.
So even in business, the point isn't the movement of money.
It's deeper than that.
The whole point of business is to facilitate movement
in a particular way in the earth.
Relationships facilitate movement
in the earth in a different way and in different areas.
And then the same thing with finances.
So it's all about movement.
Now, as far as spirit, our spirit and God's spirit
being part of this flow.
So that's what the difference is in how
we can describe death versus life and spirit versus death.
But how do we operate?
How do we operate as spirits?
How do I flow?
How do I move?
Because it's all about movement.
So how am I part of that?
How am I moving?
So the way that I think of it is,
and I'll be the first person to admit,
I don't exactly know.
This is just kind of something I sense in my spirit.
And I'm not saying that this is the full picture.
So take this with a grain of salt.
This is not a theology you need to build your relationship
with the Lord on.
This is just kind of an idea.
So take this to the Lord and see what he says.
So this is as close as I've gotten.
And it's not quite fully there, but this
is as close as I've gotten.
So think of when we join together with God's spirit.
It's not just, OK, God, your spirit
is channeling through me.
I'm just a vessel, an open vessel
through which you're moving.
So it's only your spirit that's touching
my business, my relationships, or my finances,
as if we had no part in it whatsoever.
And he just moves through me.
I'm just, I have, he's, Jesus has taken the wheel,
and I'm in the back seat doing nothing.
And that's not the case.
At the same time, it's not just us exerting our own spirit.
Apart from God, this is what I want.
This is how I will flow.
This is the aspect of myself that I
will pour into business, finances, relationships,
whatever.
It's more than that.
Our spirit comes together with God's spirit
and becomes something new.
So when it enters the earth, it's
not a combination of God's spirit plus our spirit.
And so there's a little bit of God's spirit,
and then there's a little bit of our spirit.
And it depends on how you look at the manifestation.
Oh, I could see that was God's spirit that caused that part.
And that over there, that was Ashley's spirit
that caused that part.
I think of it a bit differently.
Again, take this idea with a grain of salt.
It's just to kind of get ourselves out of the box
that we've been in and just kind of expand us
into considering a different possibility.
Think of it like a chemical reaction.
Think of like sodium and chloride.
Sodium has particular properties.
Sorry, not chloride, chlorine.
Sodium has particular properties.
In fact, it is poisonous to the human body by itself.
It's a metal.
So sodium metal is, especially in large portions,
is poisonous to the human body.
It has particular characteristics, et cetera.
Chlorine, the same thing.
It has a totally different set of properties,
and it is also poisonous to the human body.
But you combine them so that it becomes
a completely separate element called sodium chloride,
not sodium chlorine, sodium chloride,
because it's an ionic compound.
Did you get technical?
It's an ionic compound.
You can tell I used to teach chemistry.
It's an ionic compound, and it has a totally different set
of properties, and it is no longer
poisonous to the human body.
That point in using that as an example
is think of when we interact with the world.
We're one with Christ.
God says that we are one spirit with Christ.
It's not a bit of his spirit that joined with our spirit,
and it's not just his spirit where
there's no element of who it is that we are.
Because remember, he desired relationship with us,
so he separated us from himself to rejoin us to himself, yes,
but in order to be able to enjoy us and benefit
that he couldn't before, which is
in the relationship of the fact that in a way
there's like this other element to it.
Don't think of it as separation, but there's
this other element which allows relationship
between the two aspects.
And yet he says it's one.
It's hard to explain, and it's hard to understand,
just like the Trinity.
Trying to explain the Trinity to a five-year-old Sunday class
is very difficult. So it's like that.
It's like, well, this is kind of how it works,
and this is as good as I got.
Anyway, that is what we are giving creation.
It is this new compound, this new thing, this new entity.
So when God and you have joined together
and you manifest yourself into creation,
it's going to look different than when God and I do it.
We're very, very unique together.
I'm not saying this theologically.
This is exactly how it works.
Just kind of think of that kind of an idea.
We need to stop thinking of ourselves
so much as that it's only God, and we have no part in it,
or that it's us, and it's very egotistical,
and God has left us abandoned and alone to implement things.
