Our Controlling Identity

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 30

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

Notice:  this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  Why a blog?  So that many can receive the weekly thoughts I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner.

When I first heard Michael make the statement that defines this section of his book, I had several fleeting thoughts…none of which were positive toward what he had to say.  And then God spoke to my heart and began to show me the truth of this “identity” thing.  Pretty interesting…to say the least!

OUR CONTROLLING IDENTITY

excerpt from pages 84-87 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 81-84 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

…write a description of yourself at your very worst moment.  Remember, what you are at your worst moment is your true condition!  When nothing has gone right (Michael gives 6 common occurrences), how would describe yourself?  (Michael gives 15 ways some people respond to times “when nothing has gone right)…

Because we are all the things that we described at our worst moment, it becomes evident that no one will accept or love us.  This realization creates considerable discomfort, since acceptance and love are our deepest needs…

(Michael gives an illustration of how we run to an imaginary sewing machine to make a “success suit” that looks like the impression we hope to make on others, then describes us as a rabbit that tries to “hop” around for however many minutes we can)…When you are living in your success suit, you are merely hopping…the world has the benefit of knowing you in your success suit while you hop, but your family reaps the consequences of knowing the real you.

…One proof that what we are at our worst moments is our true condition is that we have tried to cover it up with the success suit.  Another proof is that people can control us through this identity…

…How a person responds to negative evaluation is a sure test of who he believes he is.  If when told he is a failure someone reacts in anger, it is because he believes that he is a failure.  People in the business of covering up their true identities hang on every word and event, and manifest great hostility when anything confirms their fear of who they really are.

I guess one of the reasons I had the initial negative thoughts concerning the idea of “what I am at my worst is really what I am” was because I had two things that molded my early years (which have greatly impacted my later years):

·         I had a wonderful childhood.  Great memories of years and years of a terrific life from birth to the teen years.  Great grandparents, great parents, a younger sister that was a little bit of a pain early on…but great years.

·         Great results in life’s activities…such that I had a card above my bedroom door that I glanced at time and again as I left to go enjoy life that read: “When you are as great as I am, it is difficult to be humble!”

I just never thought of my “bad” as being anything other than the result of someone else being the problem.

But, Michael opened the door to see many things in my life, and other’s.  And that “success suit” thing was a major breakthrough.  One big reason is because I knew Ephesians 1:6 told me I am “accepted in the beloved.”  Wow!  “Accepted in the beloved”!  Tell me how any acceptance by some other person than God can compare with that?!?  And I had already learned just how much God loved me…together they give me the love AND acceptance of God.  That was 30 years ago.  It just took 15 years before I discovered what I had learned 15 years before had any connection with the “success suit” I had been wearing prior.  The last 15 years have been an uncomplicated life and easy life as a Christian…more than I ever imagined experiencing! 

Keep reading Michael’s book…you will find the love and acceptance of God!

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                                               936-559-5696

The Search For Sanity

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

Notice:  this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  Why a blog?  So that many can receive the weekly thoughts I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner. 

Sanity…sounds so sweet, doesn’t it?  Knowing what we know about the differences in mental and emotional PEACE, plus having a SOUND MIND…and having neither…is it no wonder why so many folks are searching for that SANE state of mind?  Michael gives us his 2^nd result of “being born dead to God in the spirit” and what the Believer has that the Unbeliever cannot possess.  And, he then presents his 3^rd result…

THE SEARCH FOR SANITY

excerpt from pages 80-84 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 76-81 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

…I define sanity as having one’s mind, will, and emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit…sanity is being in touch with reality, and what can be more real than being in touch with God?  (2)Therefore, if we are all born dead to God in the spirit, what is everyman’s condition at birth?  Insanity!  Insanity is merely being out of touch with reality, and God is the only absolute reality…Even the believer who is born again and has Christ’s Spirit within the renewed inner person can erect a wall of unbelief that disallows Christ’s rule over the soul; at that moment the believer, too, is quite insane.

…Emotions are deceptive…The unsupervised emotions of man provide quite a playground for Satan; there he can maximize his calculated destruction with minimum effort.

…after one traffics in depression for a period of time, it can come to be the normal course of the day…Just as we can judge thoughts and reject them, we also can determine which emotions are following the enemy’s lead.

