The Treasures of Darkness ch.-3 - Eternal Life is a Person

I call the book of John the “I am” book.  Jesus never said that He would give us a little piece of Himself called  “the way, the truth, and the life.”  He didn't say He would give us a little bit of bread and it would be life to us.  He didn't say that  giving us a little resurrection life, or a little living water would help us have more of God.  No, what he did strongly and emphatically declare was this:  “I am the Word;  I am the Light of the world;  I am the Living Wate;,  I am the Bread of Life;  I am the Resurrection and the Life;  I am the Way;  I am the Truth;  and I am Eternal Life.”  God's name always has been “I AM,” not, “I have it to give.”  We do not have a distant God, dishing out to us humans little bits of Himself to live on.  No, He has given us the fullness of Himself.

The mystery of the gospel is, “Christ in you, our only hope of glory”  (Colossians 1:27).   He is the deity in the temple;  He is the contents of the vessel;  He is the vine of the branch;  He is the husband of the wife;  and He is the head of the body.  He firmly announced to all His creation, “My glory will I not give to another”(Isaiah 42:8).  Therefore, salvation is a Person;  Love is a Person;  the Truth is a Person;  Peace is a Person;  Righteousness is a Person; and Eternal Life is not just a place we go after death, but it is a Person!    His plan from the beginning was to create a family of sons who would freely contain and express His deity nature throughout eternity (2 Peter 1:4) 

It takes a great blow to our egos to really know that we are only the clay pots and not the glory of the content.  Christ is the content.  It is He that fills the temple. We have been falsely taught that we are the one who should fulfill the law and try to fill our temples with good works. The essence of all idolatry is trying to be what only God is.  This too is the essence of legalism.  Trying to be good leaves our hearts empty and still crying out for more.  For it is Christ alone who can fulfill the law in us.  It is He who deserves the glory.  We are His dwelling place, not our own dwelling place.

Could this be why Christians are so miserable?  We, of all people, who know that our sins are forgiven and our future destination is heaven, should live in the joy of the Lord all of the time.   But do we?   I dare say that if we are honest, most of us experience the very opposite.  I believe that most of us live condemned and frustrated lives, trying to cope with difficult situations and wondering why faith doesn't work.  That is why so many Christians are crying out, “Come quickly Lord Jesus,” as they wait to be relieved of their misery by the ‘Second Coming’ of Christ.

Our salvation and entrance into the kingdom of God is wonderful, but it's not good enough to just know that our sins are forgiven.  What about now?  What about the present tense?  Why do we love the Jesus who saves us, but hate the human person that He saved?  Did He do only half the work?  Maybe we are getting closer to our answer by looking at just that.  We think that we are responsible for finishing or perfecting the other half of what doesn't seem complete, namely us.  What a job!

We are taught to pray more, read our Bibles more, come to Church more, tithe more, and strive to become more like Jesus.  Then there is the problem of the world.  We should keep ourselves from worldly thoughts and not overindulge in worldly pleasures such as eating, drinking, smoking, and carousing. Then there are our personal shortcomings such as tempers, jealousies, pride, and secret sins. The list goes on forever.  But most of all we must look good to the world.  We  keep our reputations and God's reputation respectable because we must be good witnesses.   I say it again, “What a job!”

Why doesn't Christianity work?  I'm not happy and I'm not satisfied--God is satisfied because He sees his Son in me, but I'm not satisfied.  I look most of the time like Paul in Romans Seven (18 & 19) “the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not that I do. For the will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” 

Since the problem is exposed in Romans Seven, then the whole solution, which is the missing link in Christianity, is hidden there as well.  The real problem and hidden sin of the Christian is self-effort.  “I ought to.  I should do better by my owm efforts.” It is very subtle, though, for it seems right and good, yet in truth it is the very heart of our problem.

The outer law continually stirs up self-effort because we believe we can and should try to obey it.  We are not believing in God,  we are believing in ourselves.  Colosians 1:27 says, "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  The mystery of the Gospel is “Christ in you.”  However, we believe more in our own performance than Christ in us.  That is why the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is the least known to most Christians.  We are provided with the life of Christ by the Holy Spirit, yet we strive in our own efforts to be that life.

Paul strongly warned the Galatians against legalism in their church.  They began their Christian walk by faith alone, but soon after added all kinds of laws to live by. Therefore, Paul cried out, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth.  This only would I learn of you; Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or the hearing of faith?  Are you so foolish?  Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?”(Galatians 3:1-3)  Paul’s strong warning “Who has bewitched you” implies that the devil is at work.  It is devilish to try to become what only God Himself is.

