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"Greater love (a more real love) than this has no man that he would lay down (yield) his life for another." (John 15:13  )
CHAPTER FOUR - THE POWER OF YIELDING
NOTE: Because of the potential for deliverance and transformation through understanding, in this series of "power" teachings, I will intentionally repeat portions and phrases that have the capacity to impart anointing, and to open up revelation knowledge of the point and message. This is the renewing of the mind by the washing of the water of the word. The impartation is one that will bring understanding to your conscious mind out of the spiritual information you are receiving. The Book of Proverbs tells us to get understanding. Understanding will bridge and interpret spiritual things to your soul in order for her to be enabled to work with your spirit man for the application of these things. Without understanding the soul resists spiritual things and partners up instead, with the body. The soul and the body working together against the spirit is what is called the flesh. It could be compared to the wife and mother being a "partner" with the child against the husband and father... creating a dysfunctional and disordered family unit. Bear with me in my repetition for Christ's sake and for your own transformation.
Many of you have called and written to share with me the affects on you of reading (and rereading) this material. I encourage you to absorb the understanding of these very simple but powerful and enlightening concepts, especially of the power of the present second. I rejoice at the reports of new ease in achieving and maintaining victories and freedom that were long struggled for, and the testimonies of accelerated growth (great lunges froward in ground taken). I appreciate hearing from you.
APPREHENDING THE CHARACTER OF GOD
2 Peter 1:2-4 , Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (NKJ)
(This is reality: You may be partakers of the divine nature!!! Think on it!)
1 John 4:17 , Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. (NKJ)
We, alone, have the power to choose to whom and to what we will yield over our members, our vessel, our life, and our self. Yielding is a strange "action" that activates and precipitates death to what was and what could have been (to self-will). It is the preferring of another. It is the laying down of one's own ways and life, in order to give over the position, the place, the time, the space, the attention, the recognition, and the power to that one who is, instead, being preferred.
Like other spiritual principles that reverse natural formulas (the last shall be first, the least is the greatest, what you give determines what you receive, etc.), the power of yielding also seems like a contradiction. Yielding appears to be a passive and weak non-action. It can mean holding back and waiting for another to go first or be first. We're told to prefer one another. The yield sign in traffic tells us to hold our self back and to give over the right of way to the other, preferring them by letting them go before us or instead of us. In love we prefer and honor one another in kindness, in patience, and in thoughtfulness. But we need to completely yield over the vessel that we are to our God, so that like Paul, we know that Christ is our life; that it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.
God is Spirit and we are His body. He calls for us to yield over our hearts for Him to make His Tabernacle in. He tells us to "let" this mind be in you that is also in Christ. He wants to think His thoughts (about everything and everyone that concerns you) in your mind. He wants to fill your soul with His Nature that is the fruit of the spirit. He wants to radiate His life and love and power and healing out from His living presence in you. Regardless how wonderful you think you are, His great life will become you. His wonderful nature is becoming to us. When He is living in us and through us, we begin to see our potential fulfilled.
My own soul begins to turn within in awe, when she realizes it is Him in the midst of me! It is Christ in me, the hope of glory! How could this be true? How could this be happening? Press in to yield over to Him and your own soul will fall deeply in love with Jesus. The more she experiences and develops a deeper relationship with Him, the more she will become like the woman in Luke 7:35-50 . She found out that Jesus was in a certain house, and because she was beginning to know who He was... so alive, so different, and so powerfully loving... more so than anyone else, she was compelled to draw near Him, to be close to Him, to love on Him. She was identified as a sinner by the Pharisee, but evidently, according to Jesus, she was one who had been forgiven much, and therefore who could love much. Unlike Simon, the Pharisee, she was apparently humble enough to know her true condition and that Jesus was the only one who could make the difference in her life. She broke in upon Him. She gushed, she wept, she invested her extravagant, perfumed oil, and she honored Him openly casting aside her self-consciousness. She ignored her persecutor to give Jesus all of her undivided attention, adoration, and affection. That's how all of us should worship Him. Read John 12:1-7 . What distractions she endured to keep her focus on Him! She had yielded all she was and all she had to Him without reservation. She gave Him great honor. She was transparent. Her whole heart and her life was His.