We were not created to live independently of Him; that brings insanity.  It is only in humble dependence upon the Creator that mind and emotions enter into soundness and trustworthiness.  Being born dead to God in the spirit has caused us to be self-centered in our attempts to have our deepest needs met; it also has caused us to exist in a condition of insanity, wherein we have listened to and acted upon false thoughts and lying emotions.

The final result (3) of being born dead to God in the spirit is loss of identity; we were created for God, and yet are not brought into the world possessed by Him, or Him by us.  Therefore, our very reason for existence is not apparent.  We are born in a condition of not knowing who we are but being driven to find out…Being born without God, self-centered and insane, we have received identity messages from others in the same condition and proceeded to believe and live out of them!

I am constantly amazed at how easy it is to read and understand life from Michael’s writings.  The truths of Scripture come alive and can be appropriated in a quick and simple manner.  “Sanity…having one’s mind, will, and emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit.”  How easy to grasp…how quick to be able to know whether my soul (mind, will, and emotions) IS or ISN’T under the control of the sweet Holy Spirit!

The issue is not a “contest” or a “judgment”, and certainly not a “condemnation,” of whether I AM or I AM NOT…it is a “recognition,” and (if I am not) then a CHOICE of moving TO the Holy Spirit, or “resisting and remaining” under another’s control.

“Identity.”  I remember being Born Again at the age of 35 (actually 11 days before my 35^th birthday).  Having been encouraged and I had gotten involved in some beautiful scriptural studies immediately that taught me WHO I AM in Christ, I had my new identity to replace all the old ones that the world and those in the world had taught me.  Wow!  I NEVER knew how monumental that would turn out to be!  And then, 15 years later, I learned WHO CHRIST IS IN ME!  Beautiful!

There is a lot in these 5 pages of the book…hope you have one to read in its entirety.  Let me close today with this: unbelief, emotions, and dealing with depression are gripping far too many in the Body of Christ.  It is my prayer that you have someone help you to find “it is only in humble dependence upon the Creator that mind and emotions enter into soundness and trustworthiness.”  Finding that “humble dependence” is not as simple as speaking it, due to the false thoughts and lying emotions that can linger past the new birth.

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                                               936-559-5696

The Inescapable Emptiness

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 28

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

Notice:  this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  Why a blog?  So that many can receive the weekly thoughts I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner

We left off the last writing mentioning that Michael was just getting ready to address three problems facing those who are “born dead to God in the spirit.”  Today we find him talking about the 1^st one…

THE INESCAPABLE EMPTINESS

excerpt from pages 76-79 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 72-75 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

First…man is driven, and ends up looking in places other than God to make up his deficiency…Man becomes thoroughly and intensely self-centered in his quest for love and acceptance.

…The self-centered life is a miserable one.  It tries to draw every item in the world to itself…

Consider the stupidity of self-centered life…Unfortunately, self-life is a force much greater than reason, capable of enslaving mankind.

…Self-life is ugly, wicked, and will always lead to misery, controlling people and giving them a truly beastly existence.  That is what it is meant to be carnal: to live as an animal.

An animal has a soul (mind, will, emotions) and body, but no spirit…

In my work, I’m amazed at the depth and extent of the hideous nature of the self-life.

(Michael gives an extensive list of the characteristics of the self-centered)

…The self-centered man is blinded both to his condition and to the destruction that he causes, not only in his own life, but also in its wake.  He will begin to experience turmoil in the personality, disturbed emotions, and sickness, followed by discord and division in his relationships with others.

One of the saddest things for Christians is to reject God’s grace when faced with any issue of life and to fall back into dealing with life in the same manner they did prior to being born into the Family of God: self-centeredness.  Rejecting God’s grace negates the power of Christ’s Spirit living within AND negates the awesome availability of His mind, will, and emotions also possessed. 

To be a Child of God and to live like a child of the devil is the most pitiful life.  How man could be persuaded to do this, to most is incomprehensible.  Yet, it is simply a CHOICE.  And that choice is basically determined by UNBELIEF.  Every test in life is about WHAT WE BELIEVE ABOUT GOD.

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                                               936-559-5696

The Development of Self-life

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 27

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

Notice:  this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  Why a blog?  So that many can receive the weekly thoughts I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner. 

Michael begins this section by addressing the biggest dilemma every human being born on this earth faces…being “dead to God in the spirit” and yet having our greatest need facing us: satisfying the need to be loved and accepted by God.  In this short dialogue, Michael brings us to three problems every human being faces…

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF-LIFE

excerpt from pages 75-76 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 71-72 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

According to 1 John 4:8, God is love.  Since love must have an object, God created man to be this entity.  To assure that His inclination to love would be met, God put in man’s spirit the need to be loved and accepted by Him.  The moment we are born, we are driven to find our Creator to meet this need within us.

