Sunday 31 July 2011

Mark Stibbe on prisons

Father's House Trust newsletter excerpt
We’ve also been on the road a lot – travelling around the UK as well as into Europe for conferences and events. It is always a privilege to be a part of what the Father is doing in the world, and it is our on-going desire to see his presence bringing healing and restoration. This May I had to fly to the USA to speak at various churches. During that time I attended a conference simply to receive. Having been giving out a lot, I was very keen to encounter the Father’s love in a fresh way. I was mindful of the saying, ‘if your output exceeds your input, then your upkeep will be your downfall’. What was very interesting to me was this: that I really didn’t experience anything during the conference at all. Don’t get me wrong - the music was amazing and the preaching was outstanding - but at no point did I have my heart ‘seized by the power of a great affection’, to use Brennan Manning’s phrase. Then the worship leader announced that she and the choir were going to go to a local prison the next day to bless the prisoners. Something leapt within me and I just knew I was supposed to be there. So I asked her if I could come too. She said yes, adding that she wanted me to speak.

The next day I was driven to a juvenile detention centre just outside the city. As I walked through the entrance, I began to feel an overwhelming sense of compassion for the young people there. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I spent most of the next three hours either in tears or on the edge of tears. Over 70 prisoners came voluntarily to the meeting where I shared about the running father from Luke 15.11. They listened very respectfully and at the end over 20 of them made a commitment to Jesus. After that we went round the room hugging those who wanted a hug and praying for them.

quote2So, I went to a conference to receive a fresh revelation of the Father’s love, but it wasn’t until the day after the conference that I received it – and it wasn’t within the walls of a church with Christians but in the confines of a prison with the lost. Truly our Father is the God of surprises! Why am I sharing this? It’s because at Father’s House Trust the Holy Spirit has laid upon our hearts the importance of bringing Abba’s love to prisoners. We all know the statistics – 85% of prisoners don’t know their dads. God has a special place in his heart for those in prison.

In the future we at FHT are going to seek to reach out to prisoners, and we are planning carefully exactly when and how we do that. I have a strong hunch that many of us who have experienced the Father’s love in receiving mode at conferences are going to have our hearts seized by the power of a great affection outside the church – as we minister to orphans, widows, the lonely and prisoners (Psalm 68.5-6). We are going to realize the truth that there is a much greater blessing to be found in giving than in receiving (Acts 20.35).

Rango or Finding One's True Self by Daniel Yordy


Chris Welch: Last week Ben ,Christine and I saw Cars 2. The inner story was the same as Rango. Towmater just had to be what he was in order to be the kingpin in the storyline.





Daniel Yordy – July 31, 2011
PDF Version for printing and distribution

Okay, I just watched the movie, Rango. God speaks to me through story. It continues to astonish me that, when Hollywood does make an effort to tell a good story, truth shines all through it. If you enjoy animated stories, watch Rango. But regardless, I will draw from it to illustrate how a man or a woman of God becomes real: how they find their true self.

Jesus said that if we lose our "self" (psyche - soul) in this world, we will find our true self. We never understood what He meant until we stopped viewing ourselves as a "self" separate from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, as we walk in the knowing that Christ is our life; we have no other life, the nature of the delusion of being a "self" unto ourselves becomes so very apparent. Of truth, we lose nothing but an illusion - the Matrix.

And, oh the joy, to know that our true self is Christ Himself; we sink more and more into the complete peace and bliss of rest. Yet out of that utter rest, the Lord Jesus arises within us and we now see all things from an entirely different viewpoint. Now, for the first time, we are truly about our Father's business.

Rango starts out as a lizard in a glass cage with the question, "Who am I." Rango is an actor and he is very good at pretending all sorts of different roles, which he demonstrates. Yet he realizes that the only way he could know who he is would be to face a terrible crisis. As if on cue, the car in which his terrarium is traveling hits a bump, and he goes flying off to a solitary journey through the Mojave Desert.

Rango arrives at the town of Dirt, filled with funny little animal people, where he continues mimicking the oddities of others. He wanders into a saloon where he is challenged, "Who are you." Here is his chance; he can be anything he wants. So he calls himself, "Rango," and begins spinning a story to impress everyone. He succeeds.

Rango is made sheriff, and he enjoys some successes in leading the town's people in their desperate quest for water in the desert. But all of Rango's "successes" are little more than the accidents of pretending. Then the time comes when he is faced with Rattlesnake Jake and he can no longer pretend. Jake exposes his lies, and he confesses to the town's people that he never was anything that he claimed. He is a fake.

Rango walks back into the Mojave alone and defeated, leaving the town's people to the terrible death of desert thirst. Rango knows that all of his many skillful efforts to be "somebody," were always unreal. He does not know who he is and he doubts there is such a thing as himself.

The entire human race is psychotic.

The lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet are little more than an ongoing effort to pretend to be something, with the gnawing, nagging feeling, deep inside, that they are not succeeding. Most simply pretend even harder - except Buddhist priests, who have perfected the art of pretending not to pretend.

And then we have Christians.

Reality has entered into every single person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ as a seed, as a taste. But God has ordained a transition time, a development time, between the tasting and the fullness of reality. Inside that transition time, we Christians have managed to develop the psychosis of the human race, the effort to pretend, to a high religious art form.

The majority of Christians (not all) are psychotic. I find myself, only now in my 50's, beginning to come out of that Christian psychosis into the discovery of my true self - the Lord Jesus living in fullness in me.

Now, the terms "psychotic" and "psychosis" are the same Greek word, psuche, that Jesus used when He said that we must lose the false psychosis of this world in order to find our true selves.

It seems that the Lord's discovery to me of all the ramifications of Genesis Chapter 3 just does not end. So let us go back there to see, so very clearly, the source of all human psychosis.

Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." Genesis 3:9-10

Four distinct things: I heard Your voice - I was afraid - I was naked - I hid myself.

All the difficulty of the human race and all the pretending of Christians are so easily explained by these four statements.

The way to stop being a psychotic Christian, a pretender, is so very, very simple. "Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

What is His yoke? We are dead; He is alive in us. Yet He has not annihilated us, rather He carries us in Himself - we are just along for the ride. His yoke is for us to let Him be all that we are, to believe that He is. He is Savior, you know.

Recently, as the Lord laid His commission for me upon Himself in me, I asked, "Lord, how can I do this?" His answer surprised me, "Just be yourself." I asked again. His answer remained the same, "Just be yourself."

"But I'm an unappealing nobody. I am not interesting to people. I do not come across as a 'man of God.' I sound hollow and weak to people. No one is lining up to 'hear the word of the Lord' through me."

"Did I know what I was doing when I formed you?"

"Yes Lord."

"Just be what you are, nothing more and nothing less."

It is no easy thing to walk with other Christians without pretending. True success in the Christian life is to walk together as believers in Christ without one ounce or shadow of pretending.

Before we analyze Adam's words, let's counter them with the direct words of the gospel.

My sheep hear My voice - Do not be afraid - Your life is hid with Christ in God - Walk in the light.

The entire New Testament, and especially the Revelation given to John, is written against the backdrop of Genesis 3. Adam's reply to God proves to me that the whole human race today came out of Adam. In fact, this psychosis of man, so clearly birthed here in Adam, is essential evidence in the present time of the reality of God and the emptiness of atheism and evolution.

Animals are not psychotic. Animals are real; they do what they do without any attempt to pretend or to hide. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals always scares me when I see them on TV. Helping abused animals is worthy, certainly, but that is only half of SPCA's equation. The other half is the utter contempt for the humans involved and the ongoing wish that they be treated in like manner with the cruelty of prison. It is the unveiled disrespect for individuals, created in the image of God, stained and stumbling, hurting and lost.

The all-prevailing human psychosis did not "evolve" from the animal kingdom; it comes entirely from Adam.

Let's restate Adam's words. I heard Your voice - I was afraid - I was naked - I hid myself.

The source of all human psychosis is that God is always speaking, He will not shut up, and man cannot ever escape His voice. Man proved that he can kill God, but he can't make Him stop talking. Man can cover his ears and close his eyes, but the voice of God is inside of him always calling, never silent.

