“There are ideas inside your mind, heart and spirit that no one has ever thought of before. And the beauty is that these ideas want to come out of you. The sad part is that for most of you, it's not going to happen because of your false self – your fear, guilt, and shame – will shut down your creative and imaginative true self.
The world needs what you have. The world needs the real you. I'm not talking about Christianity. I'm talking about whatever it is you know that we don't yet know. In this book, we will dig into that. You're going to get a taste of abiding, and when you do, you're going to want to be in a community where you're doing this with others every week.” –Jamie Winship
If we’ve learned anything from Jamie Winship, it has been that God is NOT afraid of our questions. In fact, He welcomes them – even more noteworthy is that much of the internal junk we’ve accumulated over the years has been the result of NOT asking God’s input as the devil has built a framework of lies to cork up all that God is willing for us to become.
Don’t we wish Eve had asked for a God consult before she bit into the apple? We’ve also learned that a typically unprofitable question is “God, why did You allow such and such?” Rather, the proper pursuit seems to revolve around the two principle questions we repeatedly use to uproot the lies and reveal the Truth of our Identity gift from God:
God, what do you want me to know about such and such?
God, what do You want me to do about such and such?
The book’s four parts are meant to unpack what Winship views as the four components of what it looks like to “abide” in Christ:
Attention - Intentionally, constantly attentive to what Jesus is saying to us.
Awareness - Being aware of the movement of Jesus’s Spirit in and around us and engaging with Him.
Annunciation - Jesus will expose our fears reflected in a false identity which Jesus wants to uproot, exchanging that for the true self in Christ that He created us and redeemed us to be.
Action - the activity of operating out of our true self
Living fearlessly is the result of proper abiding in Christ. The beautiful walk in the Spirit.
“But I say, walk and live [habitually] in the [Holy] Spirit [responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit]; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh (of human nature without God).” Galatians 5:16 AMPC
Our Assignment: In each of the book’s four parts, Winship is unpacking various truths which then includes a variety of proposed interactions with Jesus. Those interactions can, at times, be repetitive although presented for different purposes.
What I’ve done for all four sections of the book is try to pull the “meat” of the teaching plus what Winship wants us to do with it - as in asking Jesus questions to help us understand what He is doing and engage wiht Him. You will also see notes from Living Fearless Guided Journal (at least the first 66 pages). It is really a stand alone book meant to be something of a contemplative journal. Since I didn’t find it especially helpful to use alongside the original book, you might consider using it after this book club to continue solidifying these principles in your walk with the Lord.
– Wes Lane