OUT OF THE BOX

Life is a process. An unfolding. A journey of continual discovery. An adventure. A process of thought. From this process of thought, it becomes a process of action. That’s what God intended from the beginning. That is where the gift lies, the Gift of Life. It requires understanding the order, the dimension, the choices and the reality. It is a path in which there is always “something more.”

Yet, more often than not the inclination is to limit and confine. We establish zones of comfort and build walls around them. Whenever we broach a threshold of discovery, the tendency is to set down stakes and build walls of containment. We need to pause when erecting walls and reignite the process and journey on this path of discovery.

One of the greatest misperceptions among people of faith is mistaking standards for conformity. It represents one of the greatest missteps and sources of blindness made by the household of faith, since God has had a people. It is the crux characterizing the burden and phoniness of the walls of religion versus the freedom of entering the spiritual realm where God reigns. The result is the process, the journey, the discovery being stymied and contained. With that containment has been the loss of the two key things that have defined those who have historically been raised to the level of being our models, as heroes of faith.

Those two key things have been power and creativity. Over the ages, God has yearned for the ones willing to get out of the box. Again, we encounter the precepts of men, with the premise makes salvation to be the end result rather than a part of the process. No question it is important, yet from God’s perspective, the ones He yearns for are the ones who recognize that the goal is walking together with Him on their journey of life.

Getting out of the box is allowing yourself to be driven, to be consumed by something bigger than yourself. That’s the paradox tied to the central message of Jesus: the Kingdom realm. It is the message that enables the power and creativity in this journey of life. It is the means to leave your mark in a way that will change things in the positive for others.

Yet, getting out of the box involves reality. Reality involves truth and entering this path of discovery becomes an adventure that begins and gels in our hearts and our thinking. Facing reality involves embracing truth at the most basic level, within our own hearts. Unwrapping the package that life holds then takes place in our thinking. It has been written that fear has torment. That torment is based on the negative expectations of what will happen if others really knew the truth about us.

Freedom comes from the response of bearing responsibility for the path we have chosen based on the reality we have embraced. That’s why Jesus said: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” When Jesus met others, He “knew” them. He saw through the pretense and masks and He loved them. He discerned their potential and God-intended destiny. It’s the basis of what is referred to as “unconditional love.” It is what Jesus worked so hard in getting through to Peter’s religiously-contained mind-set: It’s not what you can do for God, it’s what you allow God to do through you. THAT is the basis of true faith.

We live in a world in which we are told what to think. It’s been that way in one form or another since the beginning. Orwell’s 1984 has arrived along with the thought police. Preceding Matrix and Orwell’s “1984” was the 1932 Aldous Huxley theme of the soulless society, the mindless conformity of “Brave New World.” Huxley’s theme was prescient and coincided with the rise of Hitler and one of the most masterful agents of mind-control of the masses who has lived in the modern world.

Yet there is nothing new under the sun. The battle for the mind and the conformity imposed by the elite and the wicked has been at issue since the dawn of man. Hundreds of years before Jesus, the leadership of God’s people preceding King David was driven by the need to respond not to God and reality, but rather to the approval and acclamation of the people sought by David’s predecessor. During the days of Jesus, it was not just the Roman edicts stamping out reality-based thinking, but the religious elite of the faith Jesus espoused who were imposing the boundaries that were building the boxes around the destinies of those who had actually chosen the right way. So the quest for reality and the freedom from getting out of the box has bordered the fine line between the religious and the spiritual.

Understanding the Spiritual
The ancient world understood the spiritual realm. Not necessarily the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but the realities of the spiritual world and the supernatural. The realities that tapped the foundations of power and creativity.

Today we create idols based on the limited parameters of our thinking. Again, idols in the mind are nothing new. Daniel, in his role as one of the wise-men in the court of the king in Babylon, was a challenge to these powers, while simultaneously exercising the authority of the One he served with his significant godly influence on the succession of the kings he advised.

An interesting premise in this look at getting out of the box is that in Judaism, salvation is a community-thing, whereas in Christianity it is individual. Both draw their foundation from the same truths. So, what is it? With SIGN representing an audience primarily of Christian leaders, my view is that it is both. Which leaves room to get out of the box — for both camps.

The crux of the truth is that spiritual Jews understand the difference between blind conformity and the wisdom of adhering to standards of truth. Which should be the same for those who consider Jesus as “the way, the truth and the life.” How profound the choice of these three words: the way, the truth and the life.

The Source Dimension
For the three years of His earthly ministry Jesus expounded on the Kingdom of God and “the way, the truth and the life:” that path that actuates the spiritual dimension that creates and empowers that of the natural world. For three years, He trained an most unlikely band of simple people, ones who were raw but real, in the principles of this spiritual realm and the costs tied to true leadership — with the goal of them doing greater works than He had. They did, as have those who have followed and “got it,” despite the most valiant efforts of the religious mind-control adherents.

