This does not mean that I let random thoughts control me. I listen to see if thoughts such as these are are productive God thoughts or random thoughts of the soul. If they are thoughts that can and will be productive for good, I then continue in the through process. If not, I simply discard them for a higher thought life.
The Word attachment defines as, the act of being attached which means:
- to fasten to
- to connect with as to adjoin or associate with as a part of
- to covenant with
- to be assigned to or with
- to bind emotional with great affection and loyalty, or by Law to seize upon
I think the most sever case of attachment disorder that I have ever witnessed is when people are labeled "hoarders." When a person is a hoarder they have ties to things in weird and unusual ways. I recently watched a person cry over a small kitchen appliance that might have to be released to someone else.
I watched as a lady could not depart with a broke down, gutted out, molded computer casing (hers was a need to control, than of a breaking down emotionally), but what ever the reason for such hoarding, it is unhealthy. It is a robber of life.
Jesus came to give us life and that more abundantly. A life that we must guard and refuse to allow anything or anyone to take from us.
As Christians we need to arise to spiritual truth that liberates and keep ourselves from unhealthy attachments. This means living our lives awake and aware of God, and of self.
It means connecting with the Spirit, and disconnecting with all that would hinder us from walking in love, liberty and success.
I have been around people who I believe have attachment disorders other than hoarding. These are people who don't know how to say goodbye and be done when a relationship is over. They can't release and let go when it comes to people.
There are times when people will engage with one another and then never see each other again. It is a mere one time acquaintance and then it is over.
There are times when people will be in our lives for a season with a God ordained purpose and then that season passes. Others will be long term relationships. But people like things must be received and released in accordance to the plan of God for our lives.
Attachment disorders like these often come from a lack of proper care and nurture during childhood. Because of being mishandled, these people may find it difficult to separate from things or people, even when the things and people are unhealthy for them.
These disorders usual have fears and the nature of men pleasing attached to them. These people will have low self-esteem and insecurities from hurts and/or rejection.
To live our lives to the fullness of God intentions, we must press in to the truth for healing and recovery. To live well rounded lives people must learn to detach when it is necessary, as well as attach.
I find it very interesting, as Christians we often sing "I surrender all" ... we do this with hands up and eyes closed, while inwardly we are hoarding all kinds of things.
Things like:
- jealousy
- envy
- fear strife
- worry
- doubt
- discrimination
- hate
- insecurities.
- personal agendas and ideas
- vulgarity
- quiet criticism,
- evil thoughts
- scary images and all sorts of ungodliness
It is not until we really surrender that our lives will change, and we will be endued with all the good that we desire.
Full surrender to God is full surrender to love.
Jesus left us with one command, and that was to love God and one another ... thus He leaves us understanding the two are actually one. When we have love for one another, we have fulfilled our love for God. If we are Christ like we can not say I love God and hate our brother. If we do this the love of God is not in us.
Jesus also made it very known that God alone is good. The Word also respectfully reveals that all good and perfect gifts come to us from the Father of light.
God absolutely withholds no good thing from those who love him, and are called according to his purpose. He never has withheld good, and He never will. He gave us Jesus when we were yet sinners. When we deserved nothing good, He loved us and gave us Jesus, whereby we could enter into his rich heavenly kingdom.
He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the unchanging! The good God that He was when He loved us and gave us Jesus, is the same Good and loving God he is today.
The problem we run into as Christians when it comes to the receiving doors of our life, is we tend to block our receiving doors with all of our attachments and disorders!
We leave little to no room for God to move in our lives, as we stand and sing, "I surrender." We actually are unconsciously singing ... I am storing up, I am holding back, all for me and me alone, I am keeping all!
We desperately need to surrender.
We need to learn how to release, to let go, to refuse to be attached to anything that is temporal. We also need to learn to release and let go of relationships that have ended and move on.
