Movements Before Methods

[Shared from Facebook]

Spiritual life is characterized by spiritual movement. It is the movement of Spirit within us that initiates, strengthens and stabilizes spiritual living.

This is important because modern spiritualty has become informative, philosophical and speculative rather than intuitive, experiential and living. We prefer educated methods rather than embodied meaning, and applied strategies rather than in-the-moment awareness.

In the economy of God's grace, movement always precedes method. God calls us to follow Him and things get figured out as we obey. He sheds enough light for one step at a time and when we step into the light, more spills out before us. The Spirit is always directing us toward movement and obedience, but men prefer methodologies and options.

“If we live by the Spirit, let’s follow the Spirit as well” (Galatians 5:25).

"Living" and "following" are the two wings of life in the Spirit. We need both to fly straight. Our life is in the Spirit, but we must also follow the Spirit. “Spirit” in both Greek and Hebrew infer movement, wind, breath, motion, not concepts, ideas or doctrine.

The Greek word “follow” here is “stoicheō” translated as “walk, keep step with, keep cadence with, follow in the same way”. It is very specific. It’s not the casual word we would use for just walking around. It actually refers to the cadence of those in a military march who walk in sequence, walk in formation. You have to pace yourself according to the rhythm and tempo of those around you. This is the kind of walk in the Spirit being referred to.

It’s specific,

deliberate,

intentional,

relational,

partnered and aligned.

Faithfulness is not believing the right things, but fidelity to the movements of the Spirit within. We often run to the Bible to learn something new rather than turn to the Spirit to obey something fresh. But learning can’t replace leaning into the Beloved. Facts cannot replace flow. Knowledge cannot replace the kisses of the Father. We are renewed by movement of the Spirit, not methodologies of the mind.

We have to learn that in the economy of heaven, movement of the Spirit is primary and methodology and arrangement is secondary. The wind moves, then we follow; the cloud over the Tabernacle lifts and the camp packs up and follows in order; the lamb walked on earth and the disciples aligned their feet with His call.

Churches are a place to preserve the movement of the Spirit, not build lasting platforms for men. It’s not that methodology is wrong, but method without movement becomes a grave yard! The sons of God are called to respond to the divine impulses within them, not repeat past successes through remembered methodology. We are navigators of the flame, not engineers of formulas; sailors harnessing the wind, not builders raising edifices to religion.

It was true in the history of Israel that every time they tried to settle permanently, they stagnated spiritually. The wilderness was not a place of punishment, but of movement training. God's people were trained in how to follow the unpredictable rhythms of the divine presence. They had to move in eternity's rhythms, not earthly ones. One day the Pillar of fire stood still for weeks on end, perhaps months; the next time it lifted to move on in a day. The only task was to follow in obedience. Being spiritual was not in how well they organized and set up camp, but how quickly they packed up to follow the movement of the fire and cloud.

The body of Christ does not mature by growth metrics and methodologies. Unless the movement of Spirit is our only method, churches become nothing more than institutions of religion. If the Spirit is not our life and movement, no amount of prescribed methodology can bring life. Methods of the flesh are irrelevant if there is no movement of the Fire within. If the Pillar of cloud by day and fire by night is not followed, we are just out camping in the wilderness, believing we found the promise land over campfire s’mores!

The movements of spiritual life die when method becomes master. What began in revelation, ends in lifeless repetition. Leaders no longer wait in their spirit on the Lord’s movement, but rather revisit what worked last year and implement strategy rather than spirit. Spiritual teams no longer burn with the fire of prayer and devotion, but strategize for social engagement and popularity. This is how the heavenly scrolls are replaced with earthly scripts of Babylon.

The sons of God were born for more than recycled religious formulas. Churches operating in systematized methodology's instead of the Spirit are missing the fire born from of the Throne. We have learned how to navigate our way to more likes on social media and better methods of branding, but have no idea how to unseal the scroll of the Lamb and open the floodgates of kingdom.

To truly embody the Spirits movement, you must be willing to walk in a degree of mystery. You will never know exactly what’s next. You don’t know when the pillar of cloud will lift and move you on. People will not understand the cadence of your life being out of sync with the world. They will misunderstand you, mislabel you, misquote you -- because you never fit into their structured methodologies. They are not aware of the wind of the Spirit drawing you too your next movement.