The Kingdom of God is the source dimension for the power and creativity of the spiritual realm. It was the prime focus of Jesus’ message and training of this unlikely band of ones He had chosen to follow Him in releasing what He was setting in motion.

The Kingdom of God begins in our thinking, in our imaginations. It involves the balance of Spirit and Truth, of hearing God’s voice as the means of being led by the Spirit. It operates contrary to the way the world embraces power and creativity. Solomon said, as a man thinks, so he is.

Getting Beyond the Superficial
The first task is getting beyond ourselves and outside the box. The second task is getting beyond the superficial. Moses is recorded as saying something to the Lord that was extremely insightful. It was: “Show me Your ways that I might know you.” Likewise, Jesus told His followers: “If you know Me, you will know the Father.”

Knowing Him. Not according to our frame of reference, as Moses wisely asked, but God’s. Understanding His heart and priorities. Moses took time away from the clamor and distractions of those he was leading to close that gap. It took time. It took courage, because in Hebrew tradition, God’s presence, His voice would consume them and they would die. Yet, Moses met with the Lord and did not die. Doing so took the focus of an undivided heart. From all that came principles needed to nurture a society of God’s people that have been passed down through the generations in Jewish culture that represent a compilation of “His ways” that foster walking a path of knowing Him.

The Source of Power and Creativity
Then Jesus gave a most astounding glimpse into what being the Jewish Messiah involved: He was of the same spiritual DNA as God. This is supported by all the reports on the host of dramatic miracles He did. As He also stated: “I and my Father are one.” That’s where the power and creativity came from.

When Jesus had been followed into the wilderness by a host of spiritually hungry pilgrims and was concluding a session of imparting to them secrets of the spiritual realm that He referred to as the Kingdom of God, His disciples suggested they send the crowd away to find lodging and something to eat. Instead Jesus told His disciples to give the crowd something to eat. They protested saying they only had five loaves and two fish and there were about five thousand men, many with their families.

Jesus then did one of those dramatic miracles, yet one that illustrates what can happen when you pierce the darkness of the containment walls and touch the Light of the spiritual realm. His word of blessing over the few loaves and fish bypassed the natural realm, penetrating a portal into the supernatural or spiritual arena resulting in an exponential multiplication of what He was giving away.

Scripture tells us that with His instruction of having the crowd sit down in groups of fifty, that when the process of feeding the crowd followed, that the supply kept coming and that all ate and all were filled. THAT dramatic event involved the highest-level combination of the creative and power. Out of the box.

Nothing new under the sun. Elijah did much the same with the widow and the jar of oil needed to feed them for a time during the dire conditions of judgment on the land.

The Dynamics of Walking Outside the Box
Jesus went on to prepare His followers with the expectation of when He would be gone: that they would do greater works than He had. This involved the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit given to those who believe. But in the same way that Moses recognized knowing God had the condition of becoming aligned with His ways, so Jesus instructed His followers in the ways of the Kingdom, to tap the supernatural power and creativity, which very often tend to involve a very different approach to thinking and acting than the standard operating procedures employed by most. With the Kingdom standard, we live by dying to self. Wisdom comes through simplicity. Increase comes through generosity. We bless those who curse us. We even love those who hate us. Out of the box.

Religion tends to short-circuit access to the spiritual and supernatural realm. Religion is the short-shrift, condensed version that more often than not will give focus to minor things while being blind to the most important. It’s why Jesus called the Pharisees blind-guides. They majored in minor things while overlooking the truly important ones.

Getting out of the box and operating in this way also involves an identity reset. With the identity reset will come a unique purpose, driven by the gifts of the individual and the community, all of which combine to establish higher dimensions with the identity-thing, for both the individuals and the community. Then, as this path of purpose, outside the box, is walked out, there will be entrance into what is typically referred to as destiny or the accomplishments for which we will be remembered. The mark we leave for those who follow.

In my own life, as a young man excelling in all that I had been embracing, I was stopped short by a word spoken to me: “God has a perfect plan for your life.” I had been pursuing a good plan, but I realized through God, that there was a higher dimension available. The thought of the potential of this took root and grew and motivated me to get out of the box I had built to pursue this dream of “God’s higher-level plan” for my life. It began an adventure. A life walking with God. A process of discovery. I have not been disappointed.

The Process
This process begins with having the courage to speak truth within our own hearts. To face reality. To get real with who we are, what we are doing and where we are headed. With the Lord, it becomes something a great deal more than what our best efforts could ever hope for. One of the shortest, yet most to-the-point psalms written by David is Psalm 15. It deals with the criteria tied to walking with God in His presence. Simple, yet very deep.