The first part of the voice of God in the heart of man is this. My life, as I experience life right now, is not what life is meant to be. Life ought to be more. I am not happy or satisfied with my present experience, circumstance, whatever; I always dream of more and better. All human beings believe this absolutely and all the time.

The suicide is the angriest cry against God. "The life I have is not what I want, therefore I will end it." No animal commits suicide; all animals are content inside their lot. Though an animal acts naturally in self-defense, the thought of ending its own "miserable" life never comes into its mind.

All expressions of lust, greed, and envy come out of the futile human effort to silence that voice of God in the heart of man.

C.S. Lewis shares how he moved from atheism to faith in Christ through his contemplation of the reality of conscience in the heart of all human beings, that sense of "this is right and that is wrong." The Spirit of God enabled him to see Christ when he realized that only the reality of God could explain this universal voice in the heart of man.

An animal, moving in self-defense, is still completely real. Man alone carries in his heart the cry, "I have been wronged." Even the psychopath, who has no human "conscience," and can murder thousands because, "I'm the president of the United States, after all," still is angry when he does not get what he wants. Psychopaths seek to improve their reality more ferociously than any normal human with a conscience, unhindered by the concern of hurting others. Though they have escaped the voice of God in the human conscience, they cannot escape the voice that says, "Life must be more than this."

More than that, the voice of God covers the heavens and speaks all through the created world. "Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse . . ." Romans 1:19-20

And Solomon says this in Proverbs 8:1-4:
Does not wisdom cry out, And understanding lift up her voice?
She takes her stand on the top of the high hill, beside the way, where the paths meet.
She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city, at the entrance of the doors:
"To you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of men.

The voice of God goes out into all the earth; God is always speaking and man cannot shut Him up. Neither can any man ever escape for one second from the sound of His voice inside his heart.

But some of us, some of us, by the grace of God, hear that voice, not as a threat, but as the voice of our Shepherd. "Come to Me and I will give you rest - My sheep hear My voice."

Adam's immediate response to the voice of God was fear. "I was afraid."

Now, animal fear, the fear of self-preservation, even when we experience it, is normal and natural. We are perfectly willing to hurl down the highway at 60 miles an hour encased in steel and glass, facing a stream of other human beings hurling our way, just four or five feet from us going in the opposite direction only because we are convinced that the same "fear" of crunching, hurting, and dying, fills them as much as us. That "fear" is real and good; there is no pretence in it at all.

Adam's fear was something entirely different. Adam was afraid to give answer to God. Adam was afraid of giving an account of himself. This fear of giving an account that comes directly out of always hearing God speak IS the source of all that comes after, the source of all human psychosis.

And what explains that fear? "I was naked."

Man, who was created to reveal God to all creation, heaven and earth, as God's likeness and image, was now trying to "be himself" apart from God.

Man is unclothed, and he knows it. All humans know they are naked before the voice of God. All humans are utterly ashamed of themselves. Even the psychopath, who knows no sense of shame, is proof of that shame, having abandoned even it in his flight away from God. Even demons tremble in the light of God, always seeking to hide from that light inside of human flesh.

Thus we come to all the Matrix of the world. "I hid myself."

In these words we see all the realms and avenues, all the myriad tracks down which the human mind runs, all the pretending, all the games, all the play-acting.

Everyone is hiding from God.

Everything that is in the world, everything, is nothing other than the woven fantasies of the human mind in people’s desperate attempt to hide from a Voice they cannot escape.

And thus we understand the full meaning of Revelation 6:15-16. "And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!"

This is the normal and necessary end to Adam's answer to God, "I hid myself." It is an end that must come; an end that we desire with all our hearts.

I want the age of human folly to end; I want it to end. Any person who understands this world shares that same desire because it is God's. God wants the hiding to come to an end. He has set a time for its continuance inside of His purposes, but He also wants the stupid, mindless hiding to end. It so dishonors the Lord Jesus Christ, God speaking always in man. The hiding is the only thing that keeps people from the grace of the Lord Jesus; it is pointless and absurd.

It was completely and totally unnecessary for Adam to say, "I was afraid; I hid myself." So what if he had been afraid, so what if he had hid himself. He still did not need to say it when God asked him, "Where are you?"

As always, we look briefly at Adam, and then we turn immediately to see the Lord Jesus in exactly the same place.

Jesus hung from the cross stark naked and bloody in front of His own mom. That's embarrassing. It's one thing to be so exposed in front of your enemies, but in front of your mom? The one who changed your diapers? (Yes, Jesus' mom changed His diapers.) Far more than that, He had become the offering for sin. He had become everything that was loathsome and hateful to God. When God looked at Jesus, He saw all the sin and lechery, all the rebellion and darkness, all the cruelty and hate of every human being from Adam to the great white throne. If anyone should have been ashamed, it was Jesus.

God asked of Jesus the very same question He asked of Adam, "Where are you?" And Jesus' answer comes sweeping out of time and eternity to capture our hearts with overwhelming tears.

"Here Am I! I - and THE CHILDREN whom You have given Me."

And thus we see Adam's true sin. There was nothing whatsoever preventing Adam from coming out from behind the bushes when God asked him, "Where are you?" And saying, "Here, God, here I am." Had He done so all the history of the human race would have been entirely different.

Although Adam's answer to God was 100% true of his psychotic state, still, it was coy and deceitful. Adam had fallen in love with fig leaves, with tree trunks, and with pointing a finger of accusation at his wife and at God.

Adam had fallen in love with pretending.

Isn't it fascinating that in our world today, the stars, the celebrities, the role models, the individuals who hold our attention the most, are the actors? The more skilled a person is at pretending, the more honor our entire society gives him or her. (That's an observation, not a condemnation. There is a difference between telling a story through playing roles and the pretense of the human psyche. In fact, it was "acting" in a play in college around age 30 that was part of my first seeing myself for real.)

Everywhere we look in today's world, we see psychosis and delusion. Mankind is truly insane. Everyone fervently believes things that cannot be true. Everyone pretends with all their might.

Let's bring our comparison of Adam and Christ back to Rango, back to our becoming real. The world needs real people today; the world needs the unveiling of the sons of God.

When we hear the voice of God inside of us, we hear only the Shepherd calling to us; we follow Him. We hear Him say, "Do not be afraid," and our hearts are quiet before Him. We are at peace with God: our will and God's will are the same. When the accuser speaks, when we are tempted to "feel" shame, we see ourselves only in Christ - our life is hid with Christ in God, we are found nowhere else. We are always casting shame away from our hearts, so long as its shadow reaches out to touch us.

And we always place ourselves in the light. Where am I, God? Right here, carried in Jesus. Look at all of me, there is nothing but Him, He is living as all the human me, right now in this world. We walk always in the light, unafraid of God, always giving an account - Jesus is my life; I have no other life. The blood is always flowing over our face, getting in our eyes. We can't see ourselves except through the blood.

We never ever look at ourselves except through the Blood flowing across our eyes.

I do not ever have to be anything except myself. I am free to be real; I am free to be me, just the way I am. Christ is seen by others in me ONLY when I am real, only when I am me.

But inside the Christian experience, somewhere between "Do not be afraid" and "Hid with Christ in God," the serpent enters the equation. He comes through the Old Covenant, through Christian theology and the reasoning of selfs who prefer pretending to simply being real - naked - before God.

"Your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked."

"Yes, Christ may be in you, but you are bad. You have to disappear so that Christ can be seen and not you. You have to be something different from what you are. Look at yourself. Isn't it obvious? Whatever Christ is, you are not. Whatever you are cannot be Christ. The only way you can know "Christ" is to escape your own heart, to escape your own person, to be something entirely other than what you are right now. Oh, despicable me!"

Now, understand this. We do NOT hear this voice speaking to us very much when we walk by ourselves. In the solitude of the mountains or the garden, I am at peace. But when we walk together with other brethren in the church we hear it loud and clear, always ringing in our ears, always demanding our performance.

And so we pretend.