It's us doing it together, but doing it together
to such an extent that it's not him doing a little bit
and then giving a part to me.
No, it's the two of us doing it together
so that creation gets something very, very unique.
That's the point of kind of like this picture.
Remember that God desires that to have relationship.
He desires that we bring ourselves to the table.
He wants our contribution.
He wants our spirit.
We'll be talking more about that when we talk
about how to make decisions, because we make decisions
with God because God allows us to have a say so.
He's actually maturing us to the point
where we have a greater and greater weight
in the discussion.
He's bringing us to that maturity.
So God, and he wants to be changed by us.
So the spirit is bringing life.
Adam was a living being, it says,
but you were a life-giving spirit.
That is what you do.
You're giving life.
We talked about spirit.
We talked about life.
We talked about movement.
That's what we're giving to the earth.
And so let's draw this really quickly.
Here are some little markers.
So let's imagine.
So this is spirit.
Operating in life is extremely simple.
Extremely.
So I like to usually divide this into three different categories
just because, I don't know, that tends
to be the three things people bring up the most.
Business, relationship, and finances.
And yes, business is different than finances.
Well, let me do this.
This is business, relationships, and finances.
Now, how we interact with all of these
is the world sees this, sees that, and sees that.
So when we interact with business like the same person.
You, you interact in your business and you get a result that looks like this.
When you interact in your relationships, you get results like this.
When you interact with your finances, you get results like this.
The world looks down here and it, and it tries to back engineer it and
figure out how can I get this result?
Because everything in life is all, I mean, everything according to the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil is all about how do I predict and
control the outcome to make me feel safe?
So they want this particular outcome, so they're trying to back engineer it.
How do we get that?
So they look and notice that all of the results look different.
So they think, how would you get different results?
It must have a different input.
So if you try to operate your business, your relationships and
your finances according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
that is a lot of information you have to learn.
There's all of these formulas that are associated with all of these in order to
get different results.
And we think that we have to apply those formulas in all of those different ways
in order to get different results.
So instead of, so we have to learn a whole bunch of things in this area,
a whole bunch of things in this area, and a whole bunch of things in this area,
in order to try to be successful across life.
But thankfully, it is a lot easier than that.
Because you actually apply the exact same thing in the exact same way
across all areas of your life all the time.
You just apply spirit.
You apply the same spiritual principles in the same way in all areas of your life.
And so think of spirit as kind of like, just think of it kind of like the,
like a sun or whatever.
So when you, so in other words, light coming into all of these.
And the reason I drew them like triangles is think of them kind of like prisms.
When you're applying the same white light to all of them.
But when they get, when they get, when they pass through a prism,
it's going to divide the white light and, or sorry, not the prism.
Let's, let's, let's use a different word.
Let's throw, let's call them filters.
When you apply them, put, put light, pass light through different filters,
you're gonna get a different color on, on the other side.
So through spirit, you might get, sorry, through spirit.
When you pass your spirit through business,
because of business already operates according to certain principles.
So when your spirit moves through business, through those principles,
those principles are created by God to function on their own
without needing to be micromanaged.
And they know how to automatically create a result.
That is how they were created.
You do not have to manipulate.
You don't have to manipulate and learn and
understand law, laws to, to such a degree in order to get a particular result.
You can, but remember you're not subject to it.
That's the problem.
We can use tips, tricks, and strategies, and formulas.
But if we think that we're dependent on them in order to get a particular result
that God has promised to us, a million dollars or whatever, or
our business is gonna turn into X, or our relationship is gonna look like this.
You're gonna be married.
You're gonna have children.
You are, you're gonna get X dollar amount.
Then if we think that we are dependent on learning something in order to
ensure that what God's will wants to happen actually happens,
as operating according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
It's a lot of hard work.
We have to learn all of those things in order to guarantee ourselves
a very specific result.
But if you understand that your spirit, you can just operate as spirit.
That is all you apply.
You apply you.
That's what spirit is.
Spirit is not something you have.
Spirit is who you are.
So as you pass spirit through business, you might, you get blue.
