FROM FAITH TO KNOW

We exercise our faith in believing God and God demonstrates His faithfulness in our experience. Our faith takes us to a place of knowledge – we no longer need exercise our faith, for now we know. God, who neither has nor needs faith simply knows, and He wants us to know also. Precept by precept and principle by principle He is turning our faith about Him into knowledge of Him. Faith becomes a personal possession through testing: As we experience God’s faithfulness we move from firm persuasion, mentally asserting something is true, to finite knowledge, we simply know it is true, leaving behind our mental vacillations between faith/hope/doubt. Faith provokes experience producing knowledge. In the following passages the Greek word ginosko is translated “know”, which is knowledge gained through experience, specifically knowledge acquired through personal intimate relationship with God.

John speaks: We know that we know God because we are obedient to His word. We know that we are in God because His love is perfected in us. We know that it is the last hour because many antichrists have come. We know all Truth (i.e., all things) because we have the Holy Spirit. We know the righteous are born of God because God is righteous. We know the world does not know us because it did not know Him. We know that we shall be like God because we are His children. We know that God was manifested to take away our sins because He is sinless. We know we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. We know His love because He laid down His life for us. We know that we are of the Truth because we have compassion on others. We know God abides in us because He has given us the Holy Spirit. We know the Spirit of God because we confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. We know the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error because we belong to God. We know we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us His Spirit. We know we are loved by God because God is love. We know we love the children of God because we love God and keep His commandments.  We know we have eternal life because we believe in the name of the Son of God. We know we have the petitions we ask because we ask according to His will. We know whoever is born of God does not habitually sin because the Holy Spirit keeps us and the wicked one does not get a grip on us. We know we belong to God because the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. We know that the Son of God has come because He has given us an understanding that we may know Him.

Jesus speaks: It is given to us to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, and those who desire to do God’s will, will know the Truth. Paul speaks: We know our old nature was crucified with Christ, that sin and its slavery are done away with. We know the love of Christ, which surpasses our comprehension, we know His bountiful grace, we know the power out-flowing from His resurrection, and we know what is the hope of His calling. James speaks: We know the testing of our faith produces patience and leads to our perfection. Our life in Christ is about discovering who we are in Him. God wants us to know.

AND YOU SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH

AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE

THE “WORTH-SHIP” OF GOD

The English word “worship” (from the old English “weorthscipe”) is derived from the word “worth” which means “value” and the native English suffix “-ship” which means “condition”.  “Worship” asks the question, “What is the condition of value?” or, put simply, worship ascribes or declares value. Worship is the willful submission of our body (position) and our soul and spirit (attitude) to a loving God, bring Him worth and openly declaring His value!

When we worship God we declare His value, His worth to us.  There is a direct relationship between the value we place on God, what God is worth to us, and our worship of God, for our worship is a reflection of His value to us.  So, what is God worth to us?  How do we discover the value of God?  The answer to these questions we find in a verse of scripture written by the Apostle John as a riddle:

“We loved Him because He first loved us.”

Love is the ultimate expression of value; the more we love something the more “worth” or value the item has to us.  So our love for God becomes a measurement of His worth to us.  But here in this verse we see that our love for God is predicated on His love for us; “we love Him because He first loved us.”  The question changes from God’s worth to us, to our worth to Him.  This passage demonstrates a “Beholding and Becoming Principle”, whatever we Behold we Become.  When the Holy Spirit quickens (reveals) an attribute of God to us, there is always an element of impartation which begins to form that same attribute in us.  The word “love” in these passages is from the Greek word “agapao” which means to love passionately, willfully, sacrificially, with strong affection, to fulfill one’s joy in the object loved.  So what are we worth to God that He passionately, willfully and joyfully loves us? “For God so loved the world... it is so hard for us to phantom this: We are worth the life of His Son!  God the Father sent Jesus into the world to redeem us and restore us to fellowship with Himself, so that we might worship Him.  Our worship is worth infinitely more to God than anything in the rest of creation for He gave what He valued more than all of creation for it.  I can’t explain why the sincere worship from redeemed human hearts is worth so much to God.  I can only tell you what it’s worth... The Precious Blood of Jesus! 

