40 DAYS: Consistently Submitting

Solitude is much like breathing in while community is more like breathing out. To consistently submit to God’s desires, we must make room and take time to know the Father’s heart in places of solitude, prayer and reading scripture. From these private places with God come powerful expressions in community from having been alone with the Creator of the Universe!

WE MUST PAUSE TO CATCH THE FIRE BEFORE WE TRY TO BURN!

Introverts tend to migrate toward the practice of solitude while extroverts tends to migrate toward the practice of community. Solitude bares the resemblance of breathing in. Community bares the resemblance of breathing out. Both are important serving the purpose of making the other more effective! Jesus modeled a healthy balance for us to observe so we might be inspired to put this into practice.

Healthy solitude is being alone with God. Deep spiritual concentration requires us to be free from distraction of all other sources of input. If you are in the constant presence of people you will become overstimulated and underdeveloped. 

Solitude awakens the non-anxious disposition to love others well.

Heathy community is experiencing a deep connection with God and others awakening something powerful within you that you cannot experience alone.

We clearly see a strong relationship in the life of Jesus between his devotion to solitude and his connection to power.

Luke 5:16-17 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. 17 One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. NIV

Jesus spent time with The Father receiving what was needed for what was next. Before choosing the 12 disciples (Luke 6:12-13). Before feeding the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21). Before walking on water (Matthew 14:23). Jesus often withdrew to lonely places to pray and prepare for what was ahead.

If Jesus, the Son of God, prioritized solitude to stay connected to the Father, how much more do we need to do the same?

God is inviting us into a deeper place. A deeper place comes with a greater price but great is the reward for those who diligently seek Him.

John 15:4-5 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ESV

These two practices look different in every stage and season of your life but do whatever it takes to discover a healthy rhythm of these breath-like life-sustaining behaviors no matter what season of life you’re in!

GP2RL: Explore purposeful solitude this week and engage in authentic community.

Blog: From Death To Life

Ephesians 2:1-3 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ESV

PICTURE: Pray Love Invite 

Ephesians 2:4-10 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. ESV

VIDEO: Church Is A Verb

You are divinely purposed and uniquely gifted by God!

Ephesians 2:11-12 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ESV

Ephesians 2:13-22 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

We are citizens of heaven with a purposed assignment in the conquered territory of this fallen world. 

GP2RL: Read the book of Ephesians this week and continue to Invite people into your life, your love and your faith journey as the Holy Spirit directs.