Eye Witnesses

“For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”

It also says regarding our brothers in Christ from the beginning, “That which we have seen, heard and handled, we have made known unto you.”

The thing is, if our relationship with Christ is tied only through the umbilical cord of what others have seen and heard, where does that leave us?
Is our faith really something that is alive because the author and developer of it is making me/us today, eye-witnesses?
It says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, in a court of law; the only valid and permissible persons allowed to testify are those who are ‘eye-witnesses.’
I’m often reminded of an exorcism that certain Jews were trying to perform on someone, as they got into it the demon in the person said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who the hell are you?”

So much stuff so many are trying to do apart from it being what He alone wants to produce within us as us, and that comes right back to making us eye-witnesses .
At different times and places the scriptures say, “Without a vision (of His redemptive purposes in the earth) we perish, or for a lack of knowledge, a similar fate is very real”.

It was the heart cry of the Father made alive in and through our brother Paul who constantly held up his siblings before the Father, that He would give them (us) a spirit of wisdom and revelation, opening the eyes of our heart to see and know the truth of whose we are, and to experientially know what it means to be fully alive because of the life of another in us as us!

If Jesus lived out of, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word the Father speaks” then how much more so for the many sons alive today?

Rich

Trials and Tribulations

I trust you are enjoying and hopefully having Father by his spirit opening the eyes of your heart even more to see and know whose you are.
I often wonder if it is a fear-pride thing when it comes to seeing the much more there is in continuing to keep growing in the grace and true knowledge of whose we are.
Meaning, I hear so many adamantly quoting Paul where he says we are complete in Christ, and I totally agree, but, just maybe that completeness is much like what God said regarding Adam, where he said over his handiwork, this "is very good."

It was very good indeed, but not yet completed by a long shot, and please hear me what I'm talking about is NOT something that we do, but has everything to do with Grace continuing to save us!

Rich

This second kind of knowledge is gained from the Spirit through the experience of our daily walk as our heart is… made to turn to the Lord. This knowledge comes to us by the indwelling Spirit as our teacher, who speaks within us as we endure the situations of life.

Every believer has received the “Anointing” of “HIM.” This “Anointing” is known to us by the sense that is of “the Spirit of CHRIST…IN YOU”; teaching us.

1 John 2:27 But as for you, THE ANOINTING (THE UNCTION) which you RECEIVED FROM HIM abides [permanently] IN YOU; [so] then you have no need that anyone should instruct you. But just as HIS ANOINTING TEACHES YOU concerning everything and is true and is no falsehood, so you must ABIDE IN (LIVE IN, NEVER DEPART FROM) HIM [being rooted in Him, knit to Him], just as [His anointing] has taught you [to do].

This second kind of knowledge is neither the innate sense knowledge, nor a mere mental ascent to a truth of Scripture as may be gained by memorization or Bible study and then recorded in the mind. Learned knowledge gained by mental effort would be the Greek word “gnosis,” mere head knowledge.
This second kind of knowledge I speak of here arises out of our personal experience, so we call this “experiential knowing.” This is the kind of knowledge that we gain by an intimate moment with the Lord. It comes out of the intimacy of that moment when we come to know or perceive by His indwelling Spirit.

We know that when the Bible says “Adam knew Eve” (Gen 4:1) it obviously was an intimate moment, which was fruitful and actually produced children. The word “knew” here is the Hebrew “yada,” as the Hebrew equivalent of the New Testament Greek “ginosko,” which speaks of “coming to see or perceive” as an “experiential knowing.” When the word “know” is transliterated from the Greek “ginosko,” it is speaking of this kind of intimate personal experiential knowing. For the believer, this then speaks of a personal revelation of Christ or of our relationship and walk with Him.

We gain this kind of knowledge by revelation from “the Spirit of God” within us. Quite often this is a perception or even as an inner voice that comes to us from Him in our spirit in conjunction with the experience of recognized failure and/or need. It often comes to us on the heels of suffering a situation we cannot fix or control. What we experience for ourselves, personally, is what is most real to us, and this is forever life-changing.

1Cor 2:12 says we have “received… the spirit of God (so) that we might know (ginosko, we might come to know by experience) the things that are freely given to us of God.”

Example: We can only come to know His “grace” that is “freely given to us” by an experience where God brought it to be revealed in us. We always were saved by grace through faith…apart from works, but now…we know it by experiential revelation that is only of “the spirit of God.” This new revelation likely came to light through the instrumentality of us having labored and suffered under “the law” of religion for many years before we came to really see “the grace of God” as it really is. This is that second knowledge, “revelation knowledge” that we come to by the experience of our living and suffering the experiences of life.