So then, what is our Father worth to us?   What value will we declare in our worship?  How much love for God will we express in our worship to God?  Will we offer God “agapao” or is God’s worth to us of a lesser value? Will we give our heart to God or to lover’s less passionate... less wild?  Selah!  (1 Jn. 4:19 NKJV, Jn. 3:16)

OPENLY DECLARING HIS VALUE

PARTAKING OF CHRIST

“For we have become partakers of Christ” (Heb. 3:14). The Christian life is not an imitation of Christ, it is a participation in Christ. Exceedingly great and precious promises have been given to us “that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). We must transcend the natural realm, immersing ourselves in the supernatural nature dwelling within. We must experience the power of this indwelling life, the resurrected Christ-life, and, relinquishing our own Self-life, become ever more fully possessed of His divine life. In a word, we desperately need Transformation, the metamorphosis of sin stained spiritual cripples into beacons of radiant light reflecting the holy nature of Christ to a world drowning in sin’s darkness. Transformation is the regenerating life process of “Crucify – Renew – Transform”, which completes the sanctification process of the Holy Spirit as the believer grows into Christlikeness.

The Kingdom Lifestyle, the crucified life, begins in submission to the Lordship of Christ, presenting our body as a living sacrifice and dying daily to Self’s self-serving interests. “Wants” reside deep within the human condition, within the human nature. This unregenerated nature, Self, is, ultimately, the real enemy for it is where our “wanter” lives. My disposition to sin is my claim to my right to my Self. I am my own god. I am not holy or likely to be; I am doomed to failure because “Self” rules, and Self has a lot of worldly wants. The moral transition on my part is to recognize my need and yield my will to the Lord, allowing the Holy Spirit to form Christ in me. Without holiness, without Christ formed in us, no man shall see God. This is the crucified life, the submitting of our Self to death on the cross of Christ that His life, His very nature, might rise up within us and reign. This is a death march we all must make, death by a thousand nails as we visit the cross repeatedly, nailing bits and pieces of Self to the cross.

The Kingdom Mindset, the renewed mind, means what our mind expresses and reflects is patterned after our inner spiritual nature, the DNA of the Godhead. We must willfully and continually Seek... with practical striving, and Set... with inward impulse and disposition, our mind on things above, thinking the Kingdom as a mindset, the focus of our thoughts. As we make God and His Kingdom the center and focus of our mind’s preoccupation we are able to strip away the strongholds of our old thought life, they simply lose their power and strength. We begin to submerge ourselves in our new spiritual nature reflecting the mind of Christ. Eventually we become so much like Him in thought, feelings, and desires that we begin to reproduce the life He lived, inward change manifesting outward... walking in the Spirit!

Transformation, the sanctification process of the Holy Spirit, grows believers into Christlikeness. To access and immerse ourselves in Christ’s supernatural indwelling nature and experience the out flowing power of His resurrected life, something must die, something must be refocused... and someone must be willing. These are not independent   but interdependent processes, operating in tandem and stimulating one another. Much like a nuclear chain reaction, submission and death fuels mental renewal which in turn fuels more submission and death, and so on, growing us exponentially into the likeness of Christ.

“There is another kind of life which science as yet has taken little cognizance.  It obeys the same laws.  It builds up an organism into its own form.  It is the Christ-life.  As the bird-life builds up a bird, the image of itself, so the Christ-life builds up a Christ, the image of Himself, in the inward nature of man...According to the great law of conformity to type, this fashioning takes a specific form.  It is that of the Artist who fashions.  And all through life this wonderful, mystical, glorious, yet perfectly definite process goes on “until Christ be formed in it” (Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World).

SOMETHING MUST DIE

SOMETHING MUST BE REFOCUSED

SOMEONE MUST BE WILLING

WHERE IS THE GOD OF ELIJAH?

