Job 42:5, "I have heard of Thee by hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees Thee."
Job at the end of loosing literally everything except his very life says to God that he has heard about Him... but now he sees Him. God, you were an idea, a thought, a chapter in a book, a lesson at Sunday school... but now, wow... you are real. I see you!
This was Job's moment of awakening. The admission that everything he thought he knew or thought he was, all is abilities, all his personal strengths and talents are nothing when he says "I retract..." He awakens to the truth and has no option but to surrender.
Oswald Chambers says, "It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials: through every cloud He brings, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child..."
I posted the other day about bad days, pains, and general emotional suffering. It came in a moment of desperation, when I could hear God but not see Him. As many are aware a creditor had filed for foreclosure on my home. And simultaneously one of the loans on my property ballooned and the terms of renewal from the bank required even more cash I did not have. Adding insult to injury some property taxes on the same were past due. Perhaps I could try to solve the issue by borrowing it from someone, but in my heart I could hear God saying it's all ok. Then came the command. Something completely off the wall. It was to ask the bank for different terms of the renewal which included solving the tax problem.
I obeyed and in no uncertain terms the bank told me no way. That was Monday. Today is Thursday. The foreclosure was scheduled for Tues. On Wednesday a friend who had guaranteed the ballooning loan for me asked me to meet him at the bank. Today, of his own volition, he suggested to the bank do the very thing I has asked of them, and which they rejected. Worded differently, but exactly as I proposed on the compulsion of God. They accepted.
In the middle of this meeting I had to make a trip to the car. On the way back my phone rang. It was the attorney for the creditor who posted my property for foreclosure. I asked if they had accepted my payout offer. He said, no. So I asked, "what are we going to do?" He said, they have no interest in foreclosing, and are not going to foreclose. Send us a couple hundred dollars, and make whatever payment you can as you can afford it. The for a little icing on the cake - a couple of friends, led byGod, have said they will partner with me in getting 2 of my books published.
I understand what Job meant... I have heard of Thee.. (and from Thee)... but now I see Thee. Today, I saw God's masterful hand at work.
The suffering that leads to surrender will lead to obedience. From there, there may or may not be more suffering, but one thing is for sure. Jesus said, "I you will obey me I will disclose myself to you." Today was full disclosure. Today was a day of seeing.
Matthew 16:24, "The Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.'"
I met Tim today at Tomball Love Machine. For those who don't know, Tomball Love Machine is a co-ed group that gets together once a week in Tomball. Together we are a "safe place" for one another to express, question, learn, teach, and experience life in God. It's not a support group, though very supportive. It's not a recovery group, those certainly people have recovered as a result. It is really just what church probably was intended to be. A place of love and acceptance. A place you are welcome to come to with me.
So back to Tim... Tim retired a year and a half ago after a successful career in the art industry. Him and his wife had grand plans to enjoy their twilight years traveling. That was of course until his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Five weeks ago she passed away, one week short of their 37th wedding anniversary.
It was his wife's passing, and the crisis it created, that led Tim to a place of self described "surrender." Here is a man that depended on his wife for a whole lot more than companionship. She was the technology expert, fluent in navigating the computer. She took care of much more than cooking and cleaning, but the check book as well. Imagine waking up at sixty something having not used a washing machine in decades, or having not looked at an online bank statement...ever. The whole prospect of surviving can appear daunting. Just all salt in the wounds of loosing a lifelong companion, partner, and friend.
Tim has some anger. He has quite a few fears. But what is incredibly beautiful is the completeness of his surrender to God. He described it like this.
Imagine spending your whole life working to make money and being very successful at it. Only to wake up one day to realize all the work, all the money in the world cannot save his wife. Equally, to continue to on for the purpose of making money is futility, because more money is, once again, not going to bring his wife back. This confrontation of his life, his purpose, his being, and his well being led him to conclude there is nothing but God. This is surrender. The place where you realize there is NOTHING but God and His will.
In five weeks everyone that surrounds him, including his children have witnessed the transformation of surrender. His purpose is now to obey God today. He has seen the futility of plans, and received the joy of obeying daily. It is an absolutely spectacular thing to here and see. For me it is encouragement to continue on the journey God has me on. It is comforting to not be alone in the challenge of surrender.
Tim misses his wife. He still hurts tremendously. But the crisis precipitated a transformation. One in which he sees God clearer than ever before, and experiences His love in ways unimaginable. Leading to his greatest fear of all... that comfort and complacency might lead him back to the person he once was.
John 16:21, "Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come, but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world."
Pain (not to be confused with torment)... what a topic..
In passing I asked, What is pain? And in response to myself I wrote, "pain seems a whole lot worse when you are between glories than it does retrospectively standing in the glory. And in fact, the pain of your experience is not painful to me at all. So does that mean the experience is not the source of the pain? Yep... that is what it means."
I now debate myself in light of the scripture. Is pain something apart from the experience? Certainly pain only belongs to the beholder. Certainly a single experience can cause pain to multiple parties. So I am wrong in saying the experience is not the source of the pain. The experience is the source of the pain. But the pain becomes beautiful in light of the results of the experience, and if that experience is orchestrated by God.
Jesus was not talking about physical birth the this scripture. He was talking about spiritual birth, about the birth of Him in us, of God's kingdom in us. He was talking about the glory that follows the transformation being able to erase the memories of the pain.
What other instances of pain produce glorious results? Physically a massage can be painful on the knots in the muscles, but oh so relieving when it's done. A workout can bring pain the following days when done effectively. How about growing pains... do you remember the leg pain as a child? To win athletes have to often ignore the pain. So pain can be ignored as well.
I think about my writings, how many were born out of pain? Christ salvation for the world... the ultimate in pain yielding something great. So pain, when suffered at the birth of something new and godly in us is a good thing.
Pain in the context of transformation is a good thing. It is not good in the sense that it can easily be ignored, or is enjoyable. But it is a necessary reminder that we are alive. It is a necessary call to action, that action being allow God to do His work or to hide further in the darkness. Pain is the call to be hot or cold. Sometimes the prescription of pain is to forgive someone. Sometimes the prescription is to change course. Other times there is no prescription for the pain, there is no relief. In those cases, there most often is a way to embrace the pain. There is a way to focus on the joy of the transformation and the other side.
Today's music selection is not a reflection of the bands standing with God. But it says so much about pain. About how pain is better than being numb. Give me pain, rather than nothing at all. Happiness is not a cure for pain. (not to be confused with joy) But unlike the song... this pain I am speaking of is not "without love" but because of God's love. Of their experiences in this area, the band writes this on their website, "We’ve all had to confront death on a few different levels, and we’ve had family go through some health-related things, so, for us, Life Starts Now reflects that feeling of redefining what life is and what it means to be alive after you hit rock bottom.”
The pain is a opportunity for us all to redefine life and living with God's definition.
2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."
My mother mentioned a teaching she heard from Paul Manwring on the Glory of God. Excited she offered me a CD of the message, but I don't really have any way to play a CD in an era of MP3's and iPods. I searched online for a podcast of the message, but to no avail. I did find his book What on Earth is Glory? available through amazon, but haven't purchased it. But her enthusiasm about it got me thinking. Perhaps thinking not in the direction my mother is thinking, but thinking none the less.