Let us understand though, that the law isn't wrong in itself, for it is God’s perfect picture of His holy nature. Our problem is not God’s picture of Himself.  The problem is how to be like that picture. We can never be like God by self-effort, yet God wants us to come to the end of believing that “WE” can do it. The only way that we can come to the end is for us to go right on trying.  But don't try half way.  Try with all your heart.  Try until you’re bloody from trying.

Most Christians settle somewhere in-between;  a little bit of Jesus, a little bit of me, a little bit of the law, a little bit of righteousness, a little bit of the devil,  a little bit of sin. “Ho hum!  God doesn't expect me to be perfect anyway.” On the contrary, Jesus demands perfection, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).  Jesus says it has to be all or nothing.  It is better to try until we can’t try anymore, than to settle somewhere in the middle ground.

That is why Jesus said to the Laodicean church in the book of Revelation that because they were lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, He would spew them out of His mouth (Rev. 3:15-16).  God wants self-effort to become exceedingly sinful.  God wants you to be real desperate.  So desperate that you can't try anymore.  Then you are more than happy for righteousness not to depend on you.  It is a desperate, but thankful heart, that knows that Righteousness and Eternal Life are both a person, and that person is Christ, who lives in us.

The Treasures of Darkness ch.-2 - My Friend Finds the Answer

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him”

(Hebrews 11:6).

I have a precious friend whom I met 15 years ago at a meeting we were both attending.  Immediately our hearts were drawn to each other.  Over the  years, our families have been knit together in love, as we have visited and had fellowship with each other many times since then. He is a perfectionist, and like Paul, had to solve his self problem, or die.  I want to share with you his amazing story.

            My friend had an insatiable quest for perfection which began twenty years ago in Campus Crusade.  He decided that if he could memorize three verses a day then he could memorize the entire New Testament in seven years.  Accomplishing this feat, would in his mind, mean that he would be perfect.  After memorizing  one third of the New Testament, it overwhelmed him and he gave up.

          Then the drive to perfect himself resurfaced in other forms. He went to Christian seminars over and over again trying to change himself.  The patterns that they presented for Christian living killed him.  He tried very hard to work the principles and make restitution for his past sins.  A lot of what he learned was very good. But as he says, “most of it was somewhat morbid.”  His quest to be God’s perfect man drove him to the seminary where he diligently studied Greek and Hebrew.  However, because he couldn't live up to his own ideals, he left after a year and a half, angry and depressed.  He, like every earnest Christian, had great passion and drive for righteousness, and rightly so, for I believe that it is the common heart cry of everyone who loves the Lord.

     The teachings he had learned were not wrong in themselves. But, as long as a person has Christ plus a "me" to perfect, then he has a false self that is bound to make law from outer teaching.  All outer teaching has the possibility of becoming law to us. Doesn’t the Bible itself appear law to some and grace to others?  Until we know what it means to be “dead to the law” (Romans 7:1-4) we are always bound by some outer teaching. 

      Finally he heard the liberating truth of who he is in Christ, and  began to make a real turn away from perfectionism. He began to learn the walk of faith and experience release. Yet the final truth of his humanity was still unknown to him.  He knew that Christ lived in him, but what about this human form? What was his responsibility as a human?  The answer became clear when he understood the function of the container, the human. 

       My friend reminded me of Paul in Romans 7--his desire was right, but how to perform, he could only say, “I find not.” After a few years, my friend began to refocus on Satan and sin.  “What if I'm in sin, maybe it's unbelief?”  He became centered in on himself which led to depression as he tried to deal with his feelings of dissatisfaction and anger. His quest led him to a Christian group which propagated the 12 step program of AA, Co-Dependency, Adult Children of Alcoholics, and other related programs as part of their answer for  recovery and progress.  Around and around he went into the whirlwind of self-analyzing--"Maybe if my father had not left us children, then I wouldn't be like I am...What were the dysfunctions in my family?...My temper is out of control, maybe if I believe hard enough I can be released...I have strong sexual pulls, maybe I'm a sex addict, could that be my hidden sin?  How can I purge myself of sin?”

