Is Your Passion In Prison? | Chapter Two

Chapter Two

One morning as I was praying and spending time with the Father I had a vision in my spirit. I saw many Christians putting themselves in prison. They were locking themselves up by their own prayer by praying, "God take my will and passion, I die to my will, I crucify my will." 

As I saw this vision I thought to myself, “The reason why no one wants to be in prison is because it's a place of having no passion or will. Prison is a bad place to be but when we volunteer to be in there it’s even worse.

When our passion is imprisoned, our life and freedom are also imprisoned. We do this every day under a slave mindset and don't realize it. What defines a slave? He is not permitted to do his will. Living holy is not enough to give us freedom until our will is free. Even prisoners can live a holy life in prison, but without freedom they have no life. Acts 17:28 for in Him we live and move and have our being…

Our Will Is Redeemed 

Luke 22:41-44 And he withdrew from them about  a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done." And there appeared to Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. 

Our redemption began in the garden of Gethsemane because it was the first place that Jesus shed His blood. As He prayed drops of blood fell from His forehead. Every part of the atonement of Christ has a specific purpose. The stripes for our healing (Isaiah 53:5). The cross was the payment for our sins (2 Corinthians 5:21). The crown of thorns placed on His head was our redemption from the curse (Genesis 3:18).

What was the purpose of Jesus shedding His blood in the garden? It's the redemption of our will! We can now have a Holy Spirit filled passion. When Jesus prayed, "Father, not my will but yours be done," He was not praying this to be a model on how we can pray. Is our will separated and against God to the point we must pray this every day? Jesus Himself never prayed this every day but only one time.

Why did He pray this? We never observed the will of the Father and the will of the Son in conflict before. It's because the plan that the Father had was to redeem our will. The will of Jesus was separated in the garden of gethsemane from the Father's will, so that the Father's will and our will can be joined. Jesus became our separation so we can have His union with the Father's will! Adam lost our will in a garden but Jesus gained our will back in a garden.

Let's look at a similar event that happened when Jesus was on the cross. He shouted, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mathew 27:46).

What took place at that moment was our redemption. On the cross, Jesus was separated from the Father on our behalf to assure us we will never be separated again! 

The big problem with asking the Father to take our will continually is that we cannot walk in the redemption of our will. Therefore, we enter into a perpetual cycle of sacrificing our will. Without a will, we are merely enslaved people. Slaves cannot choose, ask, desire, or do anything they want. In their mind, they have a condemned, selfish and evil will. The children of God are different; they have a free, pure, and redeemed will. Our will's redemption had to occur because we cannot be children of God without a will or passion but only slaves. 

John 17:20-21 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father are in Me and I in You; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 

What the Father desires is not for our will to consistently be in conflict with His will. When He redeemed our will it fixed this problem. Our will is born again! It’s not something we crucify, suppress or restrict anymore. It’s something we release. He does not demand that we continue sacrificing our will on the altar like a slave. We now have one of the most incredible things Christ gave us on the cross, a new will! Because of this what the Father desires now in the new covenant is not just us fulfilling His will but Him fulfilling our will because we are His child! When we experience this our joy will be full. John 16:23-24…Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

When we view God as a slave master instead of a Father our will becomes irrelevant. We end up having no freedom and become depressed. This explains the lack of Joy in the body of Christ.

Slaves only fulfill the master's will. The master never fulfills the slave's will but a father fulfills his child's will. A slave asks, "what is your will master?" A father asks, "What is your will, my child?" This is a entirely new way of relating to God in the new covenant.

Can we experience the Father like this? Absolutely Yes! When the slave fulfills the will of their master, it brings glory to the slave. But when the Father fulfills the will of his child, it brings glory to the Father! John 14:13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 

Without understanding and believing in the redemption of our will, we cannot experience the freedom of being a child of God. We might recognize God as a Father in some areas of our lives but we cannot experience being a child of God unless our passion is redeemed and free! 

Suppressing and restricting our will worked as a temporary solution in the Old Covenant. Unfortunately, this was all they could do because of the condition of their unregenerated will. The Old Covenant is about living a life of not doing what we want but doing what we should. Eventually, we become tired because we regularly live in conflict with our will. But in the New Covenant we experience a life of wanting to do what we should! Christians who do what they desire never burn out. Nehemiah 8:10..."For the joy of the LORD is your strength."

In the Old Covenant our will could not be born again. But now in the New Covenant we have a new will. In the Old Covenant, our will and God's will were consistently in conflict, never in agreement. We can examine this with David, Solomon, Elisha, Samson, Moses, Jonah and many other prophets and kings of Israel. The only thing they could do at the time regarding the situation was to suppress, deny, or give up their will. Giving up our will was good under the Old Covenant but we have received a New Covenant, a new will that is far better now. 

Slaves Die Daily A Child Lives Daily

How do we die daily? Is it through prayer, fasting, and obedience? Although these are great works, no scriptures instruct us to die to ourselves by doing those things. Is dying to oneself a work we perform or is it Christ Himself who performed this? The way we die to ourselves is through faith in Christ, nothing more nothing less. Romans 6:8 Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. 

When we are saved we cannot separate our death from Christ's death. How many times do we die? Are we dying hourly, daily or weekly? Since Christ will never die again, He died once and for all, likewise we also died only once with Him. Romans 6:9-10 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. 

For a slave or servant, prayer, fasting and obedience are ways they die to their sinful desires. With a child of God, prayer, fasting and obedience are something they want to do because of their new nature. These works are not a way of dying but living through releasing their desires because they want to do it. As a child of God we already died once and for all with Christ now it’s time to live.

We now live from our new desires because Jesus shed His blood in the garden for this redemption. We now have the freedom to use our will without fears of it leading us astray. 

What does Paul mean when he said, "I die daily"? Is he referring to dying to our will daily? Let’s examine some verses. 

1  Corinthians 15:30-32 And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!" 

Notice Paul indicates that he stands in jeopardy every hour and how he fought the beasts of Ephesus. Paul is referring to the persecution he faces every day when he says, "I die daily." Paul is not speaking about his self-sacrifice of his will every day. He uses the expression "I die daily" because he did not know if he would physically live or die that day. 

As Christians, we died to our old will but this death occurred in Christ, never outside of Christ by our works. This means that our will was crucified with Christ. He died as us so we can live as Him! When Christ died, our old will died. When Christ was resurrected from the dead our new will was born. 2  Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

The old Adamic sinful nature was put to death along with its passions and desires. We were also united in the resurrection of Christ, which means we have new passions and desires that are rich in the life of Christ that took place at salvation! 

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Notice Paul did not say, "the death that I live now I live by faith in the Son of God" No, he said, "The life that I live now I live by faith in the Son of God. Slaves repeatedly live from the death of Christ but the children of God live from the life of Christ. In this verse, we were crucified with Christ one time not over and over. Regarding our life in Christ, it's not just one time but a continual experience. This verse is more about life than death. 

As a child of God, we do not live in a consciousness of death but in a consciousness of life. People with a slave mentality are pressured to give their life for God rather than the Father giving His life for His children. This mentality will cause an over emphasis of being pressured to love God instead of resting in His love for us. 

There is a new passion, desire and gifts that is inside us waiting to come out. We must trust the Father that He knows what He is doing by putting these gifts inside us. We do not have to look any further the will of God is in us!