I was thinking that if we "are being transformed into the same image (Christ) from glory to glory." That the time between the glories really sux. I guess Paul in so many words was saying that the space between one glory to the other is the period of transformation. And as we all know, transformation is most often accompanied with some sort of discomfort. A discomfort we have come to know as PAIN! But what is glory?
Paul Manwaring apparently has a great teaching which I have not heard, so I rely on the Holy Spirit for explanation. We know that glory can be a form of praise that we can "give" to God. We know Moses asked to see it, so it is something more than words of adoration. The saved receive a crown of glory. And we know that to the "degree that you share the sufferings of Christ... so that at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice..." So without going into a gigantic theological study... glory, at least the glory of God, is a tangible manifestation of God's accomplishments, His power, His successes. It is not only His trophy if you will, but it is a living trophy that when man observes, he sees the experiences associated with the glory. I see it as a train, a giant, ever growing, radiant cape or robe that when in view, it will draw the viewer into the majesty of the accomplishments of God.
Isaiah 6:1, "In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple." The train of His robe is how I define glory.
So we walk out our Christianity, or work it out as Paul wrote to the Philippians, bringing to bear the cross of Christ onto our ego. It is painful. (or is it... more on that later) The cross bears down and when that little piece of transformation is complete, we look back and see a revelation of Christ. We see the proverbial train of His robe and the accomplishment it represents.
And what of this pain? What of the suffering to the degree of the revelation of His glory? This much I know... the pain seems a whole lot worse when you are between glories than it does retrospectively standing in the glory. And in fact, the pain of your experience is not painful to me at all. So does that mean the experience is not the source of the pain? Yep... that is what it means. Perhaps we can explore pain on another day.
But the glory of God is real. It is like light which is both energy and particle. Hard to understand, but the glory of God is a tangible manifestation of His accomplishments and when it is visible, no other accomplishments compare.
Romans 7:24, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?"
2 Corinthians 12:10 & 12, "Therefore I am well content with weakness... with distresses... with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong...And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Ever have one of those days that you just wanted to end? Where you wished you could just go to bed and wake up to something completely different? Better yet, did you ever look at someone and wonder how they never have those days?
Well here is what I know. Those people who you think don't have those days... they do. Everyone has those days, so if you think someone has a secret to avoiding them then you are wrong, or they are a liar.
My death coach (inside joke) Jim Spivey turned me onto the movie The Kid. In it Bruce Willis (Russ) meets himself at the age of 8. Russ is a very successful forty something Image Consultant. The 8 year old Russ has come through time crashing into the 40yr old Russ' life creating havoc. Eventually the kid is found asking him, "do I ever get anything right?" Russ walks his younger version through high-school, college, grad school, working his butt off to get to be a "high powered, affluent, chick magnet." But the kid doesn't see this image. He sees him as a "dogless, chickless, guy... with a twitch." The kid version eventually says, "I get what you do... I mean I do... you help people lie about who they really are so that they can pretend to be someone else."
It is a huge awakening for Russ to see himself as he really is. He has been slapped in the face with being the number one victim of his own profession. He is the biggest consumer of what he sells. He believes his own press clippings even though he knows he manufactured them himself.
What does this have to do with bad days?
Bad days are the 8 year old version of ourselves slapping us in the face telling us we are not Mr or Mrs Perfect. That we are mostly lies, pretending to be something we are not. They are there for us to question ourselves. And in questioning ourselves, we then have a choice to find the truth in Christ, or go deeper into the lie. Russ & the Kid later encounter the older version of themselves and surprised that they "are not a looser." But they are not a looser until after they allow the past to stop shaping them. In spiritual terms there is a death to the past. There is a death to ego, and then what God has planned is allowed to come out. Russ was exhausted by his bad day and in response opened up to other possibilities of life. He let go, and that was the opening God needed.
So here I am... still wallowing in my bad day. Still trying to embrace the feelings. They are my feelings. They are here for a purpose. But I am doing something different in light of the above. I am going to soak in them. I am going to explore these ugly feelings. I am not here to reject them. I am not here to pacify them, overcome them, ignore them, or turn them off. Perhaps I am not here to even understand them. And yet, to even write these words brings a sense of peace.
I am running into myself so to speak. Not withdrawing or introverting... but taking a good hard look at the truth. The 45 year old version of myself says I am a rock solid, man of God, moving mountains with faith, and teaching mankind to do the same. The 8 year old version says, I am a scared child, powerless to stop or change anything. The feelings... the bad day if you will, is knowing the 8 year old version is right.
It's ok to be powerless, to be vulnerable, to be afraid... it's the truth. It is in this weakness that God is strong. Stop in those feelings. Explore them, search them, because you will find the presence of God hid there.
2 Timothy 1:7, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of sound mind."
I have spent the last 7 to 10 days in a place that I would describe as complete surrender. Knowing that I have nothing to offer God, resting in His peace, knowing He loves me, and waiting for His command to obey. And in an instant to my mind comes a call to action. A compulsion of the Lord if you will... an act of obedience.
So what do I do? I spend a couple of days mustering up the courage to actually do it. And so I stepped out in faith only to be totally rejected and shut down. Instantly fear entered. Why?
Fear entered because I had determined in my mind what the results of the obedience should be. I had a predicted an acceptable outcome. In other words, I am still alive, still trying to control. Not believing and accepting the fact that I am dead in Christ, but needing once again for the cross to come to bear on some piece of me rising up against God.
Even worse the results started a whole process in my mind of how did I miss God? Is He mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Can I hear His voice at all? Did I wait to long to act? All lies designed to keep me from boldly going to God again.
Reality is that God's commands do not come with guaranteed to even predictable results. Additionally there is a place in surrender where the results are inconsequential to the obedience. Jesus prayed for the sick in His hometown in obedience to the Father. And yet the bible says few were healed. Results are not related to obedience as the results are dictated by God's intent, not ours. At the end of the day God is too deep to explain Himself, and for us to have complete understanding is never promised.
So what has happened in this realization of the fear. Firstly, for me the fear points to a practice I must allow to die. If I continue to predict or prescribe acceptable outcomes for obeying God the disappointment will cause me to veer from the obedience. In other words, if I continue to predict the outcome of my obedience, then my failure to correctly predict runs the risk of causing me to give up on obeying. Secondly, this fear; which is related to crisis, is designed to show me the part of me that has not shared Christ's experience on the cross. The crisis, whether financial, physical, emotional, relational, health, or any other crisis is there to show me who I perceive myself to be in Christ. And as that perception does not line up with God's it is a huge opportunity to lay myself down and pick up Christ. In this case I reject the fear as a lie, and I go back to God, knowing I obeyed and ready for His next task.
In the end, outcomes are irrelevant, obedience to the compulsion of God it the only thing necessary. T Austin-Sparks says, "The only certainty is God. An apostle may be led to move in a particular direction, and then by reason of need and opportunity he may conclude that certain (results) are the objective, but when he reaches a point (where predicted results meet real results) he will be met by a double, divine 'no' to those thoughts, and be shown something un-thought of. (Acts 16:6-10)" Simply put, obey because predicting the results will be met with a "no." But the obedience will produce something un-thought of, something wholly God.
