(...thread one...) Receiving from another always includes taking what is offered...
(...thread two...) Taking from another what is not offered is thievery...
It is also receiving, but from our own hand, not the offering of another...
(...thread three) Christian asking has become something it was never designed to be. It has become asking without knowing ahead of time whether it is already offered or not...
Sometimes that is appropriate. Often it is not!
"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. "For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
"Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?
"Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?
"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" (Luk 11:9-13 NASB)
If we ask for good things (the things of Gods' own heart), we will not receive evil things from God. Evil things may be offered by the Evil One in order to confuse us. We do not need to take the evil offered.
(...the threads woven together...)
Receiving from God is always receiving good.
The flesh is unable to accurately gauge what is good and what is not good because the flesh is known by its propensity to war against God (the Spirit). So, the flesh is our #1 source of confusion in our life in the spirit/Spirit.
Our spirit, in union with Holy Spirit, alone, is able to discern God and therefore able to discern flesh.
Flesh takes for itself. It's a thief and a robber.
The flesh is a master of concepts and ideas.
The spirit is a portal of deep and abiding relationship and friendship.
Being under a Lordship, gives us authority through relationship and friendship.
It does not leave us practicing principles...
It keeps us full of life and discernment...
Free from the entanglements of fear.
Full of the power that flows from relationship and friendship;
the love that flows from relationship and friendship;
the sound mind that flows from relationship and friendship...
Be, being filled with the spirit/Spirit...
Be in a continual state of receiving filling from Holy Spirit union with your spirit, flooding your soul and quickening your body, by the will of the Father and through the blood of Jesus...
...in the vine...
Don Christopher