{"id":80,"date":"2009-12-24T07:09:04","date_gmt":"2009-12-24T12:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=80"},"modified":"2013-06-26T11:31:52","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T15:31:52","slug":"monitoring-the-inflow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=80","title":{"rendered":"Monitoring the Inflow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u201cA person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven \u2026 he gives the Spirit without measure.\u201d<\/em> (John 3:27, 34b)<\/p>\n<p>Take a moment and go back over these words of God a time or two more.\u00a0 Slow down.\u00a0 Breathe deeply.\u00a0 Purposely pause to ponder.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The first line was uttered by John the Baptist as his disciples began to panic over people\u2019s sudden preference of Jesus over their master.\u00a0 They were afraid they were loosing something that had become precious to them.\u00a0 They couched it as concern for John, but surely part of it was their loss of status as insiders with the most popular preacher around.\u00a0 John\u2019s humility before Jesus stands in stark contrast.<\/p>\n<p>As these words began to seep into the crevices of my soul these important points floated to the surface of my thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Everything is by grace.\u00a0 Nothing is mine by right.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>God is absolutely sovereign over my life and over what enters it (and what does not enter it).<\/li>\n<li>If something enters my life it is by God\u2019s permission and it therefore means something.<\/li>\n<li>What comes into my life is controlled by someone outside of me, God Himself.\u00a0 I am not ultimately in control of the inflow.<\/li>\n<li>I must therefore live by faith and dependent upon God\u2019s grace.<\/li>\n<li>There is no limit to Jesus\u2019 willingness to give His Spirit to me.\u00a0 All limitation is from my side.<\/li>\n<li>There is therefore no limit outside of myself to what God can do in and through me.<\/li>\n<li>My responsibility is not to be a busy \u201cproducer,\u201d but a responsible \u201creceiver.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>I am accountable to God for the reception and use of those things He gives into my life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Paul uttered words similar to those of John the Baptist: \u201cWhat do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?\u201d (1 Cor. 4:7).\u00a0 James did the same: \u201cEvery good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.\u201d (James 1:17)<\/p>\n<p>John, Paul, and James had each come to the place where they were gladly praying something very much like these lines penned by some anonymous sojourner.\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Lord, I am willing<br \/>\nTo receive what You give,<br \/>\nTo lack what You withhold,<br \/>\nTo relinquish what You take,<br \/>\nTo suffer what You inflict,<br \/>\nTo be what You require. (quoted by Jerry Bridges, <em>Transforming Grace<\/em>, p.185)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0Are you able to genuinely pray this as well?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Come on, be honest.\u00a0 We don\u2019t arrive at such a place quickly or painlessly.\u00a0 But God both <em>gives<\/em> and <em>withholds<\/em> in order that He might bring us to this place of glad, willing, honest surrender and contentment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The trail God has you on <em>right now<\/em>\u2014with all that has come into your life and all that has been withheld from your life\u2014winds its way to this very destination.\u00a0 Know this.\u00a0 He is on the trail before you \u2026 leading you.\u00a0 He is on the trail before you \u2026 preparing the way for you.\u00a0 He is on the trail before you \u2026 making sure that you are headed toward the place He has prepared for you to dwell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cA person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven \u2026 he gives the Spirit without measure.\u201d (John 3:27, 34b) Take a moment and go back over these words of God a time or two more.\u00a0 Slow down.\u00a0 Breathe deeply.\u00a0 Purposely pause to ponder.\u00a0 The first line was uttered by John [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel-of-john","post-preview"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYGxX-1i","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1645,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/1645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}