The fear is a lie, and a telltale sign of something un-surrendered in me, something not trusting in God. It is up to me to ignore the fear, press into God in prayer, and wait from His next command. The results are God's responsibility for which I share none. So until I get it completely, I feel all too often like the boy in the picture, crying to God about not getting my way.
Romans 6:12-13, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof; neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and you members as instruments of righteousness unto God."
Remember... always remember, sin is the nature, the character trait in conflict with God and the cause of the sins or actions. We are not to "present" ourselves to sin, but rather "present" ourselves to God.
Nee, in this chapter, explains that "presenting" is synonymous with consecration but not consecration of the old self, but rather consecration of the reborn spirit man. So it can be said -- presenting is the process of bringing ourselves to God in solemn dedication. Dedication to His purpose and plan. It is here that Nee puts the previous chapters together with this thought, and shows the progression of the things that comprise a normal Christian life.
He says, "When I really know that I am crucified with Him, then spontaneously I reckon myself dead. And when I know that I am raised with Him from the dead, then likewise I reckon myself 'alive unto God in Christ', for both the death and resurrection side of the cross are to be accepted by faith. When this point is reached, giving myself to Him follows. In resurrection He is the source of my life -- indeed He is my life -- so I cannot but present everything to Him, for all is His, not mine. But without passing through death, I have nothing to consecrate; nor is there anything God can accept, for He has condemned all that is of the old creation to the cross. Death has cut off all that cannot be consecrated to Him, and resurrection alone has made consecration possible. Presenting myself to God means that henceforth I consider my whole life as belonging to Him."
Not only do I consider my whole life as belonging to God but Paul says our "members" as well. "'Present your members' (Rom. 6:13, 19). God requires of me that I now regard all my members, all my faculties, as belonging wholly to Him." I have to dedicate my life to God, but I also have to dedicate the very thing that gets man through life. In some sense to dedicate a life is to dedicate a purpose. But to dedicate members is to include the mental and physical power to achieve that purpose.
To illustrate this point Nee describes a situation where a person might consecrate himself to be a preacher or missionary. This is not consecration to God. "They have 'consecrated' (as they would put it) something altogether different, namely, their own un-crucified natural faculties to the doing of His work." Consecration in what God requires is "Not to a Christian work, but to the will of God, to be and do whatever He requires."
"'Lord, I give myself to Thee with this desire alone: to know and walk in the path Thou hast ordained.' That is true giving."
This is a difficult place to get to. It is a place of complete surrender. And that complete surrender will be tested. We cannot say I am surrendered and not to be immediately tested. "That strong self-assertive will of mine must go to the cross, and I must give myself wholly to the Lord... we cannot expect the Lord to live out His life in us if we do not give Him our lives in which to live." And the testing of this surrender, of the completeness of our dedication to God, will come in the most familiar of areas.
Nee says, "If we give ourselves unreservedly to God, many adjustments may have to be made: in family, or business, or church relationships, or in the matter of our personal views. God will not let anything of ourselves remain. His finger will touch, point by point, everything that is not of Him, and He will say, 'This must go.' Are you willing?"
Well, are you willing? Many reading have already said they are willing, and this should go very far into explaining the experience since. God will point at that thing un-surrendered to Him. Over and over and over He will point until it is surrendered. And then He will point at the next thing. It is necessary to struggle with faculties between us and the Lord so that we come to know they have not been surrendered. It is necessary because we "... must first have the sense of God's possession of me before I can have the sense of His presence with me. When once His ownership is established, then I dare do nothing in my own interests, for I am His exclusive property."
You can go you whole life and never recognize this work of surrender at work in you. It is not a salvation issue. To miss it will not cost your soul. Neither will fighting against it. It is a reward and higher level. It is a closeness to the Father. But as I said, it is a difficult thing. Nee warns us, "There are cherished ideas, strong wills, precious relationships, much loved work, that will have to go; so do not give yourself to God unless you mean it... He breaks what He takes, but after breaking it He blesses and uses it to meet the needs of others. After you give yourself to the Lord, He begins to break what was offered to Him. Everything seems to go wrong, and you protest and find fault with the ways of God. But to stay there is to be no more than just a broken vessel -- no good for the world because you have gone too far for the world to use you, and no good for God either because you have not gone far enough for Him to use you. You are out of gear with the world, and you have a controversy with God. This is the tragedy of many a Christian."
"I do not consecrate myself to be a missionary or a preacher; I consecrate myself to God to do His will where I am, be it at school, office, or kitchen, or wherever He may, in His wisdom, send me. Whatever He ordains for me is sure to be the very best, for nothing but good can come to those who are wholly His."
We are not even 1/2 way through with the review of The Normal Christian Life and I already hear the Holy Spirit saying, "that is enough." This post alone is more than most Christians have ever put in their mouth, let alone swallow. If you would like to continue this walk Nee has laid out, I would encourage you to buy the book. As for now, to comment any more would be disobedience. I look forward to the new things God would have me write about. I look forward to once again reporting on humanities interaction with our Creator.
2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new."
In Chapter 5 of The Normal Christian Life, Watchman Nee deviates from his discussion on four conditions of the normal christian life to The Divide of the Cross.
With a chapter titled that, one might think he is going to reference the discussion of the offense the cross creates and resulting division among men. In actuality the divide he is speaking of is the division between the old and new. Or the division between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God. Nee describes it this way, "... in Satan's hand, the first creation has become the old creation, and God's primary concern is now no longer with that, but with a second and new creation. He is bringing in a new creation, a new kingdom and a new world, and nothing of the old creation, the old kingdom or the old world can be transferred to the new. It it a question now of these two rival realms, and of which realm we belong."
This is critical to the Christians life. As the cross is going to be shown to be that doorway between the old and new. It is the doorway between flesh and spirit, the world and the kingdom of God. God is not about fixing a broken creation. The old creation is never to be "fixed" but rather it will pass away. Instead we have an opportunity to go to the new now. This passage is through surrender, through the cross and its representation of laying everything down. Naked on the cross is where the entrance to the kingdom of God lies.
Nee highlights this with, "'delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His Love' (Col. 1:13). Our citizenship henceforth is there. But in order to bring us into His new kingdom, God must do something new in us. He must make of us new creatures... 'That which is born of flesh is flesh'; and 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit in corruption' (John 3:6; 1 Cor. 15:50). However educated, however cultured, however improved it be, flesh is still flesh. Our fitness for the new kingdom is determined by the creation to which we belong... Are we born of flesh or spirit? Our ultimate suitability for the new realm hinges on the question of origin.The question is not 'good or bad?' but flesh or spirit?"
Awareness of this spirit realm and rebirth into it are critical. The seeking of the kingdom of God, the Father's spiritual realm, coupled with faith, will lead to coming to know Christ in new and powerful ways. We will share in the experience of Christ's baptism.
"... Are ye ignorant that all we who are baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death" (Rom. 6:3-4). We must now ask ourselves what is the significance of these words.