       He got worse instead of better because he recreated a false world that had already been crucified in Christ.  The more he saw how dysfunctional his family had been, the more he hated and loathed his past and himself.  This way of restoration was not healing at all, because it re-created a false reality. The truth is that Christ has redeemed our past and designed it to work together for our good, not our destruction. The 12 step programs are somewhat spiritual in nature, but my friend made them just another formula. He got worse and worse trying to make the 12 steps work as he analyzed and re-analyzed himself. Finally, in despair and anguish, he contemplated suicide.

       There is a time appointed by the Father for each of us to be introspective and self-searching, for it is in the identity level that we have been so deceived.  It is right there in our self that we discover our true identity.  That time is a radical and valuable time for the Spirit to teach us who we are not, which conditions us to see who we really are.  The very nature of this darkness usually isolates us from friends and family. Only in darkness and aloneness can God unite our divided consciousness from a separated striving self, to a released freedom, that only a right self can experience.  I learned years ago not to touch this sacred and holy time, for it is a severe mercy. The great mystics called it, “The alone with the Alone.”  This is a far cry from what is offered to us today through psychology.

            It is amazing to me how much psychology has inundated the Christian Church as a means of perfection.  I heard a man of God recently say, “Psychology is a diversion from the leap of faith.” His call was for Christians to return to the simple faith of our Fathers:  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Peter and Paul.  Psychology leaves people majoring on their problems, instead of leaping into the solution. Christ risen as us is our only hope.  Yet, we Christians are putting our hope in false fleshly answers.  There is only one hope, and that is Christ in us (Col. 1:27).

            The highest form of human mentality is rational understanding, and psychology elevates understanding as a solution to inner healing.  If we can understand ourselves, then we can discover ways to master ourselves.  This is still flesh trying to master itself through self-effort.  God crumbles our false hopes by saying, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 15:50).   For it is:  “Not by (our) might, nor by (our) power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord” (Zech. 4:6).

            A friend of mine from England, Barbara Rodgerson, once wrote this in a letter to me: “The more I seemed to dig and explore on a psychological level, the more elusive the 'root' to my problem became.  I was like an onion with endless peels and no end in sight.  Just tear another layer and more strong odors appeared, and that smell, more often than not, reeked of shame.  I had to finally give it all up in place of the finished work of the Cross,  where I found my final resting place.”

             While psychology may help us get within hearing distance of the truth, it cannot satisfy our empty hearts.  Faith requires us to leave understanding behind and leap into Christ as the  redeemer of our past, and the perfection of our present-tense life. Sharon, a Christian friend of mine who is a social worker, said to me the other day, “A leap of faith requires a death to our understanding, while psychology explains our lives away.”  If faith alone was good enough for Jesus, Paul, John and Martin Luther, then it is good enough for me. 

            Although the 12 step program has truth in it, it cannot be our deliverer. Some people are making psychology their new religion and substitute deliverer.  Let us not make more of the process than we do of the person of Christ.  How can we analyze God's creation? We are too complex to departmentalize. “What is man, that Thou are mindful of him? Or the Son of Man, that Thou visitest Him?  Thou madest Him a little lower than the God; Thou crownedst Him with glory and honor, and didst set Him over the works of Thy hands” (Hebrews 2:6,7). We are made in His image, yet like the snowflake, none of us are alike. Only the Creator really knows His creation.  Can't we trust the God who created us to put the fragmented pieces of our psyche back together?  “Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it” (Psalms 127:1).

            Isn't it interesting that the Bible tells us that, “The body of sins has been done away with” (Romans 6:6) and, “they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24). Yet we try to work out of us what the Cross accomplished for us two thousand years ago. No wonder Paul calls the Galatians “foolish” and “bewitched” for trying to perfect themselves through self-effort.

            What we need is a fresh approach to how this truth can become a living reality in us today. Only when we dare to “possess our possessions” by taking a quantum leap of faith, believing that we are right just as we are, can we say with David, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise” (Psalms 57:7).

            However, all of us try as my friend did, and in a sense we must try, because the death of trying conditions us to see the final liberation of our precious humanity.  Can we dare accept ourselves as having a right humanity and catch the glory of being God's asset instead of His liability?  My friend has, but it took a great death to his way to perfection, his rational understanding, and his clever reasoning powers. Aren't we glad that God is more clever than we!