As long as we are attached to manifestations of temporary gifts, whether it be a relationship, finances or material substance, we are keeping ourselves from God's next opportunity, from God's best, from God's now assigned mandate and blessing!
Faith is NOW, and Faith pleases God. Here again, let me with great opportunity of word usage bring a reminder that, Faith is activated by Love!
Our lives are just not the lives they are meant to be until we learn to properly attach and detach. And the only way to do this is to be totally, inseparable when it comes to our relationship with the Holy Spirit. This is the thing that you can hold fast to and refuse to detach for God is eternal, he is your forever, your one unchanging element that will take you over in every situation.
In Romans Chapter 8 we find a great pictorial of our life in Christ. It begins like this:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
As we continue to read, we find that it is only as we live according to the Spirit that we walk free!
We cannot live our lives according to the flesh (the temporary) and walk free and blessed.
Romans 8:5 reminds us that those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
Thus, we must not hold to our own flesh ideas, ideals or lust. Instead it is vital to set our mind on Spirit. When we do this we are open to all that God may want to say to us, offer to us, or use us in here and now!
Every thing past this present moment is over. The future is ahead of us, therefore, to live in anything other than NOW is to miss God opportunity.
This does not elemental vision and plans for our tomorrows. It does not discard goals and guidelines, nor does it omit our ability to recall the greatness or failures of the past in order to move forward. But we can not attach to anything ... we must be willing to flow with the Spirit in all things. Recall and release. Look ahead and step back to the Now. Listen to what the Holy Spirit has to say in all things.
Let everything serve the purposes they are meant to serve, but live NOW in the Spirit.
- See Now, what the Spirit wants to show you
- Hear Now what the Spirit has to say
- Obey Now what the Spirit relays to you
- Receive Now what the Spirit has for you.
Remember if you are not willing to let go of the last thing God gave you or assigned you to, you can't receive the next thing He has for you.
Does this mean you can't have anything in your life. No, not at all.
God adds things, and people to our lives. He gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Increase the kingdom way, is about being faithful with what God has given you stewardship over. We are to do what ever God says to do, with that which he has given. We are to be willing to receive, and to let go that we might receive again.
There was a time when Joseph was given stewardship wisdom to store back supplies. He obeyed and it brought both recognition and opportunity. Because Joesph obeyed God there was a storehouse of blessing in a time of famine. Yet, a time came, when Joseph was required to release what was in his care. As he obeyed, that release brought forth blessing and the plan of God for his life and for others.
I have given clothes, cars, money, material things and time ... and it has always returned in multiplies. The is no lack in the kingdom, or for those who belong to God and operated according to His Spirit laws.
There was a time when a very rich man was asked to release ... but he could not. He had attachment disorder in his life.
Had this rich man understand the laws of the Spirit and the goodness of our God through Christ Jesus, he would have released (detached), and moved forward in the Spirit and multiplied besides. Instead lacking understanding he went home with his riches (which by the way are meager in comparison to that which he could have had, if he had obeyed and release); he also went away sorrowful.
God's provisions, make rich and add no sorrow. If this man had only known this truth. If he had only be aware of Jesus Words, and awake to the ways of kingdom laws. He would have walked away singing ... "I am glad I surrendered all. In all my surrender God has made me cheerfully rich in all things."
Life in the Spirit ... Oh, what a life it is! What a glorious life!
Romans 8:6-8 tells us that the mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
But as born again believers we are adjoined (grafted in to the family of God). We are of the Spirit, for we have been born of the Spirit.
We are to no longer live from the realm of the flesh, but the realm of the Spirit, and those who do; those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Romans 8:14
The spirit you have received is a spirit whereby you can say, Abba Father God.
This Spirit is the same spirit that raise Christ Jesus from the dead, and now dwells within you. As a born again believer, you are one with Him. Thus you have become a joint heir of all things.
But you must learn to live in this realm, receive from this realm, and act in this realm, if you are to reap the benefits of the kingdom.