Baptism in scripture is associated with salvation. 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved' (Mark 16:16)... What is salvation? It relates not to our sins, nor to the power of sin, but to the cosmos or world system. We are involved in Satan's world system. To be saved is to make our exit from his world system into God's."
Nee, with a little logic and doctrine, transitions the reader from knowledge and reckoning faith to now focus on the unseen, the spiritual side of life. As we go forward in the book this exploration will get deeper.
Romans 6:11, "Even so consider (reckon) yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus."
In Chapter 4 of Normal Christian Life Watchman Nee moves from knowing to reckoning. Reckoning being an older term and closely related to it's modern term of reconciliation. To reckon is to account, in an almost mathematical way, for the truth with its application. In examples Nee shows us how the word of God, how knowledge, is reckoned with reality. It goes without saying that the spiritual can only be reckoned with the natural by faith, but let's take a look deeper into the chapter.
As we learn that we were crucified with Christ, that we are already dead, the every real presence of sin creates a conflict between reality and spirituality. If we are dead to Sin then surely being dead with Christ in His crucifixion would manifest in a cleaner life. "Yes there is an outworking of the death which we are going to see presently - but this, first of all, its basis: I have been crucified; in Christ it has been done."
"What then is the secret of reckoning? To put it in one word, it is revelation. We need revelation from God Himself (Matt. 16:17, Eph. 1:17-18). We need to have our eyes opened to the fact of our union with Christ, and that is something more than knowing it as a doctrine."
God says "we are to reckon ourselves dead. Because we are dead." When someone reckons or reconciles a checkbook a $10 deposit is $10 and not fifteen. A $5 check is $5 and not $4. The balance of the checkbook is indisputable once reckoned, or reconciled. Therefore if God says we are dead, then we are dead. If we do not see that, then it is because of a lack of revelation or sight. Nee poses the question, "Are we going to believe the tangible facts of the natural realm which are clearly before our eyes, or the intangible facts of the spiritual realm which are neither seen nor scientifically proved?"
Better yet, where do tangible facts intersect intangible facts. Nee demonstrates that when it comes to Sin (as a nature of man) is dealt with by God indirectly as opposed to the sins which are directly covered by the blood of Christ. Nee says, "(God) does not remove the sin, but the sinner. Our old man was crucified with Him, and because of this the body, which before had been a vehicle of sin is unemployed (Rom. 6:6). Sin, the old master, is still about, but the slave who served him has been put to death, and so is out of reach and his members are unemployed... The expressions 'freed from sin' and 'dead unto sin' in Romans 6:7 ans 11 imply deliverance from a power that is still very present and very real - not from something that no longer exists."
So we are saved and sins are forgiven. We are declared to be dead to sin and yet we stumble and bumble through life, falling to sin if not daily, regularly. We now know that this is because the death was to us, terminating the "slavery" to sin. The death was not to Sin itself. The death was to the Sinner, while sins are covered, and Sin continues to exists. So how to we use this knowledge to not only understand, but to truly overcome Sin to a greater degree, and overcome guilt to the degree we cannot overcome Sin? This applied knowledge is done by faith. "Faith make the real things to become real in my experience." Faith is the assurance God's word is true. And it is this assurance that Satan is constantly attacking.
"The Enemy asked, "Where is God's promise? Where is your faith? What about your prayers? So I was tempted to thrash the whole matter our in prayer again, but was rebuked...
So I declared to the Enemy, "This sleeplessness is a lie, this headache is a lie, this fever is a lie, this high pulse is a lie. In view of what God has said to me, all these symptoms of sickness are just your lies, and God's word is truth.'"
Nee correctly observes, "that (Satan's) attack is always upon our assurance. If he can get us to doubt God's Word, then his object is secured, and he has us in his power... All temptation is primarily to look within, to take our eyes off the Lord and to take account of appearances. Faith is always meeting a mountain, a mountain of evidence that seems to contradict God's Word, a mountain of apparent contradiction in the realm of tangible fact - of failures in deed, as well as in the realm of feeling and suggestion. Either faith or the mountain has to go; they cannot both stand."
So we gain some knowledge... God call's us dead with Christ. We, by faith, begin to reject the lies of Sin and its attempt to re-enslave. Step by step we begin to walk in the truth. Those steps in faith will lead to the experience of "entering into His history and His experience." Crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are not events or things. They are "related to a Person... Every true spiritual experience means that we have discovered a certain fact in Christ (shared experience) and have entered into that...
So God's basic principle in leading us on experimentally is not to give us something. It is not to bring us through something, and as a result to put something into us which we can call 'our experience.'" But it is not our experience at all. It is really a sharing in an experience that Christ has already had that we might know Him more. "The history of Christ becomes our experience and our spiritual history; we do not have a separate history from His. The entire work with respect to us is not done in us here, but in Christ."
So it comes to learning (knowing) after being salted with faith which leads to the experience. This knowing and application of faith is Jesus' command to, "Abide in me..." The experience is Jesus in return fulfilling "...and I in you." Nee cautions, "We need to guard against being over-anxious about the subjective side of things, and so becoming turned in upon ourselves. We need to dwell upon the objective - 'abide in Me' - and let God take care of the subjective... We do not try to produce fruit or concentrate upon the fruit produced. Our business is to look away to Him. As we do so He undertakes to fulfill His Word in us...
How do we abide? 'Of God are ye in Christ Jesus.' It was the work of God to put you there, and He has done it. Now stay there! Do not be moved back on to your own ground. Never look at yourself as though you were not in Christ. Look at Christ, and see yourself in Him. Abide in Him. Rest in the fact that God has put you in His Son, and live in the expectation that He will complete His work in you."
2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold they are become new."
Nee states in Chapter 4 of The Normal Christian life, in reference to Romans 6, 7, & 8 that, "the conditions of living the normal Christian life are forefold: (a) Knowing, (b) Reckoning, (c) Presenting ourselves to God, and (d) Walking by the Spririt." Each so important that he didicates a chapter to each.
With regards to knowing Nee emphasizes that we must understand that our old man died on the cross with Christ. He says, "In His death we all died. None of us can progress spiritually without seeing this... The self you loath is on the cross in Christ. And 'he that is dead is freed from sin' (Rom. 6:7) This is the gospel for Christians."
It is important here to remember that "sin" is the nature within us that percipiates "sins" (the actions). "Sin" seems to continue to influence our lives beyond salvation. Nee is going somewhere with this - knowing we died with Christ thought.
He says, "If we are preoccupied with the power of sin and with our inability to meet it, the we naturally conclude that to gain the victory over sin we must have more power. 'If only I were stronger,' we say. 'I could overcome my violent outbursts of temper,' so we plead with the Lord to strengthen us that we may exercise more self-control...
But this is altogether a fallacy; it is not Christianity. God's means of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by making us weaker... God sets us free from the dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man, but by crucifying him; not by helping him to do anything, but by removing him from the scene of the action."