Yielding is a strange kind of voluntary"action" that precipitates death to self. It is the complete preferring of the other, the laying down of one's own ways, rights, and life.
John 15:13 , "No greater love has any man than he would lay down (yield) his life for another." (NKJ)
He yielded over His life to the max until He was able to say, "It is finished." Now we actually have the opportunity to receive and take up His life. We also have the opportunity to yield our life, our presence over to Him. What an exchange! What a deal! My life for His and His life for mine. What a deal! Our lives are made up of time and energy. We each trade, invest, and spend our time and energy (as it comes and goes in each present second) on something. You are trading and yielding your life over to something... for something. Are you aware of what you are exchanging your life for? What exactly are you spending your time and energy on? What are your fruits? What do you have that is meaningful and valuable and a treasure that is worthy of spending your life on? What qualifies as a treasure stored up in heaven? What will be in your account? I'll talk more about that matter further on.
Jesus Christ is the only one and the only nature worthy of receiving and deserving our yielded life. Who and what other than HIM would include and represent all that is called LOVE, LIGHT, TRUTH, RIGHTEOUSNESS, FORGIVENESS, PEACE, GRACE, AND MERCY; RESTORATION, RESURRECTION, GLORY, AND POWER? And this GREAT ONE knows more than any other about THE POWER OF YIELDING. He became our pattern and our example. He yielded Himself as seed, to go into the ground as one who dies in order to bring forth another kind of yield... a great and huge crop of all that the original seed contained... THE DIVINE NATURE, THE INCORRUPTIBLE NATURE, OF WHICH WE ARE NOW PARTAKERS.
The other day I sat thinking about some of my needs that were not being met by those who had committed to take care of these things for me, and I felt frustration, resentment, and anger rise up. I have a right to have my needs met, too! I have a right to be hurt and upset. I have a right to be angry. This is not right. But then, for a present second I held my heart and attitude before The Lovely Lord, and I felt His spirit adjust me gently. The real matter and proof of my life is not about getting all my needs met, but what rises up in me when they aren't met. Do I lower myself to react on a horizontal level? Am I yielding my mind and heart over to His Living Presence to be in me? Am I letting Him think His thoughts about all this in my mind? Am I able to be still and know that He is God? Am I filled with the reality that He is faithful to meet all my needs. I shall not want for anything. What I really need is wisdom, patience, mercy, and kindness. I really need the kind of love that covers a multitude of sins and then I need to know the truth, and the truth (who He is) will make me free. Then as I continue to yield over to His Presence in me, I can begin to understand how He would have me to speak the truth... in love. He would have me to seek to understand before I seek to be understood.
Soon I am flooded with who He is. It is so good to know that He will also treat me this way when I don't measure up to other's expectations for me. Oh, I pray they will also yield over their lives to Him. I would rather, any day, to receive my dealings from God Almighty rather than man. Human love is conditional and temporary. Human's seem to judge harshly and if they're wounded, they are quick to wound back. When we will take the time (each present second only as it comes and is here) to consider Him; to re-member Him within ourselves, to give Him our place, our voice, our face... He will come. He will fill, will speak, and will show up if we really want to yield over ourselves to the One who is love. This is real love. There is nothing in my little and low self-life that compares to His High Ways. The purpose of my life is fulfilled when I am yielded to Him and make way, giving Him the right of way, giving Him my time and my place to come forth. There is no higher purpose for me than to take advantage of the opportunity to become a partaker of the divine nature.
