Appropriation: Learning to Recieve from God: Learning to Receive from God

By Roger Dixon

A tremendous paradigm change occurs as we move into the current manifestation of the kingdom of God. It is a paradigm change from passivity to aggressiveness. In this higher level of the kingdom, we learn to take from God what He has provided instead of passively waiting for Him to move. Aggressive faith is the key to walking in Christ's completed provision for us. Exercising the faith required for this new day is contingent upon abiding in the correct realm. If we abide in the time realm, our capacity to receive from God is limited. As we learn to abide in the eternal realm of spirit, all doors open for us. God is a "now" God. We cannot receive from Him if we relate to Him historically. Putting off into the future something God will do closes the door from receiving now. No time or distance exists in God's world, the spirit realm. All things have been provided for us in Christ. We are to learn how to take those provisions right now. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God suffers violence, and violent men take it by force." What does that mean? It is not a call to physical violence but rather a call to throw off the passivity of religion and take from God what He has given. Learning to receive from God is an aggressive action in our spirits.

Jesus told parables related to our persistence to receive from God. The parable of the friend who comes at midnight and the parable of the unjust judge demonstrate God's delight in His people as they aggressively seek Him. God insists upon our persistence of faith because it creates in us a wholeheartedness for Him. James tells us, "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you." The Lord is at our initiative. That is revolutionary. Religion teaches to wait passively and reverently. But our Father delights in the aggressiveness of sons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9780989989893

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APPROPRIATION

Learning to Receive from God

By

Roger Dixon

Copyright and Contact Information

Copyright © 2021 by Roger Dixon. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written consent. Excerpts may be used for quoting.

Published by:

Hiddenite Publishing

ISBN: 9780989989893

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Age of Spirit

The kingdom age opening is not one of miracles and outer manifestations such as defined past ages. The coming age is an age of appropriation. God’s people will learn to appropriate the provisions of Christ with their spirits. This opening age is one of great joy because we come to know the Lord and see Him just as He is. Only in the realm of our spirits is this possible. The dealings and manifestations of God in the church age have been predominately in the soul realm. In that realm, we can never see Christ perfectly. But in our spirits, we can know even as we have been known. The separation of soul and spirit that Hebrews 4 speaks of must be a distinct work of God in us. Understanding our spirits and learning to function with them is a difficult transition. As we make this transition, God becomes available to us in ways we cannot imagine.

The prophetic word that matters at this point is the word that can reveal Jesus Christ to us. We should not be concerned about world events, nations, etc., but the revelation of Jesus Christ in our spirits. Predictions about things are on a timeline, but Christ is being revealed outside the realm of time. It doesn't matter if timeline predictions are accurate or not; they do not further reveal Christ to us. Only as we move up higher into the realm of spirit, i.e., the eternal realm, can we speak and hear Christ in a way that transforms and changes us.

Why do the many prophets in Christianity only prophesy about nations and events happening globally? It is because they are abiding in the soulish realm of time. That’s not to say these men and women are not speaking by the Holy Spirit, but Christ cannot be revealed in the time realm of prophecy. Events and predictions of what IS COMING cannot bring the revelation of Jesus Christ to us that we need. Timeline prophets are failing; the entire soulish/predictive realm is failing. We must hear and speak Christ in the Now. Only a now revelation of Christ opens the kingdom of God and its mysteries to us.

Transitioning

from Soul to Spirit

It isn't easy making the transition from soul to spirit. It is because we fail to recognize one realm from the other. When we use the term spirit, we are referring to our human spirits. That is the part of us joined to the Lord. All our emotions and feelings belong to the realm of our souls. When we feel the presence of the Lord, it's because our soul lives have come alive in some way to His presence abiding in our spirits. The transition that God is ordaining is one in which we become aware of Him in our spirits regardless of how we feel. The fact is, when we get in tune with our spirits, our soul lives always follow. Many Christians, however, experience it precisely the opposite. Christians tend to wait until they feel God's presence before acting or believing He is leading or speaking to them.

At this juncture in time, God is opening a higher realm for His people. We must walk with a consciousness of our own spirit. We must be able to discern between our soul and our spirit. God has granted unlimited access to Himself. In our spirits, there are no barriers to beholding the Lord. We cannot say this about our souls. When God pulls away from our consciousness of Him, we say God is dealing with us, or He is putting us through the fire. These are terms that apply to the soul realm, and they are accurate if we live in that realm only. In days past, God dealt with His people in the soul realm because that was the realm in which He manifested Himself. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross opened the dispensation of the soul to God's people. Before Jesus' first coming, God's dealings and blessings were predominately on the physical plane. You don't read too much in the Old Testament about the inward man. That is why Jesus came proclaiming such things as, "You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Jesus was elevating things from one level into a higher one. Now, it wasn't just a physical act but a matter of the heart. The drives and intents of the heart embrace the soul life. That is a higher realm than the physical.

