The New Normal

It's "normal" for parents to keep memories and keepsakes of their children to have down the road and pass on down the family line in our world today. Why? Why is it normal? And why is it considered normal? And should it be considered normal? Was it always normal? If not, when did things change?

The definition of normal is: "Conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected."

I don't know about you but that first word "conforming" should be slightly concerning to us.  There is even a scripture that talks about not being conformed to this world.  "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2a NASB)  So have we allowed ourselves to be conformed to the way that the world sees these earthly THINGS and POSSESSIONS?

I wanna pass something more than STUFF on to the next generation. I wanna pass on something eternal that they actually get to take with them because they're not stored in earthly vessels!!

I think we have to really sit down and ask if we have allowed ourselves to be conformed OR transformed.  I don't know about you but I'm just trying to actually live as ME not someone else's clone who should act or think or be a certain way because other people say so.  I'm trying to be my Papa's daughter above everything else and He sees and knows everything about me and who I was CREATED to be. I am NOT to be this Frankenstein of a person that's been pieced together by other people's opinions or my own past circumstances so when Papa tells me to change something about myself I KNOW it's for the better and I'm gonna do it no matter what. This includes how I live and what I leave behind.

Back in Biblical times, land, cattle, crops, etc were passed down as inheritance.  They were a way of life and livelihood that were given to the next generation.  These things were not worldly goods to keep on a shelf and look at while they gather dust and serve no purpose. No! PURPOSE was passed down from generation to generation, not pastimes and problems.

In the Bible, when people got ready to die they would call their children and grandchildren in and bless them.  They didn't sign off from their time here on earth with a WILL dividing their STUFF evenly amongst the family but rather gave them an inheritance of prayer and blessings in the heavenly Kingdom!  When did we being to conform to the ways of the world of keeping things that were from past seasons and taking them with us into our next season therefore keeping a part of ourselves in the past? We see this happen multiple times in scripture when God told His followers to either destroy everything or not take anything with them into the next season and their disobedience was completely frowned upon.

This makes me think about Elijah and Elisha.  Elisha was left with a cloak of Elijah's that was a symbol of the double portion anointing that Elijah walked in. THAT was his inheritance from his spiritual father!!

That's the kind of legacy that I want to leave! Not just a bunch of trinkets and doodads that have no Kingdom value!  The inheritance that I myself carry is not something that I can point at outside of myself and say, "Yep. That's my inheritance!", but rather I'm walking around with that inheritance INSIDE of me!  Papa never intended for us to have to carry around the baggage of our ancestors and have to make decisions amongst ourselves as to who got what.  He never intended for there to be strife that comes about because of the stress of one person being chosen over another to receive something.

I know some of us have found ourselves in situations where our inheritance looks nothing like legacy or heritage but rather like a mountain of credit card debt, a car lien only half paid down, and other family problems never fully dealt with.  These things come about because of all of the STUFF we think we need to show people they are loved by us or even what we think we NEED to show that we love ourselves.  In our society STUFF has become the currency for LOVE.  STUFF=LOVE. Whether that means how much you love yourself or the amount of love you have for someone else.

We have decided it is more important to sew into the NOW of our lives and the lives of others with STUFF instead of sewing into our Heavenly inheritance and storing up treasures above.  This mindset of the NOW being more important than what is to come and thinking that temporal happiness is more important that the JOY Jesus sets before us in the inheritance of souls He left behind for us to harvest has become so rampant in The Church. 

YOUR INHERITANCE, YOUR LEGACY, YOUR HERITAGE IS SOULS!

We are all co-heirs with Christ and WE were the joy set before Him on the cross. ALL OF US. Not just those of us that have found the truth. Therefore, I have been commissioned, you are commissioned, we all are commissioned (once we discover Him and in finding Him also finding ourselves) to inherit the Kingdom.  And the Kingdom of Heaven is meant to be manifested here in the earth so THAT is my inheritance. The Earth (souls still present here). But I'm not always choosing to take my inheritance when I'm not obedient to Papa to walk in the call on my life. Think about all of that again.  THAT IS YOUR INHERITANCE.

See, Jesus gave away HIMSELF as the ultimate gift on the cross, but even before that He gave away Himself with healing people and bringing them back to life after death and loving on them wherever they were at.  He gave to them at their point of need when they didn't even know what they actually needed.  He was offering them their inheritance NOW.

We see Him supernaturally provide for their natural needs by feeding the 5,000+, but it wasn't because He came prepared in the natural to feed that many people.  Rather, He fed them out of the overflowing of the supernatural abundance He walked in.

In thinking about this story I think about the Mom of the boy who had the natural meal that provided a supernatural feast.  She was just using her gift of being a good mother and walking in the obedience that that entailed by providing food for her child, but that obedience became a miracle that we are STILL talking about to this day.  She became part of the life of Jesus because she listened to her natural instinct of who she was created to be and it became a supernatural calling because of it.  In turn, this became part of the narrative that was Christ's naturally supernatural earthly life.  What if she had foregone giving her son a lunch that day and expected him to fend for himself?  I believe Jesus would have still done the miracle BUT she would not have been part of it.

We have to choose to partner with the natural giftings inside of us every day so that the supernatural abundance can flow from them once they are combined with the power that rests in Holy Spirit who dwells in us.  It's an every day choice to say Yes to that partnership.  Once we choose to live in and live out that YES every day we will begin to see our inheritance, our legacy, our heritage be manifested here on the earth and we won't have to worry about leaving anything more than that behind when we continue on to Glory!