So as Christians we receive forgiveness but invariably have a continuing struggle with our dead nature, the nature of sin. In ourselves we think we need to build spiritual muscles to resists, but what really needs to occur is we need to; one, recognize that old nature was crucified with Christ, and two, walk in the weakness of this death. The end result is this knowledge will fuel and lead us to the experience of this. An individual, custom tailored by God, experience. Walk with God long enough and you will enter into this experience. But it is your experience, not someone else's. Nee says, "many Christians are using their special experience and their special scriptures to FIGHT other Christians. The fact of the matter is that while Christians may enter into the deeper life by different ways, we need not regard the experience or doctrines they stress as mutually exclusive, but rather complementary."
So God, when working on this place of surrender in our life will take us there on our very own unique path. This place is often preceded by, or found in, crisis. But God's response is not to help us out, but to help us understand we are removed from the action... we are already dead. And He does so not for us to be the next thing in Christianity, to be the carrier of some doctrinal banner, but rather in concert with those around us who are entering in, already in, or coming out of the same experience.
We have a human tendency to want to "do something," to live right. This is the problem, this is the strength we must avoid to find the weakness. Some think "to live 'in Christ,' (means) how to draw the sap out of the Vine into himself." No... we are in the vine. There is no need to "draw" -- just be.
Nee concludes the chapter with dialog from one individual in the midst of this experience. It is powerful and I will conclude with it as well.
"Here, I feel, is the secret: not asking how I am to get sap our of the Vine into myself, but remembering that Jesus is the Vine - the root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed. I have not got to make myself a branch. The Lord Jesus tells me I am a branch. I am part of Him and I have just to believe it and act upon it. I have seen it long enough in the Bible, but I believe it now as a living reality...
I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it, for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful - and yet, all is new! In a word, 'whereas once I was blind, now I see'... I am dead and buried with Christ - aye, and risen too and ascended... God reckons me so, and tells me to reckon myself so. He knows bests... Oh, the joy of seeing the truth - I do pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given in Christ."
Then from Nee himself, "If we recognize the fact that we are in, we make no effort to enter. If we had more revelation, we should have fewer prayers and more praises. We spend so much time praying for ourselves just because we are blind to what God has done."
Matthew 16:24, "... if anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me."
Continuing our in depth look at The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee we come to "The Cross of Christ." That place where we deal with the nature of sin. Where the habitual return to it is addressed.
Nee points out that, "There is peace with God, but there is no peace with myself. There is in fact, civil war in my own heart."
Civil war in my heart... that is a concept I can relate to. As Nee rightfully acknowledges, "The blood can wash away my sins, but cannot wash away my 'old man.'" This is because we did not become sinners by our actions, "but because of what Adam has done and become."
"At the beginning of our Christian life, we are concerned with our doing, not with our being."
Can I stop here for a moment? I am 45 years old. I was saved 30 years ago. Until recently all I have been concerned with is doing. I have prayed for the sick and seen them healed. I have traveled north, central, and south America for Him... doing. In 2011, I just now am concerning myself with "BEING." So I guess by Nee's definition the first 30years of my life with Christ was the beginning.
Nee continues, "we are distressed rather by what we have done than by what we are. We think that if only we could rectify certain things we should be good Christians, and we set out therefore to change our actions. But the result is not what we expected. We discover our dismay that it is something more than just a case of trouble on the outside - that there is in fact more serious trouble on the inside... we try to be humble, but there is something in our very being that refuses to be humble. We try to be loving, but inside we feel most unloving... The we come to the Lord and say, 'Lord, I see it now! Not only what I have done is wrong; I am wrong.'"
We have to come to the place where we understand "I am wrong." Oh, not some admitting to being wrong in the moment. There is a place with Christ where you know everything about you is wrong. A place where He will stand and allow you to compare yourself to Him; and with that comes a subjective understanding that "I am wrong." Everything about me is wrong when compared to Christ. Nee does not go into this, but this is the prayer. That we could see ourselves compared to Christ. This image as compare to Him is our true self. This discovery of true self allows God to continue in His work with us.
The chapter continues with Nee's discussion of how we were born with the nature of sin, born from Adam. How Christ as the last Adam crucified that nature of Adam on the cross. That "the cross is thus the mighty act of God which translates us from Adam to Christ."
It doesn't come out in this chapter, but the end effect is that the cross becomes an ongoing aspect of life. Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." The deliverance of the cross on the nature of sin is that we "take it up." Not that we hang from it, not that we commit spiritual suicide, but that we carry it in our soul. It's weight will come to bear on our nature and deliver us over time.
Matthew 26:28, "for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins."
Watchman Nee in his book The Normal Christian life begins with a chapter entitled "The Blood of Christ." It is foundational in the Christian life-cycle and therefore discussed. Equally important as to the effectiveness of the blood is what it does not do.
"The apostle Paul... Galatians 2:20; 'It is no longer I, but Christ.' Here he is not stating something special or peculiar - a high level of Christianity. He is we believe, presenting God's normal for a Christian, which can be summarized in these words; I live no longer, but Christ lives His life in Me...
Jesus Christ... in all His dealings with us, He works by taking us our of the way and substituting Christ in our place... The Son of God died instead of us for our forgiveness; He lives instead of us for our deliverance... I need forgiveness of my sins, but I also need deliverance from the power of sin...
I discover that I have the nature of a sinner... So life goes on in a viscous circle of sinning and being forgiven, and then sinning again..."
And so Nee begins with the obvious. That we all sin, and that we will all sin again because of our nature. He articulates the problem, and is about to discuss God's solution.
Nee gives us a prelude with this, "We shall see that the blood deals with what we have done, whereas the cross deals with what we are. The blood disposes of sins, while the cross strikes at the root of our capacity to sin."
So the blood of Christ deals with the sin itself. It is not there dealing with the nature of sin, but covering, atoning for the act of sin. Nee describes the blood of Christ has having a 3 fold purpose. He says, "In the scriptures the blood of Christ is shown to operate effectually in these three ways; Godward, manward, and Satanward."
The blood operates Godward, because it cleanses us so that we can have relationship with God. To God, post salvation He is unable to see our sin, only that we are covered in the blood.
In a manward sense the blood is there to not only wash away our sins, but to remove the guilt from us. True understanding of the power of the blood of Christ allows us to approach Him, trusting there is nothing in us that is worthy, but that we are cloaked, covered, washed clean in that blood.
Satanward the blood "does so by putting God on the side of man against him (Satan)... If God is for us, who is against us? (Rom. 8:31). God points him to the blood of His dear Son. It is sufficient answer against which Satan has no appeal."
So the blood is there allow us to be in relationship with God, free of guilt, and immune from Satan's accusations if we will allow. What is is not doing is the transformation of our soul. It is not removing the nature of sin. That is the job of the cross.
2 Corinthians 2:14-16 "But thanks to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other and aroma from life to life."
Watchman Nee in his book The Normal Christian Life (available to the right on this page) concludes with the following description... a definition of what should be a normal Christian.
"Whenever you meet someone who has really suffered -- someone who has gone through experiences with the Lord that have brought limitation, and who, instead of trying to break free in order to be "used," has been willing to be imprisoned by Him and has thus learned to find satisfaction in the Lord and NOWHERE else -- then immediately you become aware of something. Immediately your spiritual senses detect a sweet savor of Christ. Something has been crushed, something has been broken in that life, and so you smell the odor...