I want to get at this thing more clearly. We look at one another in the church. We see weakness, foolishness, sin. We see flesh. People do not measure up. In the end, no one measures up, not even the best. We, each one of us, have an image of what "Christ" looks like. Some of the individuals in our local assembly measure more closely to our "image" than others, but before too many years go by, they also show their "true" colors. They offend us; we are left hanging.

We are all naked. And we look at one another and see "THE FLESH," and we "know" that Flesh is not Christ and Christ is not Flesh. As a result there comes out of every one of us an expectation, a demand, which we impose on one another - "If you were a "real" Christian, you would change your behavior, you would not treat me so." At the same time, we are fully aware that we ourselves do not measure up to this "image" that Christ ought to be. We know overwhelmingly that everyone in our local assembly is looking at us, seeing all our faults, piercing through our nakedness. We fear their judgment.

All of this calculation goes on in the heart of every one of us when we walk together with one another. The result is that we develop wonderfully crafted faces that we wear, a different face for a different set of people or circumstance. We hide ourselves behind pretending.

Now, the next thing we do is say, "You need to step aside so that Christ is seen and not you." Of course, such a thing is ludicrous. I cannot step aside from myself, except in one way. To step aside from myself is to live in a mask. Those who practice such a thing are mighty pretenders. They can never ever be real.

I know precious saints of God who have so wrapped themselves in pretending, fitting themselves to their own strict definition of "Christ," that they don't know anything else about themselves except the mask. The mask, of elder or pastor or even "apostle," is their only identity, and they wear that identity ferociously. Then, out from that mask, there comes a steady stream of judgment - "You must line yourself up with God (by that they mean "my image of Christ") in order to be acceptable to me.”

No one wants to be like Jesus - naked and exposed for all to see, even His mother.

To be real is to be naked and unashamed. Flesh? I've got it. Christ is come in my Flesh. (This is not, as Paul so clearly states, an excuse to be rude and crude. One who is rude and crude is still hiding from God.) An apostolic eunuch, among other things he or she is, is 100% comfortable with himself as God made him, and 100% comfortable with other believers, exactly as they are, warts, blemishes, flesh and all. Christ is come in the flesh.

This is why God always separates the hero from the community to teach the hero the truth.

Alone in the desert, Rango met with "God." In the movie, "God" was Clint Eastwood, but don't be bothered by that, it's just a story. So Rango said to "God," "I don't know who I am." And "God" answered him, "Hey, it's not about you. It's about them. They need you."

As Rango set his face to return to Dirt and to bring those who were now his people the water of life, he was asked, "Why are you going back there."

His reply: "That's who I am."

In all the rest of the story, Rango didn't do a thing. Not one thing, except to stand in the middle of it all and just be himself.

Yet Rango just being himself was like a catalyst that drew into the fold, into the family, the desperados, the vagabonds, the outlaws. Around the catalyst of Rango, others defeated the enemy; others released the water of life; and all danced for joy in the rivers of living water that flooded the town of Dirt.

It sure sounds like the gospel to me. Rango - finding your true self.

God is speaking about rivers of living water, real and substantial, flooding this planet, redeeming, healing, restoring, bringing life and blessing to all - and flowing out of our bellies.

That river comes into the church and through the church into the world, through an apostolic people, through apostolic eunuchs, as I share in The Gathering Together.

Rango didn't do a thing, yet everything that happened, happened because Rango had found his true self, and because he stood in the middle of it all.

Why did God set us aside into a quiet and solitary place to discover our true selves, to discover that Christ is our life, we have no other life?

For one reason, and one reason only.

It's not about us, it's about the Bride of Christ, His woman, that precious people scattered across the whole face of this planet, more precious to Him that we can ever know, and standing in the hour of her greatest need.

We have never before known who we are, what is our true self.

Despicable Me is another great story about a man who loved children with all his heart - he just had no idea that was so. All his effort was to be the greatest criminal in order, somehow, to please his mother, without success. Yet when he let go of all that pretending and danced in the joy of his love for children, for the first time in his life, his mother approved of him. What a story!

We have never known who we are; only now are we discovering what really makes our hearts sing. It is found in the words of God spoken through a fictitious Clint Eastwood in an animated talking animal movie!

"It's not about you; it's about them."

That woman, elect of God, filling all the heart of unbounded Passion and Desire, filling the heart of the One whose life we are. A woman clothed with the sun.

"Look at me God; I belong to You. You are free to fulfill all Your desire through me. I have no need to be anything other than what You made me to be. I am free to be real. I am free to be "naked" for all to see ME; for ME is YOU."

"Here am I; send me."

And they shall nourish her there.

Saturday 30 July 2011

Quarbyists and Brethrakers

Pictures taken from interior and exterior of Mayflower barn,built from the Pilgrims Mayflower ship timbersThe property was sold by the Quakers in 2006

Quarbyists and Brethrakers

by Chris Welch on Thursday, 14 July 2011 at 14:35 on Facebook

Since God let the whole New Covenant seed fall into the ground and die a death, because it still contained dead religious works seed, then began again with Luther a raising up of a Church "come down out of heaven", we as a New Covenant people have been trekking along the by now familiar furniture of the Heavenly Sanctuary. The brazen altar of the one time Exchange of Life that took place in the Body of Jesus on the Cross.

The Laver of God's Word where we see mirrored our glorious new Indweller, Christ.

Then came the tricky bit. Forgotten by most for hundreds of years....

How do you do this bit again? Aaaah. You don't. The Holy Spirit does. You see there is no natural light in the next bit. It's the Holy Place. The one before the Holiest Place which is the final destination.

The Holy Place is only lit by the candlestick. Nuffink else.

And in here we have stayed , in different manifestations, for hundreds of years now.

The early discoveries of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit were made in the Quaker movement. Hence the quaking and the shaking.....initially through godly terror coming on those saving themselves from much of what was around at the period: Free- for- all fornication, drunkenness, gambling...

Shortly after came the Darby movement of Brethren. Their enlightenment about the Word is very like today's Fred Pruitt or Andre Rabe or Francois DuToit. They were an incredible missionary movement, who firmly believed now we have the Word in all its fulness....and my....in their skilful expositions , was it ever full?, that we had absolutely no need whatsoever for the supernatural and the manifestations of the Spirit. We are mature now.

If you took Ole's Pillar of fire and Cloud exposition to extremes that's what you'd end up with. You can read it on my blog.

The reason I've squashed up the two main exponents of this area of God's tabernacle into one weird mish mash in the title is this.

For next to 2 centuries we haven't advanced in real terms at all in the Body of Christ. Because nothing new has been uncovered. The Quakers and the Brethren are both joined at the hip in this respect too.

Both movements uncovered the true structure of the Kingdom of God. i.e. Pretty well none!!!!

In the Holy Place we really are functioning not just as Luther said in theory, here everyone really was behaving as a Kingdom of priests.Anybody could have a "hatha". King James says each one hatha gift (1 Corinthians 12)

Brethren and Quakers were NO END of trouble for salaried hirelings of the Kingdom in all the previous sects. Their way of operating was utterly offensive and threatening. What if all Christians behaved in this way. I wouldn't get my salary, then I'd have to go out and work for a living?!!!?

The pentecostal movement of the 20th Century insisted on an experience with the Holy Spirit, but this was just a stronger echo of the Continental Pietist movement. The charismatic movement of the 1960s was a kind of "catchup" rerun of earlier movements to collar more of those in denominations, and quicken them to some spiritual realities.

BUT ESSENTIALLY NOTHING WAS NEW . It IS ALL THE SAME RERUN OF HOLY PLACE revelation.

The twin revelations of the Holy Place are these. And they are both sides of the coin .

Darby = the 12 pieces of shewbread as revealed in the Light of the Holy Spirit's candlesticks, the enlightened Word.

Quakers were more forcibly contemplative and proactively waiting on the Living Holy Spirit to "move " a person to express a gift of the Spirit. This definitely errs more to the candlestick of the Holy Spirit directly.