Scripture notes that following his life, that God spoke of King David as a man who walked in God’s presence and did all His will. Yet, David ran into walls. There were times he screwed up royally. To the degree that the religious would have banned him. And he did experience judgment and pay a very high cost for his misfires. Yet, because David understood what it meant to get out of the box and walk with God in His presence. He lived in that realm beyond the natural. As a result, his legacy from God’s perspective is that: “he did all My will.”

The Bottom Line
Jesus addressed the bottom line between the religious and the spiritual with His illustration of the two men who went to the Temple to pray. One was a religious Pharisee. The other, a man considered despicable within Jewish culture because he made his living by serving the Romans and taking advantage of his own people: a tax-collector. The Pharisee, being full of himself in his prayer, reminded God of all he was doing for Him. The tax-collector, recognizing the gravity of the choices he had made for himself, facing the realities in the presence of his Creator, simply and humbly was asking for God’s mercy. Jesus’ conclusion was that it was the tax-collector who left justified, for he who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. A different way of thinking. The difference between the religious and the spiritual. Out of the box.

Because of who He was when He walked the face of the earth, Jesus saw outside the realm of time. He observed that on the day of judgment that the Queen of Sheba would rise up and condemn the men who had condemned her. She took a long journey to glean from Solomon the wisdom for a higher-dimension in her knowledge of God. Yet she tended to be condemned by short-sighted finger-pointers because tradition in Ethiopian culture has it, that she returned to her land with not only the wisdom she sought, but pregnant with a child from Solomon. What Jesus was noting is that those who had condemned her were focused on the minor things and missing the big picture, which had put her in a position, in the day of judgment, to have the last word over those who had pointed the finger at her. The religious versus the spiritual mind-set. Out of the box.

Then from this illustration, Jesus made an even more profound statement. He said, that with His coming, that a greater thing that what the Queen of Sheba was reaching for in her journey to seek more of God through Solomon’s wisdom was wrapped up in what Jesus came to impart and do.

The greater works than His would be because of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. With the Holy Spirit would come the power and creativity that enable those who choose Life over the ways of death to get outside the box to see outside the realm of time; to provide the influence of Joseph and Daniel to change cultures; to bring the exponential multiplication that matched and exceeded that which fed the crowd with the five loaves and two fish; to operate with the authority that decimates the best that paganism and the occult have to offer; to live in the Presence of the Lord in the supernatural without the confines of the box that brims with the oversimplifications of the myopic, religious precepts of men.

It’s about acting on what Jesus defined Himself as being. Getting out of the box is about the way, the truth and the life.

So it is that we have entered a time in which mysteries will be revealed, nations will undergo shakings and alignments — as God restores the wonder of the path of discovery to those who have the courage to reach for Him, outside the confines of our limited perceptions and the box of our sophisticated man-made walls. We’ve entered an hour with a progressive outpouring of the Holy Spirit to release those who get it, with purpose outside the box and off the fence, in entering their destinies in that dimension of “something more.”

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Morris Ruddick has been a forerunner and spokesman for the higher dimensions of business leadership since the mid-90s. As founder of Global Initiatives Foundation and designer of the God’s Economy Entrepreneurial Equippers Program, Mr. Ruddick imparts hope and equips economic community builders to be blessed to be a blessing where God’s light is dim in diverse regions around the globe.

He is author of “The Joseph-Daniel Calling;” “Gods Economy, Israel and the Nations;” “The Heart of a King;” “Something More;” “Righteous Power in a Corrupt World;” “Leadership by Anointing;” and “Mantle of Fire,” which address the mobilization of business and governmental leaders with destinies to impact their communities. They are available in print and e-versions from www.Amazon.com, www.apple.com/ibooks and www.BarnesandNoble.com.

Global Initiatives Foundation (www.strategic-initiatives.org) is a tax-exempt 501 (c) 3 non-profit whose efforts are enabled by the generosity of a remnant of faithful friends and contributors whose vision aligns with God’s heart to mobilize economic community builders imparting influence and the blessings of God. Checks on US banks should be made out to Global Initiatives and mailed to PO Box 370291, Denver CO 80237 or by credit card at http://strategicintercession.org/support/

Likewise, email us to schedule a seminar for your group’s gathering on the Joseph-Daniel Calling or on anointing the creative in business.

2019 Copyright Morris Ruddick — info@strategic-initiatives.org

Reproduction is prohibited unless permission is given by a SIGN advisor. Since early 1996, the Strategic Intercession Global Network (SIGN) has mobilized prophetic intercessors and leaders committed to targeting strategic-level issues impacting the Body on a global basis. For previous posts or more information on SIGN, check: http://www.strategicintercession.org