We are speaking here of what we are; not of what we do or what we preach. Perhaps you may have been asking the Lord for a long time that He will be pleased to us you in such a way as to impart impressions of Himself to others. That prayer is not exactly for the gift of preaching or teaching. It is rather, that you might be able, in your touch with others, to impart God, the presence of God, the sense of God. Let me tell you, dear friends, you cannot produce such impressions of God upon others without the breaking of EVERYTHING, even your most precious possessions, at the feet of the Lord Jesus.
But if once that point is reached, you may or may not seem to be much used in an outward way, but God will begin to use you to create a hunger in others. People will scent Christ in you. The most unlikely people will detect that. They will sense that here is one who has gone with the Lord, one who has suffered, one who has not moved freely, independently, but who has know what it is to subject EVERYTHING to Him. That kind of life creates impressions; and impressions create hunger, and hunger provokes men to go seeking until they are brought by divine revelation into fullness of life with Christ.
God does not set us here first of all to preach or to do work for Him. The first thing for which He sets us here it to create in others a hunger for Himself..."
What an incredible definition of a Christian. Someone, who without saying a word, oozes Christ. Someone who without a single act is noticed by others to be in Christ. Someone, who just is, and because of just being causes others to hunger for more of the Lord. Like fresh baked bread, a normal Christian has a fragrance that creates hunger... hunger for more of God.
Sounds impossible, sounds like Jesus. But over the next several post we are going to look at what Watchmen Nee describes as this process of surrender. Where everything in us, about us, and through us is subject to Him.
Warning... to continue in understanding will require change. It will require surrender.
Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
I have come to realize that no matter how much I try to articulate the experience most people are just not going to get it, unless that have already shared the experience before. I am finding this exceptionally true with all my post on surrender. Surrender being dying to self, bearing the cross, and a host of other euphemisms.
But the point in sharing it is not that you would understand per se. But at this point I share simply because it is what I feel compelled to do by God. I hope with all sincerity that even in the lack of empathy or understanding that somewhere in these words is inspiration to pursue God yourself.
The coming week, if the Lord wills, will be a different week in posts. I presently have the intention for a review of sorts of The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. It, for me, is a complete confirmation of the past 4 or 5 months, and certainly a complete confirmation of the past 67 days.
Please hear me on this... I am certain that I have discovered something in God that few find. All are called to it. All experience its beginnings, but few take it this far. I know, because at present there are only a handful of people I know who get it. I am also certain that there is much, much, much more. I am certain that I am nothing special, with no special gifts. And I am certain that God loves you every bit as much as He loves me. This thing is surrender. Complete and total surrender. (Stay with me)
At this moment I perceive myself to be in complete surrender to God. (Not true... but my perception. I am not conscious of anything else to surrender.) I know that this complete surrender is purely a momentary place. God is going to have be walk out in this place before bringing me even deeper into it. But that is not the important part.
The important part is that the backside of surrender transcends faith. Post surrender there is no need for faith, as there is only obedience. (Jesus was not a man of faith, He was led by obedience.) Post surrender things become visible like never before. At that place were you honestly know that NOTHING in you is good. That EVERYTHING must be laid down. EVERYTHING!!!!! And that there is only Christ and His expression of Himself through you. This is surrender. I am nothing and I will do nothing save for Christ. This is a heart condition... this is soul condition.
Remember we are spirit, soul, and body. Surrender occurs at the soul level. At salvation we are confronted with the evils of our flesh and its animal tendencies. The blood of Jesus covers our sins past, present, and future. But from here the cross must be picked up. Why? It is picked up to bear onto our soul, the home of our character, the place of our ego. The cross weighs onto the soul illuminating its evil and proving it has no value apart from the Spirit.
We will cover this later, but Nee shows that original sin inflated the soul. The soul must be deflated so that the spirit of God can increase. I must decrease so that God can increase. This is not a statement of flesh. This is a statement of the soul.
I will close with this story. I have a friend who God told, "If you will live like a pauper I will make you rich." The man is already a multi-multi millionaire. His response to this compulsion was to sell his $3MM house and a bunch of toys and move to a $1MM house without the toys. Compulsion not satisfied he has now sold the $1MM house and moving to a much smaller home, but still not one of a pauper. The spiritual truth is this... He could have stayed in the $3MM home for all God cared. The command to live like a pauper is a command of his soul. Surrender God says. Be poor in your soul. Take no value in what you have or can do. Take no stock in your education, your savings, surrender it to me and I will make you rich. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God... We know our spirit is poor when we recognize are soul is too large and has driven it into poverty. Surrender to God and discover the riches of His Kingdom.
1John 1:5, "... that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all."
I can't remember where I read it, but I read that a rainbow is a look inside of light. Kind of cool if you think about it. Incredible how when red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet all combine in light it gives us a white light.
Letting imagination run wild I ask how does this describe God, who is light. Certainly depending on perspective everyone sees God a little different. Some might see Him as figuratively blue, while others see him as figuratively red. But light is some much more than the visible colors of the rainbow. What of the invisible colors like those in the scale of infrared or ultraviolet.
Think of it, God shines His ultraviolet light (the light used by CSI to find trace evidence) into the unsaved. Visible to their soul are the dust particles and evidence of the sinful life. Conviction, Repentance, Salvation... the Christian begins to play in the rainbow of the now visible God. He runs here and there looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He describes the rainbow. He loves the rainbow. But there is more... There is the infrared component of life.
What can we do with infrared? We can see in the dark! We can see things we could have never seen without it. The infrared part of God becomes visible after surrender. The infrared is the kingdom of God come alive in the Christian to give Him vision and clarity.
One last thing about light. I don't know when Science discovered that darkness is the absence of light just as cold is the absence of heat, but according to scripture God knew it all along. "In Him there is no darkness." Well duh!
Matthew 15:13, "Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up."
From the Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee
"Brother, what has the Lord really been teaching you these days? He replied, Only one thing: that I can do nothing apart from Him.
Do you really mean... that you can do nothing?
...The Lord has shown me that I can do anything, but that He has said, 'Apart from Me ye can do nothing.' So it comes to this, that everything I have done and can still do apart from Him is nothing!... I do not mean to say we cannot do a lot of things, for we can... But remember the Lord's word is "Every plant which which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up... God is the only legitimate Originator in the universe, and His Holy Spirit is the only legitimate Initiator in our hearts. Anything that you or I plan and set on foot without Him has the taint of the flesh upon it, and it will never reach the realm of the Spirit however earnestly we seek God's blessing on it. It may last for years, and then we may think we will adjust here and improve there and maybe bring it on a better plane, but it cannot be done."
This understanding, this clarity is where I am in this moment.
Yesterday a couple of things happened that must be addressed with this attitude of surrender. They come as a spiritual test of my resolve to allow God to be an Originator and Initiator in my life. The first was a request for me to come to a job interview. The second was a foreclosure notice on my house from the home owner's association.
Logic says get a job and pay the bill. But what does God say? I think here is where people stumble. I think many give up on hearing from God, and instead act in the silence; when the silence was only there because "nothing" is the place surrender begins.
