Are you living more aware of your state than your standing?
In this episode my friend and mentor, Graham Cooke, shares one of the greatest gifts God ever gave him.
Transcript
Today, we are going to take a “Posture of Peace” by not getting stuck in the state we are in.
Posture is a short, audible fist bump to remind you, God is with you in everything. Together, we’re going to be emboldened to take a daily Posture of perfect peace.
Romans 6:10 and 11. It says this about Jesus. It says, “for the death He died. He died to sin once for all but the life He lives, He
lives to God”. So you, yes, that means you, yes you. You also must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Your starting place for truth cannot be what you are not or what you perceive yourself not to be. It has to be who Jesus is for you, who Jesus is for you is your starting place for all truth. You know this week we’ve been talking about the power we have, the power we’ve been given in Jesus to prevail in every circumstance and all this week I’ve been co-hosting a challenge with my friend and mentor Graham Cooke called “The Power to Prevail”.
You know your enemy, satan would love nothing more than for you to see yourself outside of Christ and then live accordingly. You know satan wants us to stay frustrated with our lives and stuck in our circumstances and disappointed and disempowered by the year that we’re living in and all that’s happening in our world. But you know in that state, we will create excuses and all kinds of reasons for staying stuck and not living free, and not being more than a conqueror. So, I wanna share this clip from my conversation with Graham this week, it brought so much clarity to me and so many of our challenge members, I mean the comments went wild when Graham was sharing this so I wanted to share it with you.
Okay, so let’s talk about gifts because again, I think that’s something we sometimes misunderstand. There are so many gifts in the kingdom. And I think that our expectation is really low when it comes to gifts from God. I think sometimes we limit ourselves by thinking it’s only material or it’s only fixing the situation and the exact detail that I would like the Lord to fix the situation or whatever, but that’s just secondary. So those gifts are so secondary. the real gifts of the Lord, well first of all we talked about one of them. He gives us the gift of Himself.
Lindsay: I wanna ask you Graham and I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but and I have an answer for me in case, but what’s the gift that the Lord has given you recently that you’re just loving receiving?
Graham: I tell you the first gift He ever gave me ’cause it’s the most important thing He’s ever done apart from getting me saved. You know, I was in that whole position of thinking my behavior was the issue. If I could control my behavior, He’d be happy with me, you know. If you’d be good, God will be good to you that whole religious nonsense stuff. He asked me a question one day, out of the blue, and He just said, “Graham, why is it that you are more aware of your state than you are your standing?” and I don’t even understand what that means. He said something there’s a difference between your state and your standing. Your state is how you see yourself, “I’m weak. I’m no good. I’m not good at this. I can’t do that”. So, your state is really about the context of how powerless you feel, this is who I am and sometimes, we live in that place for so long. We think there was a personality traits. “Oh well, you know. I’m not really bright. I’m not this. I’m not that. Well, this is the way God made me”. No, He didn’t.
God never made anyone stupid and the devil makes you stupid. You know, it’s like He said, “how is it you’re more aware of your state than you are you’re standing?” And I cried, ’cause I just suddenly you know when He talks to you like I saw it. I’m thinking, “Oh, my goodness”. Well, I didn’t exactly say that but I’m not gonna tell you what I really did say. It’s like shoot, I have never heard that in my entire life. Graham, you don’t have a state, Jesus took all the things that comprise your state and took Him to the cross, and then He took them to hell and left them there. You have a standing in Jesus. So, from now on, we’re gonna practice your standing and we have been doing that for 43 years practicing my standing. So it’s like when He talks to you, you know that He’s making you aware of another level of your standing, so peace became a part of my standing.
Resting in the Lord is part of my standing, so I could stand in it. I learned how to stand in it, no matter what was occurring, so joy became my standing and all things connected to His nature because He’s making us in His image and He’s the happiest person I know. He has the sunniest disposition of anybody at any 10,000 people I’ve ever met all at once. He’s like majestic in His joy. He laughs at everything and He likes laughing with me and occasionally, He laughs at me ’cause He thinks I’m funny. So it’s like Graham, you’re not much of a challenge to my grace to my love, you know. So, why don’t you just get over that and let’s concentrate on who you are right here. This is your standing, this is what I’m doing right now when He gives you a prophetic word, He’s telling you your standing before Him. When He gives you a promise, He’s giving you a place to stand. He said, “this promise is your standing so, I want you to live in it and we’re gonna practice that until it becomes part of your lifestyle” and then it just like flows out of you regardless of circumstances. So you’re never gonna be circumstantial or situational again. You’re gonna be absolutely on point with who I am and what I am so that for me, knowing the difference between state and standing has been part of my foundation of walking with the Lord and we still laugh about some aspects of that, and He still talks to me on that level.
So you know that when God talks about your standing, He’s moving you out of your state into a higher place of being and so, I love the fact that when God says, “come aside”, He’s saying, “I’ve got something for you so come out with that and come here”. And that to me is what state and standing is, you know. I can’t remember the last time I was ever overtaken by a state because my standing now is ingrained in my thinking in the way I see and the way I talk perception mindset language. This is my standing. This is who I am regardless of events.
The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26:3. In Hebrew. It is shalom, shalom, meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus, because of Jesus. You are a living testimony of Jesus’s ultimate win with every step you take today you’re putting Jesus’s victory on display and satan’s defeat on replay.