The Father uses two ways to develop our spirituality: impartation and process. If impartation is first, it will be followed by process later, and vice versa.
Impartation is always on God’s agenda because He loves encounter. And process is always His will for us because He adores establishing our encounters as lifelong experiences.
Impartation works from an experience into the process, which is the truth. Process works with the truth toward a place of encounter, which is impartation. They are two sides of the same coin — a paradox. We cannot have one without the other.
Every conversation and encounter with God has an impartation with the potential to launch us into a whole new place of favor, permission, and authority. We must explore that space, not just enjoy the experience.
We must seize the opportunity being presented to move joyfully into the place where we are unrestrained in the joy and love of God. It is important that we enjoy the euphoria of what is happening—but we must make sure that we take some ground in our relationship with God.
Take time to grow in the affections of God. Allow God to indulge Himself in His loving-kindness. He has laid out new ground in His heart and affections for us to both enjoy and embrace. But once the impartation has worn off, we must engage with the process. It allows us to establish the truth by our trust, faith, and obedience.
In impartation, we let worship increase so that we can get a breakthrough in rejoicing. It is beholding the Lord and letting our beholding conform us to His purpose. Our feelings and emotions are a beautiful part of the experience.
But in process, these are often hidden from us so that trust, faith and obedience can make manifest the same experiences.
Process is a series of steps that take us from where we are now to where God wants us to be and it is primarily relational.
Process is about meditation, which is the art of thinking deeply about who we are now and who we are becoming. It involves a healthy dialogue in prayer with the Lord Jesus as we determine who we are in Him and how to make that a reality. We are learning about our own identity and how to align ourselves with the purposes of God. What is He going to declare to us of Himself, and how will we respond to His specific invitation to become more Christ-like in those areas?
In process, God has a very specific agenda with us in terms of relationship and identity. It is therefore about learning the relational joy that exists between the Father and the Son, to which we are so obviously included. It’s designed to lead us into simple abiding, and from there, into divine acceleration.
We engage fully with the Holy Spirit, who is a genius at doing life. It is His role that will be pivotal for us, as He is given to us to empower us to become like Jesus. He loves all the angles of process that develop through the initial thinking into the place of heart change and lifestyle adjustment.
The brilliant idea behind process is this: we become who we spend time with.
So, I ask you, do you see how God has been developing your spirituality with both impartation AND process? How so?
PS) To get more insight on this paradox of impartation & process, download The Process Series now.
PPS) Space at the upcoming The Epiphany is quickly running up. I’m getting excited about it. If you haven’t seen the details about the time we’ll spend together, take a look &/or register here.