Where are the signs and wonders the Lord promised those who believe? I have three friends who have walked on water… but it was in their bathtub without witnesses. Sort of like our miracles today, in a word nebulous. Well, after six months of treatment and $350K God healed me. Who did? Where’s the heart-stopping wonder in that? Is God still asleep in the back of the boat, waiting for us to demonstrate our mustard seed faith?  Doesn’t He know how hungry we are for Him… well… at least to manifest His power! Does He know what He is doing, by not doing? What’s the deal? Who’s in charge anyway???

Matthew 7:7 Says “Ask and it will be given to you”, but there are twenty-six New Testament verses on the Theology of Answered Prayer, try hang gliding on just one verse and you will crash to earth real quick. “Say to this mountain, Be removed and be cast into the sea” (Matt. 21:21). Ever wonder why Jesus never moved a mountain? Read 1 Jn. 5:14-15, one of the twenty-six verses. Someone said “mountain” means an obstacle or problem in our life. Was the raging storm our Lord calmed a real storm? Was the fig tree that Jesus destroyed at its root a metaphor or a real tree? The mountain in this passage is referred to as “this mountain” in reference to the Mount of Olives (i.e., verse one). This mountain is no metaphor!  The Lord we serve is God over the physical world He created and doesn’t need our help to make His word more palatable. Mountain moving faith is here qualified with “do not doubt”, similar to Mk. 11:23. The companion passage in Matt. 17:20 further qualifies mountain moving faith while referring to the Mount of Transfiguration: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed”, referring not to “small faith” but rather living active faith. And 1 Cor. 13:2 qualifies mountain moving faith even further as requiring “all faith”, referring not to a quantity of faith, but the completeness of that which is believed, God’s doctrine of Faith. The message in these passages is great wonders are released through fully developed living active never doubting faith. Seeing a mountain cast into the sea by a spoken command would certainly cause wonder, and not a little shock and awe, in anyone.  Is our Lord God over our mountainous problem? Our Lord is God over all things, if it’s a thing, He is sovereign over it. The point: We down size the mountain to a problem to explain why we have never seen a real mountain cast into the sea by a spoken word, and in the process we downsize God. And don’t we do the same thing with our problems. When it comes to signs and wonders, we have become people of low expectations.

“The word of the Lord was rare in those days.” Could this be another dry-spell similar to the 400 years when God chose not to speak; only now its signs and wonders… where the power displays of God are on mute? During the first century signs and wonders were common place in the church of the living God. Since then church history has seen nineteen hundred years of periodical hot-spots, when God manifests in power, only to all too quickly subside. We live in a time when people are striving hard for the power of God and maybe, just maybe, we are trying too hard to coerce God into doing what He is obliviously not ready to do? We will even lend legitimacy to goofy “revivals” and healing “ministries” on TV and the internet, which hawk and merchandise signs and wonders like carnival trinkets. This is sad but remember the attraction of a counterfeit, what makes us vulnerable and gullible, is the value of the reality, the value of the real thing!

God will pour out His Spirit in signs and wonders again in this last time. Isn’t this a precious thought that time is ending and will soon be no more, no more the restraining tick of the clock. The outpouring that begin on the day of Pentecost has barely built up steam, but it’s coming again as a gale force hurricane of the Spirit, its coming to complete God’s work here on earth. And then we will know where the dead-raising, blind-seeing, deaf-hearing, limb-fixing, demon-casting, tomb-defying God of Elijah is -- no one will even ask the question, they’ll be too busy dodging flying mountains. In the mean while, we have need of discernment and patience.

IT’S COMING!!!

COUNTING THE COST (PHILIPPIANS 3:8)

I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege, the overwhelming preciousness and surpassing worth, of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish, refuse and dregs, in order that I may gain Christ. What a standard of spiritual excellence Paul sets for the saints!!!