Romans 8:17 says ... if indeed we share in his sufferings...we may also share in his glory (wealth, greatness, all of his goodness).
In other words if you can't detach from flesh lust and desires then you can not share the wealth.
Jesus in his sufferings detached from everything that was in heaven ... laid aside all deity and left a heavenly rich kingdom to come to planet earth to show the ways of God to men.
He came to redeem men and purchase them out of the hand of evil. To restore men again to that which was lost because of deception and flesh weakness.
I am sure that was a great surrender, to leave the glory and to come to our poverty stricken cause, but He did it. And in doing so he gained and so did we. This was his surrender to the perfect will of God.
Jesus then, was asked (as man) to detach again, to leave his all on the altar in the garden. His sufferings was now to be seen by men . He was to suffer great suffering in surrender ... Sufferings even unto sweat as it were great drops of blood, but he did it! He surrender his will once again to great gain.
The surrender of will is the first battle of detaching.
Jesus had to be willing to let go of family, friends, followers and all this world had to offer. The ultimate detachment, but He did it!
He had to be willing to suffer being mocked, criticized, judged, misjudged and mistreated, but He did it! He did it for love, in love and with love for his Father, and for us.
On the cross ... He had to attach to some things ... things I am sure that he would rather have left behind. He had to take on all of our sin, all of our infirmities, all of our weaknesses, all of our sicknesses and diseases, all of our poverty; He took upon himself all evil, that we might walk in all of God's goodness.
Defeating death, hell and the grave, Jesus regained the keys to the kingdom and left them in the hands of followers that we might continue to walk and free in the Spirit and partake of kingdom goodness, while living here in planet earth.
Any suffering we might be ask to undergo in 'attachments to or dis-attachment from' ... is nothing in comparison to the future glory set before us, nor in comparison to what has already been done for us.
Paul says it like this:
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Today we have not been left alone. We have a Spirit counselor, teacher, comforter, standby, intercessor. One just like Jesus himself living in us and with us. He is our helper ... this Spirit (Holy Spirit) helps us in our weakness.
We do not know what we ought to pray for on many occassions, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. ~ Romans 8:26-27
As we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit we know then, and only then does all things work toward our good. When God is for us ... there is none who is powerful to over take us.
When God is for us, who then can be against us?
God loved us with such a great love ... that he gave us his own son freely. In full release and surrender. Because we know and understand this we also understand that he is not going to hold back good from us.
We may be asked to release some things for good, but in the mind of God there is no with holdings of good. Anything we are asked by God to release, simply means blessings to others and multiplication back to us.
We must learn to attach and detach properly, to remove the barricades that hinder our receiving if we want to live in higher realms of glory.
Even when charges come against us, we are to simply release and rest. For justice will come and not be with held.
This justice is not going to come as long as we are on our knees crying and anger pleading with God to send angles to chase our enemies, or to knock their teeth out. God is love and there is no evil way in Him.
Men sentence themselves, not God. God is not judgmental nor should we judge. And to pray evil prayers is to keep yourself in the realm of evil.
When men operate outside the realm of the Holy Spirit, and walk outside the boundaries of truth (Gods written Word) sentence comes upon them. It is from our own personal actions that doors are open for good or for evil, for sentence or acquittal. God is the one waiting for repentance that He might deliver and acquit in his love.
God will however, justify his own when evil comes to try to bombard their lives with no cause.
Romans 8:33-34 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one.
No matter what people might say, condemnation comes from within ... it comes from a persons own thoughts and actions. No one can heap condemnation on the man or women in Christ, who lives by the Spirit. Condemnation will roll right off them, for there is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, for those who live by the Spirit.
Thus we must daily detach from anything that holds us back from walking in the Spirit. From anything that keeps us from the Faith Now life.
We must be only securely and inseparably attached to the Spirit of God. We must allow the Holy Spirit to lead us! We must learn to walk in Love, for our faith to be active and powerful.
Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~Romans 8:35-38