And do you know something? If you attend an Andre Rabe event, or a Francois event, or invite Fred Pruitt round, this is largely what you'll get....a Holy Place format, almost Brethren dish, served up with piping hot Christ to nourish you and propel you onwards. Much the same as the Brethren.

So what changed?

This is personal opinion. Others may want to add to this.

I would say nothing in Christendom really changed in terms of the corporate until two men did something slightly different. One man, face down in an Episcopal crypt for months on end. The other a retired missionary of WEC.

First the crypt

Graham Pulkingham was totally totally broken at his own powerlessness as an Episcopal Minister surrounded by a broken area of downtown Houston. Like the priests in Joel 2, his brokenness led him to crisis encounter...I believe in his person, he experienced the death and resurrection of Christ in real terms, the way a lot of us on Facebook now have. In that openness of spirit he found his way to David Wilkerson's office and the rest as they say is history....EXCEPT FOR THIS DETAIL....

What raised itself around Graham was unlike David Wilkerson, who remained a rather singular character to the end of his prophetic days.....

No, around Graham was something i dont really think we've seen much. Perhaps a bit with Mel Tari in the Indonesian Revival. This was a supernatural body of people packed with Holy Spirit anointing moving and living together, not just giving gifts to each other in meetings like Darby and Quakers...

No, this was getting to be an early glimpse of the sort of Body Act2 was. They didn't go to meetings. They were all an individual meeting with the Living Saviour, who when they reassembled were a collective powerhouse of God which couldnt help but hoover people into the Kingdom around them. And when they left the States, one of the first places they hoovered was our school and neighbourhood! That's why I have the Vision of the Church in my very insides to dragoon you with. I was a hoovered one....so to speak. In that moment I saw the Kingdom and I have operated in that Melchizedek Kingdom ever since, although most of those around me have stayed put in their previous incarnations thinking that because God once blessed, they too are still following the Melchizedek order. Phooey. It's moved on!

This way of ministering blows out of the water Morris Cerullo, Rheinhard Bonnke,David Hathaway....you name your favorite Power preacher....Oh Fred doesn't have one, I forgot....

Acts 2 clearly states that Peter standing with the eleven, began to speak.....

THIS IS A DIFFERENT ORDER OF MINISTRY BECAUSE YOU ALL HAVE TO BE ONE AND YOU ALL HAVE TO CARRY THE ANOINTING. Which today is tough on 2 counts. We're not single eyed enough to be in the Unity of the Faith and secondly very few carry an active anointing....you know, the one that does the supernatural!!

Secondly - The Retired missionary

His name ofcourse Norman Grubb.

Before this, who honestly knew about "separation".

Separation is the terrible terrible deadly virus that bit us in genesis 3. The lie that there is such a thing as a God out there, as distinct from the very life I am living now. "If you would be like God..." said the devil...you do this.

Well firstly we could never be like God, because all we ever were was particular branch manifestations of VINE life, how else are we going to have power to exist? There is only one self-existent one in the universe. There is indeed ONLY ONE life in the universe. Everything else, though used for its own ends, is but a derivation of that ONE PURE LIFE IN GOD.Secondly we don't gain God if we could by works, and we can't cos we're already connected...

This mystery you will have to read more about in Norman Grubb's final book Yes I Am.See my blog.I have no room here.

So what do these 2 advances mean?

What do these advances MEAN? You're kidding me! This plus the discoveries of David Swan and Ed Miller who are seeing all this from the heavenly angle are nothing less than the Corporate Entry into the HOLIEST PLACE. Because Norman Grubb wasnt ever baptised in the Spirit he never really saw church other than what it was in his lifetime, a disparate group of 3rdlevellers going around the odd group here and there all over the world, raisng up mature individuals in Christ. He had no concept of what the charismatic movement had really been preparing the world for.

A corporate empowered Body with a 3rd level vision encapsulated in my last blogpost The Lord's Prayer as Template : The Apocalypse and the Unveiling of Christ.

You see, though Graham Pulkingham could share about his experience of the death and resurrection of Christ in his being....he was too early to have twinned with Norman Grubb on all the theory. And John Wimber could have been the man in the eighties, but none of their groups would allow Nancy Gilmore to share, so John remained backward as well. Listen folks, i'm all for honoring God's servants, because John Wimber did take things a stage further from Graham Pulkingham, but , like the Bible, when it comes to my own life in particualr and now anybody elses I call a spade a spade. It's the quickest way. And John Wimber's crowd were just too arrogant and not desperate enough to listen to Nancy Gilmore . Who knows? Thirty years ago, had they done so, would any of us be bothering to write all this down now?

Possibly a third major new thing?

Perhaps there is something else too. Christian media notwithstanding. In 1976, with the new found vision of an empowered Body of Christ, fed by newly rediscovered supernatural ministries of Apostle and prophet a man called Ern Baxter in the Dales Bible Week did something different. He called everyone into their local tribes . Because we are geographical ambassadors for the King. We each have a patch!!!! And as local churches in an area, we are meant to have spiritual rulership...because right now in the heavenlies we DO! And to my knowledge the first ever serious bit of Ephesians 6 corporate warfare was carried out in the Spirit, and by Spirit direction.

This pattern was developed further in the 90s through the ministry of Peter Wagner and was mainly directed at all the inhospitable regions of the 10/40 window. God appeared to many in those areas sovereignly, without human intervention. He also raised up Rory and Wendy in particular to set up sattellite TV in a more global way than ever before. Now though I've explained the third level with them for an hour 6 months before they even knew about being called to raise up God TV, at present they are sticking firmly to first and secondlevel revelation of Christianity. What I have mentioned above.Christianity that takes us up to around 1800 or 1900. In other words, even with Rick Joyner involved, way, way, past its sell by date.

As Andre Ousterhuizen, Francois DuToit and many others will say...."Why bother with a christianiity that doesn't go beyond the veil? Does nobody know the veil was ripped from top to bottom. We can all go in now?" Yes saints. But not just as an individual expression. There is a whole corporate expression of the same truth!

  • Paul Noble
    as I know something of the Brethren I will chip in here! They did experience the gifts of the Holy Spirit including healing at the beginning but closed them down because they thought it was drawing attention to themselves. They believed and... practiced the priesthood of all believers and waiting on the Holy Spirit but rapidly split as prominent teachers became the focus and the same old pyramids grew up I of Paul I of Derby Etc.See more
    14 July at 16:13 · · 1 personRichard Epps likes this.
  • Chris Welch Dear Rich...and Linda..I think you've got some of the gist of what you have to "do"...that is very little...i think you've been going along the path He wanted you to. Rather than take away anything, any Word that I m bringing is in the spirit of the 2 Peter 1:5 list and "to your faith add..."but this list wont help much because it is another individual list which for 20 Centuries the church has been really good at.
    14 July at 21:10 ·
  • Chris Welch Whoops pressed the return I'll carry on
    14 July at 21:10 ·
  • Chris Welch
    There are two ways God is building His House, 3 if you include the St Paul method. There's the Quarry method, as in Solomon's Temple, where all the work is done off site. And there is the Ezekiel bones method of "bones rattling as they join... together." This is the disciples and Jesus, and the disciples and Acts 2 method, and this across the whole earth is also the natural family norm. St Paul was a hybrid, being all but a murderer of Christians his name didnt come up onthe short list for church membership to most Judean churches anyway. So (probably lucky for us) He had some one to one time with the best teacher of all, Jesus. Then he filled out his revelation with some church life. Mine was in reverse.See more
    14 July at 21:16 · · 2 peopleLoading...
  • Chris Welch
    It's OK getting stuff individually as most of our generation have had to do, but as a method for dispersing seed it really sucks. In tuning terms it's a bit like stopping at middle C (the first note) and trying to convince someone that you'...ve tuned the whole piano.Next comes the octave. This is the blueprint church, which like the disciples in terms of churchlife, took 3 years. Then when the central octave is done you wait for the parthians and all the others to visit Jerusalem for a Feast, and you inundate the lot of them in a drunken massive hit of worship, glory and Presence, and then let the "central octave" try to explain that one away without collapsing John Crowder style on the floor