            Finally, after trying to purge himself from supposed sin through psychology and self-analyzing, my friend ended up in a psychiatric ward on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  Soon after this, I contacted him by phone.  His first words to me after five years of no contact were, “I cannot be contrite enough before the Lord.”  His voice was so low that I thought he would collapse just talking to me.  I simply asked him several questions. “Do you really think that you are in sin?  Maybe the reason you cannot be contrite enough, is, because you haven't really sinned.  What does your heart tell you?” “My heart?” he said, “I'm not sure--I've been in my head so much that I don't know.”  Then I asked him one last question that really started him thinking: “Haven't you searched yourself for sin enough; haven't you searched every fiber of your body?” 

            Soon after that he came for a visit. It was not long before the Spirit was illuminating him to the truth: “It pleased God, who separated him from his mother's womb, and called him by his grace, to reveal his Son in him” (Galatians 1:15&16). My friend's past was perfectly designed by God and ordained as the perfect negative background to bring out the real truth and reveal the very Son of God in  his precious humanity.

            All the while he had really been a kept person. God's faithfulness had kept him from sin but not from temptation. I wonder how many of us are confessing sin because we are feeling so condemned, when all the time it is temptation we are experiencing. These grave clothes are the false guilt we take because we think we have a failing self that needs improvement. My friend finally learned the difference between sin and temptation. He was wrongly assuming that negative responses could not be in the life of God, and therefore were sin. Didn't Jesus say, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful unto death,” yet we know that He never sinned. The good news that came to my friend after years of self-abasement was that negatives such as weakness and darkness are right.   He could finally accept himself as a right self with right weaknesses. 

            When he would feel depressed, I would say to him, “Well then, be depressed.”  Then, when he would accept himself and not fight or try to figure himself out, he experienced a great release. When we embrace our negatives, it takes the bite out of Satan's temptations.  What we fight, fights us; what we curse, curses us back; and what we bless, blesses us back;  So when we praise the Lord and accept ourselves as right, and relax, the inner word from the Lord comes naturally and easily in us.

            My friend has truly walked through the valley of the shadow of death, but now he doesn't fear evil anymore.  God has anointed him with the good news that he is a right self and is, by faith, already perfect in Christ.  “For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).  A great release came to him which brought rest to his soul and powerfully quickened his spirit.  His life is a tremendous testimony to the resurrection power of the Spirit which is ours by faith alone. 

The Treasures of Darkness ch.-1 - What is Man?

“What is man, that Thou dost take thought of him?  And the son of man, that Thou dost care for him?  Yet Thou hast made him a little lower than God (Elohim);  thou dost crown him with glory and majesty!  Thou dost make him to rule over the works of Thy hands;”

”(Psalms 8:4-6).

            Man, as well as the Son of Man,  is a simple container, just like a coffee cup.  Our humanity is the cup and Christ is the coffee.  These two are one cup of coffee.  Look at how the New Testament describes our humanity:  we are called temples, not the deity (I Corinthians 6:19-20); vessels, not the contents, (Romans 9:22-23);  branches, not the vine (John 15:1), (Romans 6:21-22); bodies, not the head (Ephesian 1:22-23 & Colossians 1:18); slaves, not the master (Romans 6:17-18); and wives, not the husband (Romans 7:2-4).  Let us examine what the function of these illustrations: temples are His dwelling place; vessels offer the liquid they contain; branches reproduce the life and fruit of the vine; bodies are operated by the head; slaves do the work of their owner; Wives receive the seed of their husbands.

             The problem comes when we confuse the function of the two.  We think we, the temple, should act like the deity: we should produce fruit apart from the vine.  we then resemble Ichobod Crane’s headless horseman, a body acting apart from the "head."  We believe we have independent freedom from God to "do my own thing," and then we think we should produce children apart from the seed of my Husband.

These are the lies that permeate us and pose as the truth. The truth is this: the human has no ability in himself to perform righteousness. Yet, we Christians spend years trying to be good and please God by our self-effort.  No wonder we are so powerless! (2 Cor 12:9)

            If only we could catch a glimpse of the truth of “What is Man?” we would then see the real truth of our precious humanity and the veil covering our eyes would be removed.  We are God's glorious creation, created in His very own image.  The Pharisees took up stones to stone Jesus when he  testified of man's glory.  But Jesus unequivocally declared that even their own law witnessed of the fact that man was really a god:  “Ye are gods!” (Psalms 82).