As you pass spirit through relationships, automatically, according to the light,
and the spirit passes through the principles that God set in motion.
This is how relationships will work.
And you'll get red on the other side.
Effortlessly, it created it, according to the laws that God set in motion.
You didn't have to work for it.
You rested.
Same thing with finances.
You know, it might turn purple, I don't know.
But it's extremely, extremely effortless.
What you're, these are just business relationships,
finances, anything else is meant to serve you.
Not you structure your life in order to give your business what it needs.
Your business needs you.
It is meant to serve you.
To do it in any other way is serving your business.
It's being in servitude to it.
And that's an issue because God says, no, no, no, you are not enslaved.
You are in me.
I am all that you need.
Something else I was going to say about that, oh yeah, so these, how would I word that?
They are, they're not, they, okay, remember how we've been talking about the fact that
creation knows how to function and it is, and all it needs in order to function according,
in order and not chaos, is it needs a son of God to present himself.
So when you give it your spirit, it's like, oh, I know what to do with that.
I was made for that.
I know how to function.
I will turn into order now.
And it organizes itself into order and it operates appropriately.
If you don't give it spirit, it's in chaos, and no wonder we need all those tips, tricks,
strategies, and formulas in order to try to get it to work.
It's of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
We've, we have made it, we have robbed it of its life source, so we have to give it
a fake one.
It makes it just that much harder.
So it is not complicated to operate in life.
You don't, you're not subject to what it is that you don't know.
You're not victimized by what it is that you don't know.
You don't have to go to another conference.
You don't have to go read another business strategy book.
You don't even need, you don't need to hire a business consultant.
I used to be a business consultant.
You know, you don't need any of those things.
You can use them.
Remember, as long as you were shifted into your identity, God said, everything is permissible.
Use it if you want to.
You know, hire a business coach, hire a consultant, go to a conference, do whatever, but use it
as a son of God, knowing that it is meant to serve you, not you serve it.
If we think we need it, we're serving it.
So anyway, business, your relationships, your finances, if you don't like them, they need you.
You're missing.
If you don't like your business, relationships, or finances right now, it's missing you because
you've made it devoid of its life source, so it can't function unless you have a lot
of work, unless you apply a lot of work, unless you learn what tips, trick, or strategy that
you haven't implemented that somebody else out there knows, and so you're constantly
searching for it.
It's a lot harder to live life that way.
So this is how simple that it can be.
This is how I live my life, and I used to be a turnaround business consultant that would
deal in businesses in very, very extreme and dire financial situations, and I'm telling
you this principle works.
It does not matter how extreme that it is, and it doesn't matter how extreme the relationships
issues are.
I gave you just one example in my life of an extreme relationship issue with that man
who was very verbally abusive.
I've been in other professionals in personal situations that have been very extreme, and
I'm telling you the same principle that I apply in business and in my finances, I can
apply to very extreme relationship issues, and it works in all of them because a son
of God is presenting itself to creation, and creation is equipped and created to wait
or to know what to do and how to function as long as it sees itself in relationship
to you, to a king.
The reason it's you is because heaven is the Lord's, and the earth was given to man.
Man was sent to have dominion.
It's waiting for you.
This is a microcosm of how God governs his universe.
He's saying, I want you to govern your microcosm that I gave you.
I want you to look like me.
Watch how I govern, and you copy me, and I'll mature you into that.
Okay, just a few more points, and then we'll close with a song.
Okay, I've already mentioned that.
Okay, your business, even though I understand we're talking about business relationship
and finances is creation, the very essence of what it is that they are, so to speak,
in other words, what gives it life, what makes it function, what makes all the wheels turn
or whatever, is you.
It makes it a lot to think that your business, or your marriage, or your career, or your
or your parenting or whatever is this thing, your finances,
your budget, whatever, is this thing outside of you
that you need to control or whatever
is going to make everything 10 times harder because you're
separating yourself from it.
So understand that it doesn't have life in all of them.
And then you come along, and it's life response
to your life, and therefore, it reacts.
That's not what happens.
What happens is, or what's really going on,
is your life is the life of the business.