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Jewels from Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore


Nancy has a Facebook Group entitled Lovers of God
Her blog entitled See God Only is here

The Holy Spirit Of God: By Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore

The Holy Spirit is A Vital Person for us to know personally; for He is the Salvation of Christ in us, and He expresses the Godhead as He is in Christ. The Holy Spirit has done everything from making the dry land appear in the creation of the world, to setting the universe into orbit; to the Preparing of the Womb of Mary for His manifestation of the body of Jesus, who learned from the Holy Spirit that He was 'The Christ'. The Holy Spirit is the One who has the suffering work of teaching us of our union with Christ; and making Christ the Center of our lives, that we are one with Him. Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore

Our Body, Our Life: By Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore

Our physical body of flesh and blood that 'appears' to be our real body is an illusion. It's a dead body. The only reason it appears to be living is because we are located by it in this world as a means of manifesting the Living Spirit of God; that Eternal Spirit that brought again from the dead, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our real body is the resurrected body of the Lord who shares His body life with us. We are a derivative of His Life. Nothing 'outer' is real. All life is inner, and to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. As Paul said; for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore

A Positive Attitude? By Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore

I'm glad for your positive attitude! - yet, a positive attitude is not faith. Faith is the 'substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen'. I'm sure you know this without me making a deal of it, but I live around ones who have a very positive attitude, and have absolutely no faith in operation at all except in themselves. Lucifer had that kind of a positive attitude, and look what it got him. Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore

A TOTAL SURPRISE FOR THE DEVIL: By Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore

A TOTAL Surprise for the devil! The devil didn't know "the man-Christ Jesus-The Lord" was going to rise from the dead -let alone develop a new race of persons; a race of christs. That's what we are; a race of christs. The devil has been totally frustrated in all new ways since The Lord Arose, and The Holy Spirit Person came to indwell us personally, and make us just that; a race of christs. Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore

The Incarnation; by Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore


The Incarnation is, without a doubt, the greatest miracle to ever take place in flesh and blood in all of human history. It not only affected every human being God ever created, but it ultimately brought into existence a new dimension in the Throne Room of God; where we are now accepted with our Elder Brother, Jesus. I think we can in every sense of the word, accept ourselves, not because God made everything good in creation; but because Jesus made us new by being the Progenitor of a 'new race' of people through His resurrection. Christ raised us in Himself when He was raised from the dead; which takes us into a new dimension with Him; an invisible dimension where we are unencumbered by earthly things; and kept by the power of His Spirit; quickening us throughout eternity. To God Be the Glory!

How God Used Watchman Nee in my life: By Nancy Fitzpatrick

"The deadness and feebleness of the saints today is largely due to their receiving and following the truth with their minds. This is nothing but the law. In spite of the exactness of the letter, it is absolutely not of the Holy Spirit." - Watchman Nee

I'd like to share with you, how the Spirit used Watchman Nee in my life. Actually it's quite significant! Watchman Nee wrote a book called "LOVE NOT THE WORLD". . .and I was drawn to it back in the 60's, (in fact, I'm sure I could find that old book today- packed away, somewhere in my things, as a keepsake!). As I read the book and was open to the Spirit, I came to one of the chapters where Nee said "something" like this; winning souls is not all that high of a calling; anyone can do that. (I'm sure I'm not quoting that part exactly correct!). But it got my attention! So as I continued reading I found he reached his fever-pitch in saying; what is significant, DOES THE DEVIL KNOW WHO YOU ARE? And he used the scripture in Acts 19:11-16 which says: "And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified." - I literally leap out of my chair up in the air with the book in my hand waving it to the Lord and crying out to Him, saying; YES, LORD, THAT'S WHAT I WANT. . .I WANT THE DEVIL TO KNOW WHO I AM!

I can't begin to tell you the many ways over the years the Spirit has proven both to me and to the Devil that's exactly what the DEVIL KNOWS, Who I am. Christ in me, as me.

Why must we know faith - By Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore

Why we must know faith; by Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore.

Why we must know faith.

Is there anything that destroys us like “having no faith”?
I know that statement is not good English, but perhaps it makes the point best.

The absence of faith destroys us.

Faith is vital! Faith is critical to our well being!

What is faith then? I mean, “Real Faith” – God’s kind of faith?

Without faith you can do nothing!

Faith isn’t just ‘something’ to believe…- but faith is the very substance of God whose believing is in us! God not only believes in us, but God believes that we’ll believe on His believing in us.

Faith is God at work in us. Faith is God’s operation in us producing His Liberating Life. Faith not only knows what to believe, faith knows who to believe on.

Faith is the evidence; God evidence of things not seen.

Perhaps this explains the attack on faith within us. Explains why faith suffers long!

Did you ever think about the suffering that is in you is God’s faith suffering for you to believe ON HIM?

Why is it important for us to know we are not self-acting-selves: By Nancy Fitzpatrick

Why is it important for us to know we are not self actings selves? One good reason- it puts life into focus for us. I need to know what it is to be a person, and then be that person. Being is important! I need to be who I am. And I need to know who I am as well as be who I am.

Who Am I? This seems to be the age old question! We hear it first ask by Moses of God Himself. WHO ARE YOU..WHO SHOULD I SAY SENT ME? WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Those are very personal questions Moses ask of God. But that's what Moses wanted to know! That's what Moses needed to know. We need to know that too. Who is God and how am I related to Him?

My relationship with God is important. How AM I related to Him? I don't necessarily mean a genealogy; tho without the genealogy of Christ there is no relationship! So naturally we must KNOW Christ! But here I am relating to 'what's my one on one' with my business partner? Jesus said, I must be about My Father's Business. What did He mean, and how does it apply to us?

I personally think it means God has a job to do, and this time by us. And since this is "the scoop" of our fellowship (God & mine), I best be in a good relationship with my business partner.

One of the first things I need to learn is; WHO IS BOSS! And then I need to find out how He intends to put through His arrangement He's previously made by His Son. And THEN I need to find out if He's ever going to make me some kind of an partner in His business. After all there will come a time of retirement and I need to know if there are any benefits in the future.

FAITH IS THE LANGUAGE OF GOD: By Nancy Fitzpatrick Gilmore



In regard to being sensitive to how others 'take' what we say; we need to recognize...- 'since deception makes you think you are something you are not' - the Holy Spirit, who IS love, must 'definitely' be a disturbance in other peoples lives. I'm never concerned about that because in this life we say what we hear the Spirit saying, and know He is reaching His objective. SO.. when we know someone says they 'believe', but do not "speak faith" ...- we address that. And we too will be a disturbance in others lives as the Lord uses us.

Faith is a language of the Spirit we learn. It's the language of God. It is from another dimension; the invisible. The faith that speaks is generated in us by Christ; The Invisible One.

Abraham believed and it was counted as righteous unto him. So Abraham's believing was real faith. It was the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not see. We can learn this language of faith directly by Gods' revelation to Abraham. It's recorded in Romans 4:13-25. It's telling us that Abraham 'caught' on to how God operates. It says Abraham saw in Gods' promise that God called those things that be not as though the were!

Abraham copied Gods' method, and with everything out of Abraham's reach physically, against hope, believed! And Abraham was credited by God, Gods-substance! It's evidence that is in the promise. Abraham had his son! The promise was as good as the boy! And being not weak in faith, Abraham considered NOT his own body dead when it was about 100 years old, neither the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.

Now we do the same thing! Abraham is the 'father of our faith'. Abraham gave us this pattern. Abraham teaches us the 'know-how' of faith. He learned how to operate in faith. SO it says, Abraham being fully persuaded that what God promised, He was able also to perform. In other words this is a sure thing! And he said so! For 25 years he said so. Do you suppose he got some persecution? Or do you suppose they made fun of him? You see his name got change when he got faith. Names back them truly meant certain things to other, and Abraham means "I'm a daddy!"

Now this is the language of the Spirit of God. It operates on a higher level than ration or reason, and it has nothing to do with 'sense-knowledge'! It requires a leap into a different form of operation than we are accustom to at first. But we soon learn we are in union with a God who CANNOT LIE! Union means we co-operate with God in the way He does things.