We know from scripture Paul’s life was filled with much affliction, adversity and suffering, for he “bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus”, “filling up in his flesh the afflictions of Christ.” He learned to be content in need and hardship, peaceful in distress, and joyful in suffering. Here he reveals his utter rejection of the world – the good life now syndrome – and Self’s desire to dominate.

In Phil 3:1-16, Paul uses himself as an example to warn the saints against misplaced confidence in or dependence on the privileges or advantages of one’s “flesh”, one’s natural life. “For whom I have suffered the loss of all things” (vs. 8) refers to the life of wealth, power, prominence, privilege and culture which Paul, as a citizen of Tarsus, gave up on the road to Damascus, to become a poor itinerant missionary. He forfeited family, prosperity, social position, security, the prestige of learning under the tutelage of the great Gamaliel at the Jewish School of Theology at Jerusalem, and the most coveted career as an up an coming Pharisee, which had been the focus, purpose and training of his entire life. He forfeited all that he had held dear for what? “That I may win Christ.” Paul appropriated into his life the perfection, the purposes, the graces and the fragrance of the Person of Christ, through daily visits to the cross, counting everything else as dung, that he might progressive gain Christ... growing in Christlikeness. His insatiable hunger for more of Christ is elaborated on in the remaining verses: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” This is the heart rendering cry of Paul, the humble vagabond still pursuing, still willing to forsake all, to give up everything of this life to gain the Pearl of Great Price, to gain the Treasure in the Field, to die to Self and submit to the Lordship of Christ... JOYFULLY! These are the willful acts of a heart in conformation, a mind in renewal, an enslaved life with a purposeful focus on God and His Kingdom. Paul was a person of one thing!

“THAT I MAY WIN CHRIST”

LIFE-QUOTES: SHORT MEANDERINGS #3

* Sacrifice is slow as a funeral procession in rush-hour traffic. It’s the sort of word that other words pass while honking. (Jennie Walker)

* I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency: I am ready for anything and equal to everything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me.

* Offense is a choice, just as God's love is a choice. We choose who we serve by our choices.

* The Christian life is not an imitation of Christ; it is a participation in Christ, becoming “partakers of the divine nature.”                                                                       

* Deception is blinding... blinding Christians to their own hypocrisy, and blinding others from seeing their light, hidden under the basket of their hypocrisy.

* As Christians we are more concerned with God altering our earthly condition then recognizing our heavenly position in Him.

* It is never the trial that makes us stronger. It is what we choose to do with it that strengthens us, so choose wisely.

* The cross is the signature of God, endorsing His new and final covenant with mankind.

* Man’s capacity for justice makes mercy possible; but man’s inclination toward injustice makes mercy necessary.

* Passionate personal godliness is visual, truth on display, as the life of Christ – His nature in us – flows forth. Some call it light...

* We must be careful when sharing God’s truth not to square the circle of inherent offensiveness truth draws forth from a hard heart.

* God cannot be to us the life of God without being the death of Self. The fretful, greedy, fussy, self-centered, lustful, hateful “flesh-life” must die for the abundant life to live.

* We must drink deep of the word of God, for shallow draughts intoxicate the brain and drinking deep sobers one again.

* No one grows in the Lord or in their capacity to serve the Lord unless they are pressed beyond measure.

* Prayer is understanding what God wants to do, then asking Him to do it.

* God tugs us toward His kingdom with cords of adversity while captivating us with His chains of love.

 * Jesus never offered us freedom from slavery. He took the form of a slave to demo for us God’s divine slavery which is true freedom.

* All difficulties are within God’s purposes. All? Yes... All!                                  

HOLINESS: A BRIEF LOOK AT A HUGE TOPIC

A central theme throughout the New Testament, involving approximately 258 passages, is holiness.  The Bible says that God is holy, Jesus is holy, and His children are commanded to be holy.  Our physical body is called the temple of God and is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.  Hebrews 12:14 states, “without holiness no man shall see the Lord”, and the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Peter, modifies and quotes Leviticus, “Be holy for I am holy”, in the Greek aorist imperative as a command. Five related Greek words were translated into the various tenses of the words holy, sanctify, and saint. Hagios, the primary root, is translated “Holy” 162 times, and “Saint” 62 times, God indicating His expectation even in the name He gave His children... Saints!