Tribulation and trials are the tools our Father uses in our lives for our good. We often gain revelation knowledge by the experience of life’s situations. Would you like to become more patient? Then consider this verse. Romans 5:3-4 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: KNOWING THAT TRIBULATION WORKETH PATIENCE 4 And patience, EXPERIENCE; and experience, hope:

The other side of our suffering brings the fruit of His life – a knowledge that permits us to endure, knowing that we will thereby gain the attributes of Christ in our soul. We cannot produce such knowledge, or patience, or experience in and of our self. This is the work of God in our lives, as He orchestrates all the happenings of life…for our eternal good (Rom 8:28). God develops the “fruit of the Spirit” of Christ’s life in us … by allowing us to experience trials, circumstances and situations in which we are tempted to express the exact opposite quality as we would express if we were to live by the indwelling “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”

Two Kinds of Knowledge

I simply love what I hear Father saying through what my brother and friend Art continues to share here.

Rich

Another blessing of enduring suffering is that it brings us to genuine knowledge of and greater intimacy with the Lord. I want to address two important kinds of knowledge that operate in every believer’s life whether they recognize it or not.

The verse below indicates the first primary kind of “knowledge” that operates within the believer’s life. This knowledge is dependent upon the literal presence of “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” who indwells every believer’s spirit from the moment of their rebirth. This first kind and level of knowledge is automatic and spontaneous, it’s always there as the sense of inner peace or the inner sense of Spirit that indicates something is wrong or we are about to go wrong.

The first kind of knowledge is seen here below.

1 Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth (eido, innately by an intuitive sense) the things of a man, save (except) the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth (eido) no man, but the Spirit of God.

We see the word “knoweth,” transliterated from the Greek word “eido,” meaning an innate inborn kind of knowledge that operates spontaneously by the indwelling “Spirit of Christ” as God. Every believer has the spontaneous operation of “the Spirit of God” who indwells the “spirit of man” from the moment they are reborn.

“Eido” speaks of a “sense knowing” that every believer has by the “anointing” or deposit of “the Spirit of Christ.” (Rom 8:9-10). It is a “sense knowledge” that was added to our five physical senses. We sense the peace of God or that peace is disturbed.

It is a sense we have by the indwelling “Spirit of Christ” that “you all know [the Truth] or you know all things.” (1John 2:20 below). John speaks of this kind of innate knowledge when he here writes to the diaspora (scattered) of Israel .

1 John 2:20 But YOU HAVE BEEN ANOINTED BY [you hold a sacred appointment from, you have been given an unction from] THE HOLY ONE (CHRIST), and YOU ALL KNOW [THE TRUTH] OR YOU KNOW ALL THINGS.

Rom 8:16 is an example of such innate knowledge for the believer. We have the innate sense that we are God’s child and He is our Father, made known to us by the innermost witness of Christ’s Spirit within our spirit. Romans 8:16 The Spirit itself (Himself) beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

1 Corinthians 2:12 Now WE HAVE RECEIVED, not the spirit of the world, but THE SPIRIT which is of God; (so) THAT WE MIGHT KNOW (ginosko, come to know by experience) the things that are freely given to us of God.
In 1Cor 12:12, above, we see the second kind of knowledge. Paul says “we have received…the spirit which is of God (so) that we might (come to) know.” The word “know” here is the Greek word “ginosko,” which is a kind of knowledge that we come to or arrive at though experience.

Even while having “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2a) within us as our innate sense knowledge, we still begin our Christian life with a “knowledge gap.” This gap exists because, though we have that innate knowledge by Christ’s Spirit of life as the anointing within us, we’ve not yet “come to know” who we are by Christ in us as the new us. We’ve never yet realized all that Christ is to us by His Spirit dispensed into our spirit…as our new all-sufficient life.

Stalking His Prey

There is something that is becoming wonderfully clear to me; it is that our Loving heavenly Father has been stalking each and every person on this planet.
Go with me if you will and soak in this visual illustration I want to share. The picture I have used here is that of a wolf, stalking his prey, every muscle is rippling with compressed strain and tension, just waiting for that exact second when he is catapulted like a bullet from a high powered rifle onto his un-expecting victim.
In the case of the wolf it is to kill and devour its prey, to snuff out its life, not befriend it.

What would our world look like if suddenly out of nowhere this stalking loving God and Father were to burst in upon your consciousness not to destroy us, but to destroy that which keeps us prisoners to fear and the lies we live with moment by moment, year after year completely clouding our hearts?