So I prayed about the job interview. I joked with my wife that I was going for her, but reality is I went because I felt like God was telling me to. Which in and of itself started a whole other round of surrender. Because if God was sending me to an interview, or any other place, the REAL PURPOSE is to be a reflection of Christ. Literally for hours I had to remind myself the interview is not about me. It is not about what I can do. It is about being a reflection of Jesus. It is about the Christ in me coming out. And so I went and for 2 hours I listened, and listened, and listened. I shared a few ideas, I made a commitment to do 2 things that I know can help their company, and beyond that it was all a lot of info about them, and for me to answer a few questions about my experience. At the end of the interview I was asked what I thought, and I was asked what compensation I was looking for. My response to the comp question was, I do not want to consider a job based on the compensation. I only want to consider it based on if I would do the job regardless of pay. We left agreeing to talk again next week. (My intent is to pray about what is the next step.) I could be wrong, but it appeared they were ready to offer the job to me on the spot. Either way, God has to tell me what to do.
On the foreclosure front, I know that I can jump in and "solve" the problem in my ability. I can negotiate a payment schedule, prolong the agony, but I want to know what God wants to do. Right now I don't know what His plan is, so the correct thing to do is nothing.
But you are going to loose your house!
Maybe, maybe not... but I am convinced to not move until He says move.
I post often about a once a week group I attend called Tomball Love Machine. The meeting is a total of 2 hours long and people arrive as they can. It is interesting on a lot of levels, not just spiritual. I have notice that the larger the attendance, the bigger the group dynamics. And the bigger the group dynamics the longer it takes for all the personalities to settle and God to come through. So for that reason I am thankful that the meeting has so much time allotted to it.
Here I say all of this thinking it is everyone else's personalities that are getting in the way, but then I realize it is my personality -- that I am seeing as what I am seeing really is the log in my eye thinking it's a splinter in theirs. So with that realization and confession out of the way, I will say that it took me nearly the whole meeting to get into the place where I clearly saw God moving.
For me it began with a mother tearfully expressing that she needs to come to a place where she appreciates herself. This stems from the fact that she has two children with two completely different personalities. One is very loving, affectionate and doting on mom. The other I believe can be described as indifferent. So mom has a hard time understanding the indifferent child. She does not "appreciate" the difference therefore has discovered that she does not "appreciate" herself, and that this lack of self appreciation prevents or hinder her appreciating her daughter. This confession prompted someone else to open up and declare how difficult it is to love yourself. Which prompted another mother to say, "What? Am I just supposed to ask God to show me why He loves me?"
This is a common occurrence in Christianity and the world for that matter. People do not "love themselves" or understand how or why God loves them. I not only see it all the time, I have experienced it to the point of despair these people are experiencing it.
But the result in our group was that one of the men there read to last mom a beautiful understanding of her pain. Then proceeded to sing her a song. It was an absolute beautiful expression of God's love for her. In fact it was an undeniable expression of God's love for her. The whole room had teary eyes and people commented how beautiful her heart was and the experience she opened.
Sobbing she replied, "being beautiful sux."
How important is it for us to understand God loves us? And not only that He loves us, but why He loves us. We need to experience and understand that for a healthy life. When we don't understand how and why God loves us, then we constantly look outside ourselves for that love. We look to spouses, children, parents, pastors, friends, anything and anyone to show us the love we crave and all of those "people" are always going to let us down. When they don't let us down it is only because Christ loved us through them in that moment.
Probably even more important than "knowing" how and why God loves us, we need to experience it. The sobbing mom declaring being beautiful sux was in that experience. In that moment she was experiencing the love of God. Being beautiful sux, because when God is loving you all the excuses fall away. All the pretense falls away. When God shows you that you are beautiful, you realize everything you thought you were is ugly.
We are loved because we are God's children. We are loved because we are each individual, unique, priceless vessels designed to be filled with Christ. I asked the sobbing mom, why do you love your daughter? Her reply was, I don't know. Truth is she loves her daughter because she is her daughter, and God love us simply because we are His children. Nothing more, nothing less.
Luke 19:5, "When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, 'Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.'"
What an awesome day! In began with sadness sending my daughter and her boyfriend back to New York City. Sad that I could not have her in my possession, but at the same time I dropped her off confident she is in the middle of God's plan for her life. That this time of training, growing, sharing, will not last forever, and if God wills she will once again be close enough to visit face to face more often. Plus I understand there are people there in New York that need her friendship and love. I clearly see how God is using her as a light, a safe harbor in a very dark industry. More so, I see how God has given her an incredible partner in the New York project. It makes her Dad's heart glad.
But to see this clearly was not all God had in-store. He treated my wife to a much deserved gift. And while on the way to the mall to pick something else up, some extreme randomness in the parking lot led us to running into a friend of ours. We were all in fact headed to the same store. Afterwards we had a seat in the mall and just talked.
This friend is one of the typical wounded Christians I encounter. Wounded by a spouse, scorned after decades of marriage. The wounds are scaring over, but still fresh enough for the friend to look in the mirror everyday and be reminded of how evil the opposite sex can be. There is an undertone of confusion, perhaps distane even for God in this destruction of hope and life. All of which is manifesting in pure self will in relationships. Bouncing from one to another, no commitment, no consideration of God, only a fear of being hurt again, and a longing for time to rewind to better days. All of which allowed me to practice what I preach in the presence of my wife.
It was awesome to just jump in the mud with our friend. To listen without advice or question. To see a person in a place I have been, but for Jamie and I to be united as a light. An example of what God intends in a marriage. A light of hope after divorce. We did nothing, but be friends. We just were. We were our ourselves and that is where the love of God was. A proverbial shoulder to cry on, while not wavering from the truth and beauty of a godly relationship and marriage.
There may have been no noticeable impact on our friend. But one thing I am certain of. We were Christ as in that hour. It was Jesus that sat there and lived through us. And always it was Jesus looking at us saying, "will you love Me?"
John 15:4, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me."
Life as a Christian... the walk if you will, is a constant discovery of what's missing. What is missing from our picture of Jesus? How can we know Him more? What is missing from the relationship? Christianity is constantly discovering something new about Christ in a subjective way.
Jesus says , "abide in me." This is our command to pursue Him. To get to know Him on the most intimate of levels. "I in you" is His promise that He will allow us to know Him.
The past couple of months for me have been filled with filling in the missing parts. I in no way have anything but a partial picture of who Christ is, but I wanted to recap some of what I have learned about Him since starting this blog.
I have learned that God loves me in and of myself. He has shown me that I am a one of a kind custom creation. As the Creator and His Son come closer into view I realize that there is so much in me that is not like Him. I have learned that this dross, this ungodliness must die. Though it is painful to lay down everything that makes me who I am it is necessary to allow those characters of Christ to replace it. Training... ever training of my character.
Beyond death of self for character improvement, I have learned that the same death must occur to love unconditionally. Taste, prejudice, predispositions, social upbringing all have to die to love another unconditionally. Hate, fear, hurt have to die in forgiveness to love an enemy and to pray for them.