He gives great wisdom in communication as He gives us impartations of His great unconditional Love; of His Loving Nature. If I can begin to give out of this nature, only then will I also be able to begin to receive of it. I take this one present second at a time, and tap into it's awesome power God has put in it for me. Within it is the power of transformation! Within it is a tiny little taste of the power to choose. Within it I find for that whole second I am able to perceive and manage to experience the power of yielding.
These precious seconds continue to open up and offer one more unit of His Life to me. The fulfilled seconds are consecutive and are strung together, like pearls, one after another making up one lovely yielded moment. Yet He moves in the NOW, and I must be present here with Him and for Him.
This power of yielding in the present second to the Spirit and Nature and Life of God offers me the ongoing ability to let the Divine Nature be set in me and habitually yield to all I know Him to be. It is heaven, when I, with my self-centered ways, abandon ship and yield to my captain to fulfill the mission. I yield to the real power. I yield to the Living God, who knows how to come forth in the most excellent way, as me, out of my soul and my body, the Christ in me will express Himself. I yield to the One who is worthy to have ALL of my life. What other nature is worthy? He is so good. He does so much better than I could ever do or have ever done with my life. He makes my life magnificent! He makes me look good! He fulfills me! When I let Him have His way in me, then I understand the awesome affect that He has on people. Their responses are amazing. They all love Him when they experience Him. They recognize that something supernatural is happening. Even the heathen are astounded by His Presence, His Anointing, His Nature, and His Ways.
Oh, brothers and sisters... we can be partakers of His Divine Nature!!! It only requires our yielding. He is always present and available to live in us and through us. We must know Him and know His Will, Words, and Ways. We must know His Nature, and open up our heart to all that is Truth and Light. What we let go of is dung and misery... nothing compared to what we benefit as we yield. Transformation is in the power of yielding to Him. The Kingdom of God is at hand. The time of salvation is now. Have you got a few seconds to spare? Let this powerful, living/loving mind be in you. The more you yield and experience His Nature expressed through you, the more you will want, need, and love Him. To him who has, more will be given. Have you got a second now? What are your matters? What will He do in and through you... as you, in your relationships? His Nature flowing out of you to others, will heal you.
HE IS THE LAMB THAT IS LIGHT.
THERE'LL BE NO MORE NIGHT
ALL YOUR TEARS BE GONE
ALL YOUR SORROW'S FLOWN
THROUGH THE CHRIST IN THE MIDST OF THEE.
Phil 2:1 ‑16 Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like‑minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. (NKJ)
" American Heritage Dictionary Definition:
yield (y'ld) v. yieldAed, yieldAing, yields. --tr. 1.a. To give forth by or as if by a natural process, especially by cultivation. b. To furnish as return for effort or investment; be productive of. 2.a. To give over possession of, as in deference or defeat; surrender. b. To give up (an advantage, for example) to another; concede. --intr. 1.a. To give forth a natural product; be productive. b. To produce a return for effort or investment. 2.a. To give up, as in defeat; surrender or submit. b. To give way to pressure or force. c. To give way to argument, persuasion, influence, or entreaty. d. To give place, as to one that is superior. --yield n. 1.a. An amount yielded or produced; a product. b. A profit obtained from an investment; a return. 2. The energy released by an explosion, especially by a nuclear explosion, expressed in units of weight of TNT required to produce an equivalent release. --yield'er n.
" Strongs Concordance #5087 tithemi (tith'‑ay‑mee); to place in a passive or horizontal posture, advise, appoint, bow, commit, conceive, give, kneel down, lay aside, lay down, lay up; make, ordain, purpose, put, set forth, settle, sink down.
You will find more on "Real Love"... The Power of Yielding in the next chapter. I pray God bless you with the impartation of understanding and revelation knowledge as your soul unwraps these words and digests them to assimilate the power and anointing they contain. I pray for each one who reads these words to be empowered for yielding and for transformation into His image. Whoever reads these words, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I pray for you.
Greater love (a more real love) than this has no man that he would lay down (yield) his life for another." (John 15:13 )
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