Aligning Your Life || Get Your Life (Part 2) || Pastor Michael Kilpatrick
Sep 10, 2023
Is your life in proper alignment? To whom or what it’s aligned to?
Many times we get frustrated because things aren’t going the way we think they should and can’t understand why. I’ll tell you why: you’re either out of alignment or resisting being in alignment. Today we will discuss Whom and what you are to be aligned to, and how that alignment is displayed in your life.
Alignment is a position of agreement or alliance. It’s the proper positioning or state of adjustment of parts in relation to each other. Cambridge Dictionary notes that if two things or people are in alignment, they are the same as or similar to each other, or in agreement with each other.
Maybe you are having a hard time understanding why certain things are or are not happening in your life. Maybe you are experiencing a tension between what you desire to do and your reality in life right now. It is my prayer that your ears be open to what the Holy Spirit is speaking to you so you can get your life in full alignment.
Who Are You Aligned To?
Read John 15:1-17.
Let’s break this down
"I am" is God the Son (Jesus). "My Father" is God the Father (God).
The True Vine
To provide further context, here are some characteristics of a vine. The are thick, strong, and can appear to be dead. Vines grow in the spring and continue growing through the summer into fall.
What God given promises, dreams, and plans seem dead in your life? It may not be that you are out of alignment. It may be that you are in a season of growth and preparation. Don’t stop growing and fall off! Keep growing. Don’t despise the winter season. It may be for your protection. Fruit can’t be produced out of season. If it could or if it does, it’s no good anyway.
Jesus said He is the "True Vine". In the original language, true means the following:
- Not only the name and resemblance, but the real nature in every respect
- It contrasts realities with their semblances
- Is opposite to what is imperfect, defective, frail, uncertain
What counterfeit are you aligned to? What are you aligning yourself to that is causing you to not produce the fruit God intended to produce throughout you when He created you?
The Vinedresser
A Vinedresser is a person who prunes, trains, and cultivates vines and a tiller of the soil.
How? He deals with the branches.
By doing what? He "taketh away". This Eans the following:
- To raise up, elevate, lift up, draw up
- To bear away what has been raised, carry off, remove, to take away from the living
This made me think of Jesus, our "True Vine". Read 1 Timothy 2:3-6.
While Jesus (God the Son, Our Savior, the True Vine) desires for all men to be saved, for us to grow as the body, God (God the Father, Our Creator, the Vinedresser) will lift up and throw away as in His sovereignty, He determines.
In the original language, "purgeth" means the following:
- To prune trees and vines from useless shoots
- Metaphor from guilt, to expiate (to atone for guilt or sin)
- To cleanse, of filth impurity
Is this not our God! The One who sent His Son to save and redeem us.
Is this not our Savior! Jesus, our atonement for our guilt and sin while we were yet sinners! Cleansing us from our filth and impurities!
What is He trimming in your life? What has been removed and what is He removing so that you can be fruitful?
Truth is that the pruning season can be hard but it is necessary for what the Lord intends to produce through our lives. He takes away if not producing. Why does He prune or purge? To bear more fruit
Abiding
To abide means to accept or act in accordance with
In the original language it means the following:
- To remain
- To sojourn, tarry
- Not to depart: continue to be present, held, and kept continually
- To remain as one, not to become another or different
Jesus says, "Abide in me, and I in you". That’s alignment. A position of agreement. That’s covenant, an alliance and allegiance.
Why are we to abide? For the same reason why God takes away and prunes: To bear fruit. God does it through us if we stay connected/in alignment with Jesus.
Fruit is a byproduct of our connection. Stop trying to control and force that which is not your job, role, or responsibility. He is the Vine, we are the branches. Your alignment determines your production. We are to remain connected and in alignment with Jesus.
Apart from Him, we can do nothing. Those who are not connected to Jesus may seem like they are doing something but are they? What fruit is produced through their lives that will actually last, count, or matter beyond this life?
To not abide is a choice. As the Vinedresser, God may lift you us to be able to produce fruit but if you choose not to abide, you run the risk of being cut off and thrown away.
Are you not abiding? See this as an opportunity that the Lord is presenting you another chance to lift you up so you can bear fruit.