So death has become a beautiful thing because it creates a joy of what lies ahead. What lies ahead of it is love and closeness to God. But not only my death is beautiful, but watching others die at the hand of God is beautiful as well. It is incredible to see with understanding how trials and challenges are being used in others to bring about the same death and resurrection. With this understanding you can jump in the mire of another's life without needing to rescue, without a plan, without falling to the temptation, only to be a light.
Sight is a major thing God has given me in this improved relationship. He has shown me, by drawing me close what it looks like from inside the Kingdom of God. He has given me glipses of what He sees. All brought about by having the intellectual understanding of Him turn into a subjective, relational, understanding of Him.
I know that baptisim is a symbol of us sharing in the death, burial, and resurection with Christ. I know that the water is symbolic of the water of the womb, and in baptisim we are placed back in the womb to be spiritually reborn. But this increasing relationship with God and His Son lets me see that baptisim is also the door to the kingdom of God and the vision that represents. Relationship tells me that I go into the water as flesh and in the world, but I rise in spirit and in the kingdom, and the kingdom in me. Luke 8:10, "And He said, 'To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.'"
I have sought to know God as Provider/Provision, as Jehovah Jira. And what I have discovered is that He is my Provision. If I have only Him and His presense then I have enough. And just yesterday I began to see Him clearly as Provider. In the vine... in Christ... I am attached to and part of God and all that He is and has. I see that He already knows my needs. I see that He has planned already to provide. That the daily bread is already allocated and on its way. I have not laid hold of it, but I am thankful He has a complete abundance for me.
Lastly, for the purpose of the blog, I see God is shifting. God has a big smile on His face for me and is saying, 'you are getting it... now let me show you something else.'
For me personally God is repeating 2 Timothy 4:5, "... fulfill your ministry." A ministry that I know includes preaching, praying, writing, and one on one encounters. God has hundreds of thousands of pulpits across the world. I know that He is opening many of them too me. I know that I will once again pray for the sick and see them healed. I know that this blog, my books, all that I write goes literally across the globe and touches people's lives for the better. And I will never stop finding the individual to love. To jump in the mire with and be a light, to see Christ in them with hopes they will see the Christ in me.
And I almost forgot the greatest personal lesson for me in all of this. The mechanism if you will that has allowed this vision. Shameless surrender that we might know Christ more. I wrote this inspired by the Holy Spirit not even knowing what it meant. I thought the surrender was to people and an act of love. The surrender is to God. A complete and total surrender. A leap off the cliff knowing... trusting fully in God. I am His bond-servant... not by obligation, but by choice.
Galatians 5:1, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery."
My faith coach, Jim Spivey, really got my juices flowing this morning with his blog. It was a presentation of law v. faith or trying v. trusting. Something very near to my heart at the moment as I "try" to trust God fully. In the blog a quote really hit me. Not as much for it's content as it is from Watchman Nee who I am currently reading.
Nee says, "We have spoken of trying and trusting, and the difference between the two. Believe me, it is the difference between hell and heaven."
Jim says, "Nothing real and lasting is ever accomplished or secured through 'trying,' because 'trying' is grounded in 'not having,' and 'not having' consciousness cannot leave or transform itself, even in the 'getting.' The experience will stay stuck in 'not having' or 'not deserving,' regardless of the physical circumstances. Only 'already having, but not sure how' (i.e. trusting) consciousness can invite and experience a 'shift' into clearly knowing and appreciating how, whether physically getting or not."
Interpretation - - God says in Psalms 50:10, "For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills." God has everything we need physically and spiritually. We have to trust we have it too. We have to trust our need is met because the provision is already there.
So Jim and Watchman Nee, and others, drawl this line between trying and trusting. It is a black and white subject with no mention of grey. And yet I mentioned that I was "trying" to trust. What of trying to trust? And what of trusting God to bless the trying?
We know that in the realm of Christianity there are those that "try" to be Christians. At church and in public they pretend momentarily and act the way that a Christian "should." Yet at home and in private are far different. We see occasionally someone who appears to be fully trusting in their salvation. Free and living for Christ without guilt. But I think most perhaps may fall in between.
When I say that I am "trying" to trust God, the effort is not coming from the trust. The effort is in the crucifying everything within me that will not trust. And in fact it is not me causing the death... it really is God and the only effort I am making is NOT picking up ME again. The effort is to not to succumb to the slight emotional pain and vast life experience. This is something that in the spiritual context is readily understandable. But I want to look at it in the practical world. In the physical world of need.
All around me are people saying "start trying" to provide more for your family and "trust" God to bless that effort. Is this an option in the black and white world of try or trust?
I am reminded of a go-karting lesson. My son raced go-karts on a competitive basis nationally. He was on the same racing team as Danica Patrick. We would go to the races and I was his pit crew. Coming off the track I always made the adjustments to the kart before cleaning it. I wanted the race stuff done first, then the cosmetic could follow. While every other mechanic on the team would clean the kart first and then make adjustments. The results were I was always behind the other guys, and always filthy at the end of the day. Until one day I asked why they did it that way. The mechanic replied, work slower, go faster.
The principle is true. Work slower, and a clean work space, less stress, etc may the job go easier and faster. Likewise more trust and less trying make life go faster... the results come quicker. More prayer, not less until the thoughts are clean, then the work goes faster and is more effective.
I don't have the answer because I am in the middle of discovering the fullness of this truth. The truth to Trust not Try. Somehow if the spiritual is rightly trusting with God, the physical works itself out. Somehow if I/we seek first the kingdom of God (which is spiritual and within us) then all these things (the physical) are added to me/us.
I know that we can trust that we have access to the Father because of the blood of Jesus Christ. I know that when we go to Him in prayer, trusting in that blood and nothing else. In our dirtiest state, or cleanest, trusting in the blood gives honor to Christ and His obedience. I trust that NOTHING can separate me from the love of God. So I go to God, trusting He will speak the answer, show me the path, and display Himself as Provider/Provision in my life. I trust that once I understand Him as such, then He will start the process of showing me Himself as something complete different and expand the total vision I have of Him.
Beyond that I continue to trust and stop trying. Not because it is the latest spiritual fad, but because it is what He is telling me to do. He is saying "stop trying." Shortly I feel He will say "do this" and if He says do this or do that... then I will, trusting it is Him doing it through me. But until then I am going to rest in the freedom from the slavery of trying and my effort.
On the same subject from Hudson Taylor, "Here, I feel, is the secret; not asking how I am to get sap out of the Vine into myself, but remembering that Jesus is the Vine - the root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed. I have not got to make myself a branch. The Lord Jesus tells me I am a branch. I am part of Him and I have just to believe it and act upon it. I have see it long enough in the Bible, but I believe it now as a living reality... I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it, for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful -- and yet, all is new! In a word, whereas once I was blind, now I see... I am dead and buried with Christ - - aye, and risen too and ascended... God reckons me so,and tells me to reckon myself so. He knows best... Oh, the joy of seeing the truth - - I do pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ."
Conclusion - - Trying is our effort, trusting is God's effort... anything in between is lukewarm and as worthless as trying. When we trust God we do, we do not try.... when we trust God we do because it is Christ in us doing.