So again, it's almost like another microcosm of the fact
that God values union so highly.
It's not that we're unifying ourself with our business.
It's the fact that we need to understand
it's kind of like an empty shell.
There's no life in it.
I know that we're trying to personify creation
by talking about the fact that when it sees the Son of God,
it will respond.
And we're used to thinking, oh, well, that's like a living
being, so it has its own life.
You'll have to kind of bridge that gap there.
We're just trying to personify it
to understand how principles are set up
to respond to a Son of God.
But it doesn't have a life outside of you.
So it's not your enemy.
It's not a machine that you're trying
to discover what levers and buttons to push and pull.
It's not something outside of you
that you're trying to manipulate.
You are breathing God's breath has been breathed into you,
which is spirit.
So now you breathe that same spirit of God,
because you're in Him, bring that same spirit of God
into your business, into your marriage,
into your other relationships, into your finances, whatever.
And that gives it life.
They're empty shells otherwise.
Don't separate yourself so much from it,
because then you think that it's your enemy.
It's not your enemy.
It can't do anything without you.
It's not a threat.
And you're not subject to it.
I hope that that made sense.
I'm not really sure if I fully explained that in the way
that I mean.
I know what I mean, and I know what I'm trying to get across.
But hopefully that made sense.
And if it didn't, don't worry about it.
It was just kind of like something extra
that I wanted to kind of throw in,
because I noticed just when I was
struggling to start my business,
there were times where I was very resentful.
And you're only resentful if you feel
like you're being threatened.
You feel like it's this thing that's after you,
or that you're oppressed by, or that can cause you to do
things, and it can't.
It can't.
Same thing with marriage, relationships, your budget.
Business and relationships don't need knowledge.
They need you in order to work.
If you apply knowledge to them, and you give knowledge
to them as the source, you can use knowledge.
That's fine.
But if you give knowledge to them and saying,
this is your life source, not, hey,
this is a tool we're going to be using as part of the activity.
But I'm providing you your life source.
My spirit is providing you your life source.
If you don't do that, and you say, hey, look,
here's knowledge.
Here's something that I learned.
Here's a tip, trick, or strategy.
And doggone it, it better work.
Because that better create a result.
That should be the fuel that actually prompts a result.
If you give it, excuse me, if you actually give it that,
you're giving it death.
Your business and your finances, your relationships
don't need knowledge.
They need you.
So if you don't, again, you don't like something,
it's you that's missing, and you that it needs.
So can you kind of give me an example
of what it might look like when someone's making decisions
like in business or finances or whatever,
in the spirit versus not in the spirit?
Like, what might that look like?
Does it create different results?
I'm just trying to wrap my head around it.
So the results can look the same.
You can get a million dollars in your business
by applying spirit.
You can also get a million dollars
by applying formulas.
The thing is that to get a million dollars, in other words,
the fruit can look exactly the same,
which is why it's confusing because we're so
used to looking at a result.
Which is another reason why we keep laboring the fact you can't look at the manifestation and hold God accountable to it because
Does it have life in it or does it have death?
Well, because creation is subject to frustration everything that we're seeing right now is is
You know so much of what it is that we're seeing is actually death and it can't tell us about God at all
So when we are when we're operating, you know
Out of when we're giving it knowledge when we're giving it formulas and we're giving it giving it strategies
We have to work ten times harder
We can get the same result
But we're working ten times harder to get it and in the end result even though the the result looks the same one is ten million
Dollars in error one is million dollars and the others and is million dollars. God says that this breeds nothing but death
There's nothing but death in it
It's not even that it results in death
It started as death because the fuel that we gave it is us us
You know in proximity to the law and the law created death within us and that's all it is that we had to give it
So the results can look the same
but one brings one brings death and one brings life the importance of life and how it is that we see the difference eventually in
the result of
Those million dollars and how well how does the million dollars that is born of death?
How does it interact differently in the world than million dollars that is birthed in life is?
when things come into contact with something that has originally born at
The invisible realm and of the supernatural
Meaning eventually all the way back because where did we get our spirit?