That is more and more the longing of my heart, to see, to be made so much more aware of the reality of every moment I take my next breath, He is there in it!
It is from this place of knowing whose I am that I trust Father to keep opening the eyes of my heart to increasingly bring before me what and for whom to pray, I at best see only the surface at any time, but he, the lover of our soul says, “Son, the secret things belong to me, and to those I choose to make them known.”

This morning was such a morning, bringing names and faces I know before our Father, but in the process I was abruptly stopped, Father, please show me more than just names and faces, show me your heart for these beloved of you. The more I presented so many before Him, my heart began to break from the weight of Glory I became aware of flowing into these precious and deeply loved ones!

Rich

Too Many Snapshots

I could see her from behind doing the dishes but what was it about that scene that froze me in my tracks? I felt a longing to rush up to her and cling to her and yet somehow I felt that I had done something wrong, was I to blame?

It suddenly dawned upon me that I was a little boy and resting upon my right shoulder was a warm firm hand lovingly squeezing me in light of my speeded up heart beat and a stiffness that seem to come over me.
I turned and somehow I recognized this man, yes, it was Jesus, and with his concerned but smiling face, he said, Son, it’s okay, your not to blame for this, it’s not your fault! Let me take this out of your heart and mind, never to hurt you again.

This was but one of God knows how many Kodak moments, snapshots taken inside my little child world, and as a grown up I have come to realize that children are great observers but very poor at interpreting what they have observed.
In a blur which seemed slow compared to how rapidly I was being communicated to by Jesus about what I was seeing, I was being set free from something that had deeply entrenched, burrowed itself like a living parasite deep within my soul.
He was saying to me, that my mother, the person I was standing behind was deeply wounded and infected with what had infected every person ever born, she and her world like mine had been misshaped by the same lies she to was born with and into.
There was some inner turmoil eating away at the little of any identity she had left, and somehow it was that which I perceived as being my fault that she was very upset, mad and hurt because of me, it must have been my fault!

All of what I have shared here was what happened today, this afternoon shortly after laying down to get some rest, as I have been home since Friday of last week with a vicious cold. Father was bringing to the surface unresolved issues, conflicts that were still causing fearfully learned sin responses (habit patterns) to things in my world I am living in as a soon to be 60 year old man, wow.

I so love this God who I see ever more clearly as my loving Father, who’s delight is in making us free, as it says, “Whom the Son sets free, is free indeed.

Rich

Identity Theft

I just finished reading a wonderful book I heard of through a brother called Identity Theft, by Kevin Avram and Wes Boldt.
The following is an excerpt from this book.

“Each of us has a unique mixture of gifts, though one of them tends to dominate and influence the way we see and respond to situations and establish priorities. If we walk with the heart identity of Sons/Daughters, our hearts will be open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and our giftedness will be a practical extension of what the Father is working in us. We will minister with the grace He gives in the way He indicates we should. The focus will not be the gift, but the Father.

If we do not have the heart identity of Sons/Daughters, our focus will be on our own fulfillment and what we can do with our gift. It is an erroneous disposition that has led more than a few people to falsely conclude that their gift and their identity are synonymous.
Gifts exercised apart from a hearing heart can actually oppose the purposes of God. In fact, much of what we call spiritual warfare is simply God resisting our efforts to use our gifts to build or achieve something that He never called us to do. God resists the proud and self-determined. (1Peter 5:5)”

It never ceases to amaze me of how our calling “to be His” has been funneled by so many into the old wine skin format of religious thinking along with all that that encompasses. Church has been sadly defined by some geographical location usually confined to a building location.

I am seeing with increased clarity within this (for lack of better terminology) grace awakening that the foundational and fundamental corner stone that all and everything else rests upon is that which Jesus said the church He is building would rest upon, the “unconditional love of the Father.”
Because there are NO vacuums, we will either have deeply defined in us our true identity of whose we are Sons/Daughters of the Father, or, we will be defined by something no matter how good, as an alternate identity!

I think these words from Paul address some of this lack of identity within our siblings in Christ. “I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.”

Rather than simply being living breathing extensions of our God and Father as His Ambassadors in this fallen world, so many have gravitated toward becoming an expression of another religious organization instead. Look what they’ve done to my work I initiated in them, I can hear the Father saying to His sons!

Rich

"...Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ... having abolished in the flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." (Eph. 4:13; 2:15-16).
"...And have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all." (Col. 3:10-11).
"...And put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth." (Eph. 4:24).
"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ." (Gal. 3:27).

I want to put this in here as I see it tying in well with my thoughts, it is a quote from A Sparks.