Hagios, holy, means: to be clean, pure, blameless in heart and life, without blemish. Fundamentally, the idea is separation, consecration and devotion to God, sharing in God’s purity and abstaining from earth’s defilement. Holiness is God’s innermost nature, and has a moral content, standing opposed to physical or spiritual impurity. Anything God commands, grace enables. The Holy Spirit indwells man to encourage and empower godly choices: Holiness is the product of our submission and right choices.

The word holy appears in 554 Bible passages, mostly in reference to the Godhead and the elect. The predominate description in the Bible of the character of Christ, and His Bride, His Body, His Church, the Church He is coming back for, is Holy.  The characteristic of God that stands above all else is “Holy” and in His Holiness we find love, faithfulness, power and all the other characteristics of God.  God is Holy! It is clear from a multitude of scriptures that God wants His children, born again believers, to be Holy as He is Holy.  This is not the external, clean the outside of the “cup” holiness of Matthew 23:25-28, but holiness that comes progressively from a transformed life. Transformation is the regenerating life process of “Crucify – Renew – Transform”, which completes the sanctification process of the Holy Spirit as the believer grows into Christlikeness... into holiness. In Transformation we willfully submit to the Lordship of Christ, recognizing our chains of enslavement to sin are broken, and we willfully die daily to Self and Self’s interests, while willfully setting our minds on things above... renewing our mind to reflect Christ’s mind. Notice these “willfuls” are all willful... purposeful acts. Holiness is not an imitation of Christ’s life; it is a participation in Christ.

Holiness is not that we don’t do things we think God disapproves of; it’s that we love Him so much that we like the same things He likes - we become like Him.  We allow the Holy Spirit to change us, forming and manifesting Christ in us, and we count the things we give up as “dung” in comparison to the love of Jesus.  We allow no habit, no desire, absolutely nothing of this life to have any hold on us, becoming people of one thing.

In Matthew 5:19-48 Jesus repeatedly evokes the higher moral standards Grace requires, part of the new covenant commandments of our lord, standards which address the heart thoughts that drive all our words and actions. Our obedience to our Lord’s commandments, to the extent of our understanding, not only demonstrates our love for Him, but paces our transformation into Christlikeness. “Therefore you shall be perfect”: “Perfect”, teleio, means spiritually mature, holy, Jesus wants us to be like Him. “Just like your Father in heaven is perfect”, and like our Daddy. And our response...

“NOT MY WILL BUT THY WILL BE DONE”

THE SECRET

I have learned in any and all circumstances the secret of facing every situation, whether well-fed or going hungry, having sufficiency and enough to spare or going without and being in want. I have learned how to be content, satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted, in whatever state I am. I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me. I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me. I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency. Therefore saints: Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything... not even one single thing. In every circumstance and in everything continue to make your needs known to God, by prayer and petition with definite requests, and with thanksgiving. And God's peace shall be yours: That tranquil state of a soul assured of salvation through Christ and fearing nothing from God, being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort... that peace shall be yours. God’s peace which transcends all understanding, that is better than knowing why, shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  In this rejoice in the Lord always, delight and gladden yourselves in Him.  Again I say, rejoice!

I AM SELF-SUFFICIENT IN CHRIST'S SUFFICIENCY

End Note: Phil. 4:4-14, Amplified Bible modified. Though this teaching, contextually, evolved out of Paul’s physical needs, the application is obliviously meant to be all inclusive: “all circumstances, every situation, all things, anything, everything, whatever sort, etc.” Paul lived the narrow gated “difficult” way, facing adversity at every turn, the same way we are called to, but he had a secret.