We got it from God if it was birthed from that people and creation cannot
help but be transformed when it comes into the presence of God and
That and and what happens in that business and in that million dollars and in that environment
Actually changes creation and releases it from frustration and the other just just adds more to it
Adds more chaos and adds more corruption
so
Anyway, did I answer the question?
It can breed different results, yeah
You know
Excuse me
It can but I did want to make make make the comparison of the same result because you can absolutely get the same result
It it looks exactly the same but the substance and the value of the result is different
So therefore essentially down at its core the result is very different
But it looks the same on the outside with million dollars a million dollars
But if we look at the spiritual results one resulted in death and one resulted in life
So yes, they do breed different results, but in the way that we're used to looking at results
Well, did I get the million dollars did not get the million dollars operating my business out of spirit in this particular?
And at this particular time, did I get that result? Yes, I did
I operated out of strategies in this one how to work ten times harder. Did I get a million dollars?
Yeah, I did. So we tend to think of that as our result. But yeah, you're right
Ultimately deep down totally different result one brings death one brings life one one releases creation from frustration
Moves them into freedom
Okay, and so well
I'll be talking more about that. I guess next time or you know in the next session
Okay, I already said that so
give your
so we'll go ahead and pull up this song and the last thing that
And then we can close and then we will meet back up or we're gonna meet back up it
we're gonna meet back up here at and seven seven to nine and
We're gonna be talking about how to operate in business and operate in spirit the way that we've been talking about
much more specifically in relationships and
and in business
Yeah, a lot of like how to attract clients how to interact with difficult people all kinds of things so
Remember that that and give creation give business relationships finances other aspects of your life in your life
Give it your spirit and what it is when you're giving it your spirit is you are breathing into it the breath of God
So we'll play the song and then I hope y'all have a really good dinner and I'll see you back here at seven
This is
Through the eyes of men, it seems there's so much we have lost
As we look down the road where all the prodigals have a wall
One by one the enemy is whisper lies and let them off as slaves
♪♪♪
♪ But we know that You are God, Yours is the victory. ♪
♪ We know there is more to come that we may not yet see. ♪
♪ So with the faith You've given us, we'll step into the valley unafraid. ♪
♪ Yeah. ♪
♪ As we call out to dry bones, come alive, come alive. ♪
♪ We call out to dead hearts, come alive, come alive. ♪
♪ A battle of the ashes, let it see an army rise. ♪
♪ We call out to dry bones, come alive. ♪
♪♪♪
♪ God of endless mercy, God of unrelenting love. ♪
♪ Rescue every daughter, bring us back the wayward sons. ♪
♪ And by Your Spirit, breathe upon them, show the world that You alone can save. ♪
♪ You alone can save. ♪
♪ As we call out to dry bones, come alive, come alive. ♪
♪ We call out to dead hearts, come alive, come alive. ♪
♪ A battle of the ashes, let it see an army rise. ♪
♪ We call out to dry bones, come alive. ♪
♪♪♪
♪ So breathe, oh breath of God, now breathe, oh breath of God. ♪
♪ Breathe, oh breath of God, now breathe. ♪
♪ Breathe, oh breath of God, now breathe, oh breath of God. ♪
♪ Breathe, oh breath of God, now breathe. ♪
♪ As we call out to dry bones, come alive, come alive. ♪
♪ We call out to dead hearts, come alive, come alive. ♪
♪ A battle of the ashes, let it see an army rise. ♪
♪ We call out to dry bones, come alive, yeah. ♪
♪ We call out to dry bones, come alive. ♪
♪ Oh, come alive. ♪
♪♪♪
So we have been given the breath of God, which is spirit,
and we now breathe that into these dead things.
They're lifeless.
We're not giving them a life of their own.
We are their life, and we're sending it forth,
and they're like dead, they're like dry bones,
and we're breathing into them, and we're declaring over them
what God declared over us when we saw in Ezekiel 16
that he saw us on the side of the road.
It said, kicking about in our blood, what did he say
was the very first interaction that he had with us?
He declared, live.
We're called to act like our Father.
That was God's first words to us.
That's how we interact with creation.
We're bringing life.