Am I to take upon my own shoulders the whole matter of my usefulness to the Lord, my vocation, my service, my ministry? No, never! How many of the children of God have been beaten, and broken, and buffetted about by the question of ministry and usefulness to the Lord. That is not our affair in the first instance. What is to be done with our lives depends entirely upon our walking with the Lord. We have altogether false ideas of ministry. We have set ministry before our eyes as some kind of order of things, something into which we get, something that we take up, and ministry is nothing of the kind. Ministry is the spontaneous outgoing of Christ in us, and the more there is of Christ to go out through us, the greater will be our ministry. Let us get away from mechanical ideas of service for the Lord. The Holy Spirit, Who has introduced Christ into us, is going to construct everything upon the basis of Christ in us.

Seeing The Father

Seeing God means having ears that hear and a heart that is able to receive and abide in that which the Father bestows. It means knowing His thoughts (1Cor. 2:11-12), even as sons and daughters come to know the thoughts of their natural father. Seeing God also means not fleeing obstacles or times of barrenness.

Those who see God, rest in, feed upon, and submit to His faithfulness in the midst of the issues of life (1Cor. 1:9; Ps. 37:3), for the know He makes even the desert to bloom (Is. 51:3), and will perfect that which concerns them (Phil. 1:6; Rom. 8:28).
Their identity and dependence is not within themselves or upon themselves, but in their Father.

The inability to see God was the great dilemma of the Israelites after they departed Egypt. They saw His “work for forty years” but went “astray in their heart” (Heb. 3:9-10). They were blind to see that the circumstance in which He placed them was the very avenue through which He intended to bless them. In resisting the circumstance, they resisted God. They either forgot or didn’t know that all spiritual life is conceived in the barrenness of an empty womb. Sons and Daughters know their lives are empty, and that if they do bring forth a bounty or blessing, it is because, in the midst of their barrenness, the Father plants within them that which is born of Him!

Rich

Carving Out An Identity

Here are some thoughts I offered in response to comments a friend shared in one of my recent blog posts.

“It is my opinion that because there are NO vacuums in life, out of necessity if it isn’t going to be about life, then it is all about death. Most, however, do not or would not see it quite this starkly!

“Self was intended to be clothed inwardly and outwardly in the adornment of the living God (life). In forsaking this God-designed expression, self then had to be defined apart from its original purpose. Self-reliance became part of this craving to carve out and establish an identity apart from God (death). I see self-reliance as one of Self's offspring, others being self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence, etc. All these things emanate from the corruption within our soul. Everything pertaining to 'self' is opposed to God, and feeds into our inherent sin/Satan nature. When Satan said, "I shall be like the most high God...I will ascend..." etc. I think he was trying to carve out an identity for himself separate from his maker. When we rely on 'self-anything' aren't we doing the same? As born-again children of the most high God, we are to live out of his indwelling spirit. Putting us into impossible situations forces us into a position whereby we canNOT resort to relying on 'self' but on God alone.

“Out of defying God and trying to become like God, man, having his eyes opened, was plunged into total darkness, and in this darkness the father of lies and religion began to make his presence known in the world through human agents.”

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” The construction of man consisted of body, soul and spirit, and each of these three components were to be united when man freely chose to eat from the Tree of Life; this spoke of a ruling nature that up to that point he was yet without. Consequently, the other tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil likewise figuratively represented a nature.

In my opinion, Satan, the fallen archangel who once radiated all light, glory and worship back to God, grew tired of being in a subservient position and up to that point was found blameless until, pride welled up in his heart, “I will ascend to the highest heights, I will be greater than God.” This insidious malignant cancer became the inward impetus that propelled his meteor-like crash landing upon the earth.
I love this quote from Jesus, “I was watching Satan falling from heaven like lightening.”

Jesus highlighted who and what Satan was, “a father of lies” (a usurper) but it is important to realise that only God has the capacity to create. Satan can only replicate. Satan was never ever a bona fide father like God, so Satan, knowing this, had to lie, cheat and trick Adam into acquiescing of his own choosing to swallow his baited pitch, hook, line and sinker.

What and how much Satan knew of God’s purposes and plans for man was obviously enough to do what he did in his covert, stealth-morphed disguise. He knew that man had or was to become a fuller expression of what Satan (Lucifer) had once been, a glory-bearer, one who would radiate the wonder, beauty and majesty of this living God!

In his mutinous defiance, man then became a host for Satan to have his spirit, likeness, image and nature represented throughout the earth. The only thing was, that man was blinded to his now having a nature that he would think was 'human', but in fact (according to Jesus) he became by nature a child of wrath, a son of disobedience.

It is out of this that man carved his identity. Prior to the fall, he lacked an identity - much like a pumpkin which lacks an identity until a face is carved into its flesh. Man's craving for identity was metaphorically carved into his flesh the moment the father or lies entered his soul.

Rich