Recently, a counselor friend of mine spoke to a leader who was burned out. The counselor told the leader to stop studying, stop having daily devotions, stop making plans and simply learn to rest in God's presence. None of these things the leader was asked to stop doing were wrong. They are all part of a healthy Believer's life.
The "spiritual disciplines" of his life had become the places from which he had tried to draw life. An orderly life had replaced Jesus as the Giver of Life. My counselor friend wanted this leader to break the rules of religious productivity in order to come back to the simplicity of faith in Jesus.
God is breaking man-made rules of productivity that tell us "doing more is holy." God desires that we lay down the deception of trying to prove our worth to God through religious duty. Productivity is the language of slaves. Inheritance is the language of God's children.
In 2011 God will ask His people to move into the deeper revelation of friendship that Jesus promised His disciples. In John 15 Jesus told these newly-defined friends that a master does not confide in slaves. Slaves are not receivers of revelation – only friends are. Slaves work from a list of duties provided by a slave master. Each day the predictable drudgery of the slave's list produces a defeated heart in the slave.
God wants His friends to hear His voice. Some have mentally moved back into the slave quarters of the past and now God is calling them back into friendship and into fresh daily revelation that comes from living in the dwelling place of His presence.
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