What areas of your life is out of alignment? What areas are not submitted as a result of you not abiding in Him in that areas. Does He really have all of you or do He only have access to parts of you as a branch?
Bear Fruit
Do you believe He wants you to bear fruit? Sometimes when we are out of season or not abiding, the struggle we experience can make us feel as though we are meant to suffer. We are to experience fruitful seasons.
Where are you bearing fruit? Where are you growing
What Are You Aligned To?
So know we know we are to abide in Christ and be in alignment with Him. As a result, what are we also aligned to?
His Love
We are aligned to His love by keeping His commandments.
When we don’t keep his commandments, we begin to wither. It is important that you align yourself to his love by obeying His written and spoken word, commandments, and instructions.
One Another
We are aligned to one another when we do what Christ did: have compassion, served, taught, etc… Yes He physically laid down His life as a friend by dying on the Christ for us but He displayed what it meant to lay down His life in the various other ways which looked a lot like inconvenience and sacrifice. That is how we are to also lay down our life and love one another.
It makes me think of this instruction: Read Romans 12:9-10.
It's important to remember that you are not the only branch connected to the vine! You are aligned and connected to others in the body of Christ. So we can all stay healthy and grow, we must love one another. otherwise, risk being cut off.
Your Assignment
You are called and appointed to do something but that requires your alignment with Jesus by abiding in Him so fruit is produced in the areas He has called you to.
What are you appointed to do? Is your life in alignment with your appointment? When you abide in Jesus and stay in that alignment, you are appointed to do something and to bear fruit from it. Your assignment is important and has value. it is connected to whether or not you remain or get thrown away.
What’s The Evidence of Your Alignment?
Joy
Read John 15:11.
Abiding is more than doing. It’s being. You should be experiencing joy in your alignment. In fact, true and lasting joy only comes from abiding in Jesus. Joy is your portion and evidence that you are in alignment with Jesus, even in difficult seasons.
Friendship
Are you a friend of God? Is the level of your spiritual fitness at the depths of intimacy where what God is saying is being made known to you? It is great to read and hear from others what God is saying and doing but as a believer because of Christ, what God is saying can be known to us individually. Friendship with Jesus makes this possible and is evidence that we are abiding in Jesus and in alignment with Him.
Fruit
Read John 15:16.
Are you bearing fruit in season? Are you growing so when the season of budding and fruit is suppose to be produced, you are actually producing? You and I are suppose to produce fruit. It's evidence that we are abiding to the One and only True Source: Jesus.
Are you getting what you ask for? Is what you ask for in Jesus name? When what you are asking for is in alignment with his will, you receiving what you asked for is evidence that you are abiding in Him.
Love
Is your alignment with Jesus evident in how you love others, especially those who are your brothers and sisters in the body of Christ? We are created for relationship, not just God but with others too. As a part of the body of Christ, loving one another is evidence that we are abiding in Christ and truly in alignment with Him.
Align You Life
So Who are you aligned to? Who or what are you abiding to, not just in words but in deeds and actions? Who or what are you looking to as your source? Is it your job, family, spouse, leaders, political party, self? Jesus is the only true, real, and sustainable source. If you are not aligned or abiding in Jesus, you are signed and abiding to the wrong person or thing. Life is hard enough. It is foolish to live life without Him. It’s time to get into alignment.
When we are in proper alignment, we are aligned to His love, one another, and our assignment. We we are not, it’s evidence that we are out or getting out of alignment. It’s time to get realigned.
The evidence of our alignment should result in joy, friendship with Christ, fruit, and love for one another. If not, we are not properly abiding. It is time to adjust our alignment.
Alignment At Fit Life Church
Read John 15:16.
Fit Life Church is a place where your calling and purpose is realized (that’s your “I chose you and appointed you”) and your Kingdom assignments are fulfilled (that’s “that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide”). That’s our mission.
We are therefore a community that is fit spiritually, mentally, and physically through the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. That’s how we abide. That’s our vision.
If you are looking for this type of community, we would love for you to join us. Stay Connected with us and the latest happenings with FLC virtually and in the Central Florida area. Join us for bible study and let’s interact. Let’s love one another as a way of abiding in Christ, so we can all bear much fruit, the fruit God intended to produce through us.
Get your life in alignment so you can be who God has called you to be.