Union puts life in gear for us. Union is the required positive- negative connection for operation with God. The 'whole' of life is union with God as us. We operate in this life by the faith of God. It's HIS FAITH! Make sure you're connected IS in union with Christ. This negative-positive connection is how things happen AS we speak the language of faith.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Eunuchs Only Need Apply by Daniel Yordy


1 Cor 3:7 If all we succeeded to do was to attach you to us as individuals, then we have failed you; the one who plants is not more important than the one who waters; it is not about us, it is about you realizing God's work within you.  thru Francois DuToit 
 You see, a eunuch has lost more than the ability to father life; he has lost all sense of testosterone. He is not necessarily feminine, but he is without a sense of the male drive of conquest and control.see Matthew 19:11-12 

Eunuchs Only Need Apply by Daniel Yordy

"Obey those who have the rule over you . . ." Hebrews 13.

"Submit to authority" is the single most abused line in all the history of the church. It is abused in external application and inward definition. Millions of people have been murdered directly because of the "Christian" injunction to submit to authority. I know hundreds of people personally whose lives have been hurt and many shattered deeply by the mis-use of this line.

Yes, we joyfully obey those who have a necessary place of authority. I do what my boss tells me; I follow the directions of a police officer directing traffic - and I always relate to anyone in authority with full respect. We do this in order to live peaceably with all men; we do it because it is the nature of the One who fills our hearts.

But if my boss orders me to do something immoral (and this has happened), or something that violates my person, I will not, though I suffer loss, or though I have to walk away from the job. And if the government ever me orders me to murder my neighbor, I will not, though it costs me my freedom or my life. My grandfather spent a year or so in prison under the threat of execution because he refused to murder his neighbor when the US government ordered him to do so.

It does not violate my person to do my job the way my boss tells me to do it, even when I like "my way" better. It does not violate my person to restrain myself to drive the speed limit. Neither does doing these things place a mark of "ownership" upon my heart.

We could certainly spend much time following any number of avenues of the abuse of "authority" in Christian history, but I want to bring the topic right into the gathering together of those who are in Christ, right into the little groups of local churches that the Lord intends to raise up as the actual kingdom of God, the corporate image of the Lord Jesus Christ, being birthed into the earth.

I know intimately "submit to authority" as it works inside the church, and I can detect it in any form it attempts to take. "If you do not submit to our authority, then you are in rebellion against God," is the single most evil statement in all the history of the church. And yet I have heard it come through dear saints who loved Jesus, and who spoke under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and who did not understand the implications of what they were saying.

I am not interested in pursuing any letter-of-the-word meaning of "Obey those who have the rule over you." I know what is the true nature of my Father inside of walking together with others. The true nature of the Father is found in these words, "Submit one to the other," as those words are found inside the hearts of those who deeply respect and highly regard one another. This is a mutual honoring that comes from hearts of joy and faith.

I can say with all honesty of heart that you will never hear me say any form of, "Submit to my authority," except in those minimal ways in which it is right, such as on the job or to my students. I know that I speak truthfully because the greatest losses I have suffered in life have come from my own personal heart refusal to take on the nature that demands "submit to my authority." I cannot do it in the classroom - I do not treat my students with disrespect, but I always honor their persons. I flinch when I witness kids being treated with disrespect by "authority"; and if I mistreat a student out of frustration, I apologize personally to them. Neither can I do it in the church. I walked away from the ambition of my life in confusion and loss because I could not take on the office of treating people with disrespect.

I spent 21 years of my adult life walking inside the belief that it was God's will for me to submit to the hierarchy of authority in the church. Although some may claim otherwise, I myself saw very little that was actually ungodly. The presence of the Lord and His honor was truly present all through that fellowship. I am convinced that 99% of any hurt that came out of that fellowship came from misguided sincerity and not from evil intent. Yet I will not gloss over anyone's real pain that came out of real abuse.

I know what it means to walk for years in continual personal loss in a confidence of heart and faith in God inside of "submit to authority." I know the good work that God wrought in my heart through it. I also know the tears and the violation of my own heart and person.

At this point in my walk with God and in the revelation of Jesus Christ, I will not join myself to, nor come near any "leader" in the body of Christ who exudes any form of "submit to my authority."

I will run far away; it is not Jesus.

Now, I am heading for a certain point of truth inside the revelation of Jesus Christ and the gathering together of His image. But I want to back up and approach again from another track.

In the 1960's, one of the many ministries that came out of the Latter Rain outpouring of the Holy Spirit and out of George Warnock's sounding of the feast of trumpets in the life of the church through his little book, "The Feast of Tabernacles," was a brother from Missouri, Bill Britton. Now, there is much glorious truth of Christ all through Bill Britton's writings and I do not want to detract from that, except to say that all things in the past were only in-part and none understood Christ as He really is in us.

There was one Bill Britton booklet (among several) that circulated all through the fellowship I was a part of called "The Harness of the Lord." In this booklet, Bill Britton shared a vision he had received from the Lord and its interpretation. This booklet guided much of the thinking in the communities in which I lived and remained current in people's minds and hearts for many years.

God uses many things to bring us all the way into Christ. Jesus warned us always to let go of last year's wineskin, it cannot hold this year's Christ. In other words, the thing God uses to bring us to Christ, itself is not Christ. The saddest thing in all the history of the church is found in those who clutch tightly to the thing God used to bring them to Christ and who refuse to let go of it, that they might know Christ Himself. I read a friend's comment on Facebook as she mourned an 80-year-old who refused to let go of "striving for Christ" that she might enjoy Christ Himself. "Striving for Christ" was this dear lady's whole life, she had too much invested in it and she refused to part with it.

Let me sum up Bill Britton's vision. Two young horses were running free and wild through the pastures and hills. They were caught by the master to be trained for his service. One broke free and returned to the wild; the other remained and submitted to years of training and service. Then came a famine to the land. The wild horse was starving and near death. He came up to the road and saw his former friend pulling the master's coach, well-fed by a master whose "granaries never run empty and His well never runs dry."

The meaning was clear and convincing. When you submit to authority and all the "restrictions and inconveniences" that it brings, then you are kept by the Master. But when you run wild and free, you are in rebellion, and in time of need you will die alone.

There is a religious bent in all of us that is drawn to this argument. There is a definition of God that fits it. God said to the church in Genesis 3:16, "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

But we forget that God has two writs, two covenants. The word God spoke in Genesis 3:16, the word that is used by too many to define the New Covenant, is the CURSE spoken upon sinful man. It is the vanity imposed by God in hope.

It is our calling to cast off that curse and to bring the glorious liberty of God, a liberty that never was inside that false bubble, that Old writ, to all creation.

There is a definition of God found inside that curse, and yes, God does show Himself as best He can inside it. But our life is not found there, our life is hid with Christ in God.

And so the definition of God as He is restrained by the curse, seeking somehow to make Himself known, does seem to prefer the harnessed horse, the restrained and quiet horse, the horse that does not think for itself, the horse that has no personal inclinations, the horse that is dull and boring, harnessed and bitted and broken.

"The Wildness of God." When I first saw those words in John Eldredge's book, they took my breath away. I knew they were true.

And for the first time I began to realize that God as He truly is, the Lord Jesus Christ, would never choose the broken, harnessed horse. No. He would win the heart of the wild horse, and He would ride like the wind without restraint or holding back. He would ride, as Gandalf rode Shadowfax, without bit or spur, carried only by a bond of intense love, of deep honor, and of the highest respect one to the other. He would ride with the wind in His hair and the miles stretching beneath Him. He would ride in union with the steed He counted His equal in mind and in heart. He would ride.

There was another difference between the wild horse and the harnessed. The harnessed horse was castrated; it could never bring forth life. The wild horse could sire sons just like itself, sons who could run with the wind.

But He said to them, "All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it." Matthew 19:11-12

"But wait a minute," you might say, "doesn't this statement of Jesus indicate that God prefers the harnessed, castrated horse, the horse that never brings forth its own life?"