There is, however, one major obstacle to having God meet our spiritual need for love and acceptance.  We are born dead to God in our spirits, making it impossible to have the desire consummated.  In Genesis 2:17, God said, “But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.”  It is an absolute imperative that if they eat of the tree they will die!  They did eat thereof, and God said they were dead, even though their souls were still active (they were thinking, feeling, and choosing) and their bodies were still functioning.  They were dead and yet living; where, then, did the death take place?  There is only one place left – the spirit.  They were dead to God in the spirit, the result being that it would now be impossible to have their deepest needs – spiritual love and acceptance that could come only from God – met.  This condition presents three particular problems for man.

Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point      Green – IT, Incredible Truth        

Red – GP, Greatest Promises

Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches           Pink – PV, Priceless Victory

What a sad state to live in: dead to God in the spirit, faced with the impossibility of having their deepest needs – spiritual love and acceptance – met by God, and yet functioning with a body and a soul that craves everything THE OPPOSITE or WITHOUT God…and, really not knowing they are in that condition! (2 Corin. 4:3-4)

It is incredible that “man” seeks knowledge far and wide, but spiritual truth is at the bottom of the list that most ever seek.  And those of us who have found The Truth seem oblivious to the one thing that grasped our attention, the one thing God used to break through to us…He used someone to answer that question that perhaps we weren’t even asking: How can I find spiritual love and acceptance?

Man, in his feeble efforts, has tried to find love and acceptance through the flesh, missing the point that it is spiritual love and acceptance he really needs.  And the church has constantly done a good job of pointing out the failures of man’s flesh, all the while never addressing the need for spiritual love and acceptance.  When will we as a whole begin to address this with everyone? 

For as life has dealt many Christians a severe blow, and their response to God has been incorrect, they now deal with the same emptiness that someone who doesn’t know God is dealing with.  God’s answer is always the same: JESUS.

Want to know what the three problems are?  Want to know God’s solution to each?  Michael gets to these and other issues in the next few pages of the book…

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                                               936-559-5696

The Conviction of Self-Life

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 26

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

In this brief introduction to the long discourse on the “self-life,” Michael simply asks the questions that he answers in the next 25 pages (chapter 6), which is followed by 30 pages of “The Loss of Self-Life”! (chapter 7).  So, we begin a journey of finding out what the self-life is before we can get lose it.  Grab a pen, get your Bible and a Concordance…and prepare for a tremendous journey into the best discipling you will have ever heard.  Chapter 6…

THE CONVICTION OF SELF-LIFE

excerpt from pages 75 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 71 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  For whosoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is one who will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24)   Jesus says the way to life will be through death, and if they are to follow Him, they must deny self.  What is this self that we are commanded to deny, and what is the life that must be lost in order to live?

Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point      Green – IT, Incredible Truth        

Red – GP, Greatest Promises

Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches           Pink – PV, Priceless Victory

“Self” and “Life”…two different things.  But when put together, all sorts of havoc is noted in anyone’s life…lost or born again.  The journey Michael takes us on in the next 25 pages of SIW show us clearly what these two are, and how devastating they can be.  But like the great discipler he is, he always gives us God’s answer to our dilemma.  We will learn “what it is.”  We will learn “how to deny.”  We will learn “how to lose.”  And most importantly, we will learn “how to be convicted, and to recognize it when it comes.”

Let me wet your whistle with a couple of harbingers of what is to come:

·         “Even the believer who is born again and has Christ’s Spirit within the renewed inner person can erect a wall of unbelief that disallows Christ’s rule over the soul; at that moment the believer, too, is quite insane.”

·         “In order to have a problem we must rebel against God, and the only thing that will justify rebellion is anger.”

Well, it will be an exciting journey, to say the least.  Why don’t you take the time to dig into the Greek words behind “deny,” “self,” “save,” and “life” in this passage from Luke ch.9.  This will give you a great start to discovering some important truths which will be of great help in the weeks to come.

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

If you desire to get a weekly email of this blog, look to the top right hand side of the web page, enter your email address in the box under “Follow,” then click on SUBMIT.  You will receive a “confirmation email,” and when you click on the link and “confirm,” you will receive all new posts via email.

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                                               936-559-5696