            What does this verse mean?  We Christians are so afraid of our humanity.  We think, and are taught that it is either evil in itself, in that we have sinful flesh, or that humanity is good (or God) by itself, which would be what the New Age Philosophy teaches. Because we have been so inundated with lies, we throw the baby (“Ye are gods”) out with the bath water.  Don't we understand that Satan can only pervert the truth. He cannot create anything new, for he is not the creator.  “Ye are gods,” is God’s truth. Yet Satan perverts this truth by duping us humans into believing that we, of ourselves, are, or should be, the content in the cup.  Therefore we (the cup) should try to be good, or, if we sin, we (the cup) should have the power to keep ourselves from sin.  We are either proud and self-righteous for doing good, or condemming and blaming ourselves for falling short. These are both lies. The human is neither evil nor good in himself. For like the temple and the vessel, the human is a neutral being and has no independent nature of its own.

            We were evil in our unsaved days only because we were indwelt by Satan who caused us to express his evil nature (Ephesians 2:2-3 and John 8:44).  The cross of Christ has set us free from that evil nature by replacing it with Christ's own nature of holiness.  That is why Paul declares in Colossians 1:28, “We preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”  It isn't good enough to know that we have a perfect Christ in us.  We must know that man was made perfect as well.

            Don't be afraid of the truth, for the truth will set you free.  When Jesus said, “Ye are gods,” He did not mean that we are the Divine Creator Himself or the content of the cup. What He does mean is that we are created little gods, as a derivative of God our Father, as Paul declares in Act 17:29, “the offspring of God,” or simply His means of expressing His diety nature.

            God so greatly loves his human creation that it cannot be measured, for He declared it “very good.”  He did not create any two things alike, for God loves variety. That is evident in nature.  He loves our bodily forms, all so different in shape, color, and size.  He loves our various kinds of personalities: some sweet, others hard; some passive, some with tempers; some shy, some bold; and all others in between.  For God cannot express His personhood through nature.  A tree cannot express His other-love nature. Only God's top creation and crowning glory, Man, can unite with His divine Spirit and express His other-love nature.

            Satan has stolen God's creation away to make unto himself a kingdom of servants, expressing his perverted nature of self-for-self. The rebellious satanic “I will” that first perverted Lucifer, infected mankind in the Garden and is the same “I will” that Paul struggled with, by trying not to covet in Romans Seven.  It is the same, “not my will, but Thine,” that Jesus relinquished in the Garden of Gethsemane.  This satanic “I will” is thankfully  the same “I” that was crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20) on the cross two thousand years ago defeating the satanic rule in mankind.

            Through the cross, Jesus, our High Priest, has gained our freedom by paying the ultimate price of His own life. “If the son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed (John 8:36).”  He not only represented us as sin, dying to it and replacing it with His righteousness (II Corinthians 5:17), but He gained freedom for our humanity as well. Romans 6:6 says, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, in order that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”

            There are two deliverances proclaimed in this verse.  The first is an exchange of natures (Spirits), the old sinful nature out and Christ, the new nature, in.  Then secondly (and, by the way, the point of the verse) “that the body of sin might be destroyed.”  What is the “body of sin?”  It is our misused humanity expressing all forms of sin.  This misuse was done away with at the cross of Christ, and postionally delivering us from every form of bodily addiction. If a person is a Christian, from God’s point of view, he is already delivered from alcoholism, co-dependency, sex addiction, and every form of perversion.  As Christians we really are free and have a great liberating inheritance in Christ.  Yet most of us live as bound up prisoners waiting for the ‘Second Coming,’ thinking that only then can we be free. 

            It is not good enough that God knows we are already positionally delivered, we must know it too. Unless we know our freedom in the present tense, it’s as if it doesn’t even exist. God may be satisfied by the blood of Christ, but we are not satisfied until we know our total deliverance.  Otherwise, we live life like someone having millions of dollars in the bank but living only on pennies. Our problem is tied up in the misunderstanding of our precious humanity.  We, the cup, think we should be more victorious, instead of seeing our only function is that of a helpless container of Someone else who has already won the battle.  That Someone else is the power of the universe and the great “I Am.”

The Man of God

  When God wants to fill a man, and skill a man, and drill a man, when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part, when He yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world will be amazed.

          Watch his methods, watch his ways!   How he ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects, how he hammers him and hurts him, with mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of clay which only God understands, till his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands.  How He bends but never breaks when his good he undertakes, then how He uses whom He chooses, and with every purpose fuses him, by every act induces him to try his splendor out; God knows what He's about."     

Author Unknown