Men like methods because they’re always available and can readily be manufactured. If something isn’t working, we just prescribe a new methodology to it. But the movement of the Spirit must be discerned. This is why very few people live in Spiritual movement. They like spiritual ideas to debate, theology to systematized, concepts to discuss and methodologies to preach, but do not know how to navigate spiritual spaces.

To follow written methods over Spiritual movement is relatively easy. There is no need for discernment, prayer or applied awareness in the Lord for what comes next. You just follow the script written in front of you. And if it doesn't work, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the bad methodology. So you go back to the drawing board and start the lifeless cycle all over again. This is the business of modern-day churches. Rather than following the pillar of fire and the cloud, they’re recycling old methodology’s and creating religious platforms to introduce new ones.

There is no flame.

No scroll.

No Spirit.

No Presence.

Brothers and sisters, let me echo Paul’s words: if your LIFE is really in the Spirit as God reveals, then you must learn to FOLLOW after the Spirit. Your movement must be within His moving. Your living must be from within His living. This is what it means to follow Christ.

While METHODS are always available to the spiritually dull, MOVEMENT is discerned by those with an active prayer closet. Active and continual living in UNION is the only thing that allows us to discern the movement of the Spirit. It’s not obtained from books, or seminars, or gurus or the latest seminar. Movement is found within your spirit where the Spirit of God flows.

Choose movement. Choose to put up your sails to catch the wind of the Spirit, not run on the scripts that raise new platforms to your ego. Choose the silent whispers of God in the cave of your heart and not the stage performances of flesh that boost your ego. Choose the scroll not the script. It is from this posture of humility that divine methods will come to you. You will discover the wineskins that can hold the new wine.

Our lives must become a living extension of the flame. When Ezekiel was among the captives taken to Babylon, he had a vision of God’s mobile Throne come to visit him. Every Israelite believed God’s presence was stuck to the temple back in Jerusalem, but God revealed that His throne isn’t stuck to any earthly structures. It has wheels to move. Wheels within wheels. Movement in any direction needed. This was an entirely new wineskin for Ezekiel to behold. The old wineskin of the Temple being only in Jerusalem was yesterday’s news. Now the Throne was in a foreign land in the heart of a prophet, and in the wind of the Spirit was still directing the course of his people toward victory.

New wineskins must be mobile, living and bound only to the movement of the cloud and fire. The sons of the age to come are not stationary priests serving in structures of human invention. They’re moving tabernacles of heaven. They have become the temple that moves with Him. Their lives becoming the very scroll of heaven in motion.

When the cloud moves, the temples move. When the fire pauses, the altar pauses. This rhythm of movement is not logistical, it is prophetic. It trains us to live by the breath of God, not by the blueprints of men. We walk by flame, not format; by Spirit, not spectacle. The sons of God are not here to build empires to their ego, but to host the Ark of God. And the Ark was never built to be permanently parked. It was built with poles along each side to be carried, to remain MOBILE. As soon as the wind of the Spirit indicated it was time for movement, the ark was carried into that path.

Modern day church life is like arks without poles to carry and move. Instead they are cemented to the ground and immovable. They try to make the flame stationary. They try to hold the cloud to their whim. They build a monument to some great leader of their movement in the past and now have lost sight of the mobile Throne Ezekiel saw.

The kind of container God Is looking for requires total flexibility and fluidity. And the reward is always this: you will always be where the Lamb is! You will always be where victory is flowing! You will always be synchronized with eternity an aligned with the throne -- where the trumpets are always blowing and the angels are always singing!

If you want to be a container that moves with the cloud you must unclench your grip on the past. You have to let go of old wineskins that have become brittle and useless to host new wine. You have to stop praying for stability and start asking for sensitivity.

The wineskin that moves is the wineskin that remains useful for the new wine. Everything else will dry out, crack, collapse and be consumed because the life that is in the Spirit was never meant for idleness or idolatry.

Follow the Spirit. Carry the New Wine. Be a portable ark and not museum to the past. God is alive. The Spirit is movement. And you are the vessel of His navigation on earth.

~sOulwind