No.

Yet it remains true that, as far as the kingdom of God is concerned, heaven invading earth, leadership in the gathering together of Christ, eunuch's only need apply.

How can both of my contentions be true?

Our problem is this, from the passing of the Apostle John until now, the church has understood neither God nor the gospel. And so, all through the history of the church, and all through the communities in which I lived, we have cut off the thing that Jesus is determined to win for Himself, and we have exalted as "God" the thing He insists we cut off.

We have had it completely backward. And I have begun to see this extraordinary contrast only as I have learned the wonderful depths of Christ living as me in this world.

But now, we must back up again, and come at this truth from a third angle.

I want to share part of a conversation I am having with Chris Welch in England. He was asked by the ministry in his church to produce for them a two-page paper depicting the essence of what he means by "third level," that which I am used to calling the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles in the life of the church, or the "third feast." Chris asked me to have a go at such a paper, a challenge I enjoy, but one that must be written entirely out of the tree of life.

However, that is not really what these church leaders want from Chris. What they really want is to see a fellowship of people moving together in the fullness of Christ, in the fullness of the third feast, in the gathering together. They want; they demand proof!

All creation demands proof. One of my students said this last week, "All religions claim to have the truth, Christianity is no different than Islam, and Buddhism sure sounds better than either one."

He has had enough of Christians "talking."

"Go and tell" has its place, but if there is no "Come and see," there is no gospel.

Where's the proof?
  • Chris: Just met with two church leaders again. They've asked me to do an incredibly tree of knowledge thing, and write down a two sided paper on "What is the Third Level". My answer is beginning to formulate. It's a good challenge. See if you can restrict yourself to two sides...corporate and individual. But as we know the real Word is more like lightning that lays bare the roots, challenging strongholds that don't want to be challenged.
  • Daniel: I just did a similar paper for a friend on the two covenants, but it was 12 pages. I like challenges. But at the same time, to be truly third level, it must be written out of the tree of life - which means it treats God in an entirely different way than so many treat Him.
  • The problem is this, Chris. One third of the New Testament (or more) is all about the third feast - third level life and experience. Technically, the third level should be utterly familiar to all Christians. But Christianity has banished from its theology any such reality and placed all of it into "heaven" after we die, or after "Jesus comes back." Thus most any attempt to explain the third feast in the life of the church hits the massive wall of "heaven" and is thus defeated before it gets into people's hearts. And, of course, that is what you say, "challenging strongholds." And "heaven" is not the only stronghold. So the trick would be to leave off the many pages required to defeat "heaven" and to speak solely out of life in such a way that the fulfillment of all that God speaks cannot be shoved off into some future "fantasy world." I was just reading one of my articles in which I use the allegory of getting into a car, first level, riding in the car to the destination, second level, and then, getting out of the car into all the reality of where you are going, third level. And, of course, to most Christians, getting out of the car is dying and going to heaven. Thus heaven replaces Christ.
  • That is why I start where I start, placing the fullness of Christ, conformed fully into His image as the goal of the believer instead of that other non-Biblical goal that took its place in the history of the church. I am just thinking out loud - I realize that the place to start is Romans 8:29, but just the main part - conformed into the image of His dear Son - third level is His image in fullness in the church.
  • Chris: Daniel, because I'm writing to prophetic people, I may include other things already written including this comment of yours and your comment on Third Level in one sentence. "Third level is His Image in fullness in the church." THE main stumbling block is that it begins in our believing with NOTHING to look at. They expressed their disappointment that unlike Bill Johnson's church, I could only point to people on the net, but no church manifestation they could visit or look at. I remember my disappointment in the 1979 Sam Fife conference here in Fishers Pond. (perhaps Sam had already died) But all I knew was they were all preaching up a storm of Word which I knew instantly inside me was true. So I couldn't see much with my eyes, but had the good sense not to focus on that.
  • Daniel: Yes, yes. And that is what short-circuits me (and you) right now. There must be a "Come and see." In the move, very few of the communities had a continual interwoven experience of both word and Spirit - Blueberry, where I lived for 8 1/2 years, did. Yes, it was in-part and with mixture, but it was more the full interweaving of both Word AND the demonstration of the Spirit and power than anything else I have ever known. What you and I are doing is, because we want so much to see and to be a part of such a thing as God really intends it to be, that we are doing the only thing we can do, the only thing in hand, and that is to speak out what we see, to clarify it, to call for it, in the faith and hope that we will wake up one morning and discover that God has placed us in the full reality of such a church, birthed out of the vision of our hearts.
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  • This was my contention before God during last Sunday's service. Joel preaches so very close to what God is speaking in me, and I can go up from there to really hear the Lord. Here is the word of faith God gave me last Sunday, I have never been able to say this in this way before, but now it continues to be an upwelling of faith. "God will birth the community of my heart out of me." Not being a part of what we long for, this time of not having that "Come and see" that these brethren are asking about, is at an end. It must happen for us, but it must be the vision we carry, it must be birthed by God, and it must be birthed out of us. The excitement fills my heart that it is about to begin. And really, the delay has always been that when the real is birthed into this world, it must come through -  what I intend to write about in my next 2-3 articles, vessels who are channels for Him, as He is, alone, yet fully real in our own hearts and identity. Not an ounce of posing or pretending or manipulating or controlling. I just watched Rango, one of my articles will be entitled "Rango" or "Finding Your True Self." What a tremendous portrayal of how LIFE is restored to the church - one of the best stories, in my opinion, Hollywood has produced - it amazes me how they teach truth through story, even though they have no idea they are doing it.
  • But then we come to the great contradiction of our own persons. Why on earth would God put such a cry and desire inside of people like us, when He has thousands and thousands of leaders in His church who are well able to make things happen, to gather multitudes, to speak with power and certainty, to persuade people to follow? And we try a little bit and get nowhere. I feel like Tantalus, well able to see what must be, what is just ahead, and utterly unable to reach it or bring it forth. All human reasoning cries that we could not possibly be "whatever," and we agree fully with human reasoning, but the vision and cry of our hearts just will not stop. So we feel very foolish. We are continually speaking of that which "is not," people rightly ask, "Well show us, then," and we cannot. But neither can we stop speaking.
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  • I really got mad at God on Thursday because of some difficult circumstances. It was so clear to me how stupid and idiotic it has been for me to have written and sent out anything. But by evening I could not remember that at all, all I knew was Christ filling my heart with faith and peace, and that I must speak, and so I continue to do so. Then I read what I already wrote and I see such a vision that takes my breath away. We are caught in the great contradiction of God. Seeing all fullness and being utterly incapable of producing one ounce of it. Yet, I also have this overwhelming sense, that we are about to see God carry us directly into what we ourselves cannot do. We are about to be overwhelmed and astonished with reality.
  • Chris: I've just been to see Cars 2. It works on every level beating all previous Pixar movies. But of course the "real star" of this movie is Tow Mater whose faults, warts and all are, like your comment on Sam Gamgee in the Ring Trilogy, precisely the key in the lock for the situation. But the film too, so packed with excellence, just reminds me that the 3rd level is possible. We ARE going to be overwhelmed and astonished with this reality.
The reality of the kingdom of God birthed upon this earth, the kingdom that brings an end to all other kingdoms, the way of living and being and walking together that is the revelation of Jesus Christ in His people, must come through His elect, through an apostolic people. It comes only through eunuchs.

What is a eunuch in the kingdom of heaven?

What is it that MUST BE cut out of our being?

You see, a eunuch has lost more than the ability to father life; he has lost all sense of testosterone. He is not necessarily feminine, but he is without a sense of the male drive of conquest and control.

Contrary to all Christian teaching I have known, the nature that came to us from Adam was not the nature to "sin." It was the nature to pretend. Never, never, never was sin a problem for God. All Adam and his descendants ever had to do was simply step out into the light and say, "Here am I." The blood flowing over our faces is always washing "sin" away; that blood was shed before Adam ever sinned. Adam preferred to pretend; he liked what fig leaves, tree trunks, and accusing others did for him far more than the light of God.