The pressures and the work of the cross in our spirits do not come to deal with behavior, good or bad. The pressures come to drive us out of the soul realm completely. God will allow the stresses of life, the adverse circumstances, and the absence of His presence to continue in us until we think we are going to burst. Unconsciously, we try to hold on until God meets us. That is still soul realm thinking, and it is ingrained in us. If we think God is trying to accomplish something in us by what comes our way, then we are thinking too low. He is pushing His sons out of a lower realm so that they can experience the fulfillment of His word in a higher realm. It is essential to understand the dealings of God upon the soul life have been very valid. That is why we revert to soul realm thinking when God allows pressures to build up in us. The truth is, if we are contending to walk as sons, it's because God has brought us to this place. And if He has brought us to this level of hungering and contending, then the soul realm dealings in our lives have been completed. Accepting this is of the utmost importance. If we cannot accept it and feel the need for God to perfect us in the soul realm, we will always be going through some trial. We will wander in the wilderness as the Israelites did for 40 years before dying. If we cannot make the transition, we are still God's people; that is not the issue. He still loves us.

Nevertheless, we will not inherit with the sons God is bringing forth. His inheritance is made manifest in the realm of our spirits. We must be abiding there to experience it.

God is not interested in putting His sons through things simply to correct their soul lives. We need to crucify that kind of thinking. It is a renewing of the mind that brings us into the realm of our spirits. We must think differently. We must react differently to the adverse circumstances that come our way. God will allow our worlds to collapse on us, not because He is refining or dealing with us, but to prompt us to relate to Him on a higher level. Period. Moving into the realm of our spirits is the sum total of all His dealings that come on a lesser level.

God can teach us how to become aware of our spirits apart from the soul life. We can learn how to rise in our spirits until we are consciously aware of His presence. Each time we do this, we will experience the reality of the plowman overtaking the reaper. The growing season disappears because it exists only in the soul realm. There is no time or distance in our spirits. That is the entrance into the kingdom of God. Sons must come forth in the higher realm of their spirits. All the lessons we learned in previous days concerning God's grace, of trusting Him explicitly, of His unchanging love for us, come into play here. They become the foundation on which we stand in rejecting a realm with persuasive feelings that often contradict what God is saying to us. Do we see how it all dovetails together? God spends a lifetime teaching us of His love and grace and how He thinks of us. We apply those lessons for such a time as this. It's time for sons to appropriate their inheritance.

Galatians 4

1 ¶ Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything,

2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.

3 So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.

4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,

5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

6 Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father!

7 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

Crossing the Jordan

The transition from soul to spirit is the same as Israel's transition after celebrating the Passover on Jericho's plains.

Joshua 5

9 Then the LORD said to Joshua, Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. So the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.

10 ¶ While the sons of Israel camped at Gilgal they observed the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the desert plains of Jericho.

11 On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain.

12 The manna ceased on the day after they had eaten some of the produce of the land, so that the sons of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate some of the yield of the land of Canaan during that year.

Israel had crossed over the Jordan River and entered Canaan, the land of promise. They would no longer be wandering in the wilderness but possessing their inheritance. Crossing the Jordan was significant. It was leaving one realm behind and entering another. After crossing, the men of war were circumcised because they had not been circumcised during the 40 years of wilderness wandering. They then celebrated the feast of Passover. Verses 11-12 are significant. On the day after celebrating the Passover, Israel ate some of the produce of the land. The day after eating the produce, the manna ceased. Israel had eaten the manna for 40 years during their wilderness wanderings. They did not have to do anything to receive the manna, only go outside their tents each morning and pick it up. Entering the land of Canaan constituted a new realm of relating to God. Now, they would have to conquer their enemies and take for themselves God’s provision. Being nourished from the promised land would be far different than just having manna appear each morning. From the crossing of the Jordan onward, they would take their inheritance.

Jesus told the disciples in Mat. 11, "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. John came preaching, The kingdom of God is at hand. He was the forerunner of Christ and a new age opening. The kingdom of God was preached by both John the Baptist and Jesus. It is the kingdom that is taken by force. What came after the day of Pentecost was the opening of the church age. It has been an age of God meeting His people in the soulish, time realm. But the message of John and Jesus was, The kingdom is at hand." Prophetically, the day of spirit was being proclaimed by them, although it would be another 2000 years before its full expression. We are entering that expression now.

Our transition from soul to spirit is the same transition that Israel made when they entered Canaan. The Lord has been preached primarily as a God apart from us on whom we must wait to receive His blessings. The day of spirit, in which we relate to God solely through our spirits, is far different. The soulish realm has within it the realm of religion. Passivity fills religion. Functioning in our spirits eliminates passivity because it is a continual appropriation of God's provision for us. God fought for Israel, helping them possess their inheritance, but He didn't do it for them. They had to take what God had provided. God told Joshua, "You are old and advanced in years, and very much of the land remains to be possessed" (Josh. 13:1). We are just beginning to appropriate our inheritance in Christ. It is a sobering realization that we will not move forward without our conscious, deliberate appropriating of God’s provision.

This next step into the kingdom of God will see no blessing beyond our drawing it with our spirits. Drawing and receiving from God is a faith endeavor. It is grounded in His word to us, not our feelings and emotions. We take each new step into this new day dawning because we have deliberately reached into it with our spirits. We are to become the children