And so now I come full circle and realize that there is an "Adamic" nature that must be cut out of us, and that is the nature to pretend. And of truth, those of us who teach "Christ as us," myself, Fred Pruitt, and others, are the only ones calling for people to step aside from that "Adamic nature" of pretending and to just be real. Christ is seen when you are seen, when you are real.

It is the pretender who controls and manipulates other people. The church of Christ, and the ministry in that church, is filled with pretenders.

During my 21 years in move community, I walked in submission under somewhere around 100 different individuals who were "over me in the Lord," elders and apostolic ministries. Now, in that fellowship were some things that were in a proper balance, one of which was that there was no such thing as an individual pastor, but always a plurality of equals walking together in ministry. But I want to draw what God would teach me out of the experiences He took me through.

I have referred in these letters to three individual elders in my time in Christian community who were different from most of the rest. I walked closely with these three at differing times through the years. These men were real. Not once did any shadow of "submit to my authority" ever come to me from them in any of its many forms. Not once. They were real; and they walked together with me in full honor and respect. During those times I thrived in the Lord.

In complete contrast, the majority of these 100 were insecure in their standing before God and before the people, partly by personal inadequacy and partly by false theology. And those who were most insecure pretended the most furiously. I walked away from my chance to "be an elder," when I saw the raving madness in the eyes of the elder who was correcting me for not siding with him in bringing a non-elder, a man I loved and respected, into submission to the "elder." When I saw that ferocious pretending, backed up by the other elders, I packed my family into our little car and drove away in icy winter.

It is one thing to submit to authority, believing that one is submitting to God by doing so. It is something else entirely to force such falseness on a fellow brother, an equal in mind and in heart.

This problem has continued with me in the schools in which I have taught, both public and Christian. Most authority structures demand that kids be treated with open disrespect. I am unable to do that, thus it just does not work out for me. And every time I have gotten close to those in "authority," those who demanded such disrespect, whether in move fellowship, or public school, or Christian school, I realized very quickly that these authority figures succeeded precisely because of their incredible ability to pretend.

Please don't think I'm exalting myself. I can only draw from the Lord through those things He has taken me through. I can be real only by sharing what God has made me to be.

Once, my wife and I went out of our way to visit a former student of both of ours, one whom we deeply loved. Having escaped from move community, she was living in open, abandoned sin, with the expressions of sinfulness all through her apartment. None of that mattered to us. We treated her as we always had, with honor, with respect, with the deepest love. One of this girl's friends happened to be there when we visited. We heard later the conversation that took place after we had left.

"Wow, ____, those people are real, aren't they?" asked the friend of our student.

"Yes, they are." was her reply. 

The horse in the harness is a pretender; the horse in the wild is real.

The horse in the harness appears to be cut, yet he is well able to produce many more pretenders just like himself. The horse in the wild is fully capable of producing new life just like himself. But that new life is fully acceptable to our Master, for it is real - it is He living as us in this world.

I will not walk in agreement with posers and pretenders, nor ever come under their control.

And neither will Jesus.

But I desire with all my heart to walk side by side with those who are real, honoring one another, yielding to one another, submitting to one another, seeking each other's well being.

I am a corporate man, and I have no desire for a life pursuing my own interests. All my dreams are filled with the brethren of my heart walking together with me. Building a "place for myself" always seems so empty.

Should ten million dollars drop into my lap tomorrow (it takes property to build community and property costs money), I would stop in my tracks, I would call those whom I love, gather them together, and say, "What do we do with the money God has given to us?"

All of my life I have suffered continual personal loss for the vision that fills my heart, to know Christ as He is, revealed in a people walking together in love, in the demonstration of the Spirit and power, and in utmost kindness and respect.

In November of 1994, my wife and I were not living in community, though we were still fully in the move fellowship. We had to leave Canada and Blueberry due to immigration requirements. We spent two years in Oregon, and then returned to the Blueberry Christian Community on a teaching visa in 1995. That Thanksgiving weekend, we attended a gathering at a Christian retreat center in the foothills of Oregon's Cascade Mountains, near Silver Creek Falls. This retreat center had no association with the move.

We went there with a pastor friend whom we had met. For that weekend, the retreat center put on a "Christian community" of thanksgiving. My wife and I felt right at home. It was such life, and those who had the privilege of enjoying it were so moved by the impact that experience of Christ in His church had on their lives. Yet there were no strings attached, a feature of move community that had always felt unholy to me, even when I had moved ignorantly in it.

In the setting of a Christian retreat center with lodges and cabins scattered down a wooded slope, there was a rose garden, and near it, a small prayer chapel. This prayer chapel was made of wood, steeply A-framed. Inside was a desk and a cot, with an electric heater. A window overlooked the ravine below.

I met with God in that little prayer hut.

There He birthed in me the vision that commands my heart today. I have shared parts of that vision, and will share more in this series. But here I want to remain with "Eunuchs Only Need Apply," for that word was most certainly central in that meeting with God on that wooded hillside.

You see, I had seen there in that retreat the beauty of the bride, God's people. These were brethren from all over; this was no "sect." I could see how much He loves her, how His bowels long over her. Yet she did not know the truth, she did not know the power and the life that was available to her.

But who would show her that which already belonged to her, that which she did not know? She is not stupid. There are ten thousand pretenders, all of whom will cry, "Here am I. I have the word; follow me!" She has a trusting heart, and that trusting heart will get her into trouble at times, yes. But her Beloved watches over her with a jealousy and a fierceness that we cannot comprehend.

In that prayer hut, in the midst of that wonderful "come and see" experience of Christ in His church, God gave me the vision of the kind of community and ministry that has always been the anchor of my heart. And He showed me the only way it can come.

Apostolic eunuchs.

Yes, that is exactly what I saw then, and it is the same thing God has brought me to again.

And when I say "apostolic eunuchs," I am not referring to those whom I have known as apostolic ministries, I am referring to Abel, to Don, and to Rick. Men who were real; men who never once imposed any shadow of their own "religious superiority" upon me. Men who showed me Christ as He really is.

What does it mean to be one of those through whom Christ will come upon His beloved?

It means to suffer continual personal loss, without lifting a finger to prevent it. It means losing out, it means letting go, it means never, ever allowing anyone to feel "obligated" or put upon because "I am the channel of God - which you had better recognize." It means never pretending.

I mentioned earlier that I got mad at God this last week. I did. It seemed to me that my own teenage daughter is choosing the move against her dad, because the move seems more real to her than I. And I found myself utterly unable to connect with her, to share what is truly in my heart. (She is so like me when I was her age.) 

But I will not impose myself on her. I will not allow any shadow of my "displeasure" to come upon her. She is completely free of me in every way other than the normal father-daughter relationship. Her relationship with God is certainly not inside of that.

I am the one who sent her to move community to finish her high school, mostly because I know they have for her that which I am unable to give her. I sent her knowing that this could happen. I was not being derelict. I sent her only to a community I trust, and into the care of a man and wife whom I know and trust.

Yet this is what I am speaking of. Do I believe enough that Jesus is Savior, that my daughter belongs utterly to Him and not to me, that I will cut myself, rather than allow any shadow of my own inclination, my own "I've got the word," to fall upon her?

An apostolic eunuch has one purpose in life, that is, to show you Christ as He really is in you, to join your hand to His and His to yours, and then to step back into the shadows, rejoicing in His joy and yours. And this is the model that Paul continually presents to the church all through his letters.

But here is our great problem.

No one follows a eunuch. They are impressed, yes, by how "real" such people are, but they simply don't line up to follow them. I think of brethren like myself, friends of mine, whom I know are filled with such wisdom and understanding of the ways of God in meekness and tenderness. Yet no one comes to them to sit at their feet, asking them to teach concerning the ways of God.

Any poser and pretender can find hordes of Christians who will follow their every direction. All they do is to speak with an authority that is not given to them, to present a face that is not really real, and people run to line up.

However, I will conclude with this.  We are about to see God carry us directly into what we ourselves cannot do. We are about to be overwhelmed and astonished with reality.

I know that it is so. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.