Carrying the Ark Home

My Facebook note:
THE Pattern for transporting the Ark of the Covenant is carrying poles on the shoulders...forwards 6 paces, then sacrifice.
The problem with devotionals, or "seeking God", or "being caught up in the heavenlies"...which ARE ALL REAL...and in offering terms are like the oil offering.....it's ONLY one seventh of the JOURNEY guys!!!! And already it has got DIVORCED from what we're doing on this planet. What we are doing is INSTALLING God's MERCY SEAT IN FLESH. God Coming IN FLESH. Corporately. Everything that you know coming INTO Jesus, the ALL IN ALL, and then being handed over to the Father. So JUST gazing lovingly at your Bridegroom is fine....as long as you appreciate that He is ALIVE and HE errrr MOVES. So where you were yesterday gazing in His eyes...He's...errrr...not there.He's moved. He's doing something else. This is the difference between religion and reality. What does God come in the flesh look like? Well...to be frank, when Jesus announced that His COURSE in human dynamics here on earth was over, because He knew the point had arrived when "the devil had absoultely nothing...no landing places whatever in Him"...Guess what? The disciples didn't then stand back in amazement and gaze at this fully fleshed out version of God in awe. NOPE. Jesus never looked any different to the naked eye than 24 hours previously. So DON'T confuse Spirit reality with how things LOOK. But that's what God is going for. A people so immersed in the Life of Jesus, we reach a point where the prayer that we were told to pray, has fully achieved its objective. "LEAD US NOT INTO THE TIME OF TESTING....why? Because it's now irrelevant. We've already had the Holy Spirit's assault course...so we don't need it...we are fully delivered from EVIL." This is what mature sons will look like...and may not be stunningly different to the naked eye to start with!!!However, I really wanted to stress this subject further.
Today I was reflecting on a couple of " third level operations " in the Bible:

Jesus Christ speaking through St Peter the words : This Jesus who you crucified, spoken in Acts 2.
This was the truth, and for all but 3000, it was unpalatable, but that didn't make it untrue.
A whole crowd in Jerusalem HAD CHOSEN Barabbas to be set free, and Jesus to be crucified.

The second "third level" operation was Joseph in Egypt.
His first and second levels of development as a person had involved firstly his call, which came in the form of dreams, and secondly, his being sold first into slavery, then wrongfully into prison....but when God's time came, Joesph was raised INTO the very MANIFESTATION of HIS CALLING.
Then his brothers arrived!!!!!

Now as a third leveller , Joseph, as later did Peter above, did co operate with God, as a mature son to bring his brothers into a place of full repentance....and not just partial forgiveness.

BASICALLY both saints were endowed with the task of RIPPING ALL FIGLEAVES off from their brethren  and then introducing full and free forgiveness and restoration.

People in the  child and young men stages want to be used in ministry. With all their heart they want God to use them. They see the glory of others being used, and they too desire this with all their hearts.
People in the charismatic bubble...that is people who are forever going to meetings, desiring to be on the ministry circuit, desiring to hold meetings.....allbeit to be a channel of blessing....
quite often simply DON'T "GET" REAL LIFE. They don't see the need for it. They think it's a bit of a mistake en route for the real spiritual stuff....meetings.

Jesus however spent 30 years just doing LIFE. Once 30, He had so much authority when He'd emerged after His time of wilderness testing, He was a continual amazement to those who knew Him.

But Jesus would, in turn, in a similar vein, give His own prescription, onto the disciples.
Preach the gospel in Jerusalem,Judea,Samaria onto the ends of the Earth.
Start where you are at.....even if...like Jesus in Nazareth , you are rejected. At least you tried.

Like a chick emerging from its shell, you have built up strength breaking out from your own environment.

When Jesus said about praying concerning harvesting men's souls, He didn't say rush into the harvest, He said Pray to the Father that He send out workers. Send out means THRUST OUT.  Your own innards impel you. Your own rivers make way for yourself.  "A man's gift makes way for him" Proverbs.
But where do these rivers burst forth from? Anointing? Yes. But anointing that has been roadtested, that has been brought to bear against realworld obstacles, or in Jesus case, real spiritual obstacles. And in the friction, and the wrestling (Ephesians 6 says wrestling, but the word means vibration)......the Word on the inside comes forth like an explosion....but the strength was built up in the vibration of the two opposing forces.

I suppose I would say that is the main difference between 2nd and thirdlevel ministries. 2ndlevel ministries don't really "get" what life is for.   Their spirituality doesn't really encompass normal life, so they are forced to talk around spiritual matters, and meetings, and praying....but they've never really come through their own version of Romans 6-8. Their seed hasn't really been given the chance to go into the Earth and die, and so they do not know the privilege of a completely new plant springing up, packed with its own fruit producing, reproductive seed....from their insides.

You cannot manufacture ministry. It is described in Hebrews as ministering from the power of an indestructible life.....but all the while clinging onto your own, and not letting it fall into the ground to properly die.....how on earth can this indestructible Life start to break through?

Worship series Part Two- Digging Out The Ears

This is the second Part of The One True Worship of the One True God

So, if in the first part we laid the cornerstone of true worship, lets go back a bit and expand some of the parts of this cornerstone, which is ofcourse the New and Living Way through Christ's own flesh and blood back into a relationship with Our Daddy God, Abba....the One, really as human beings we have spent thousands of years estranged from.


The header  image quotes John 4 and it says some powerful things.

• that there is such a thing as TRUE WORSHIP, implying that there is a false worship.
• It's stating a firm YEA and Amen statement of prophecy that  THIS WILL COME ABOUT. It's firm. It's definite. There's no question about it. There's no arguing. We know what we currently see with our eyes.....but since when have our eyes told us the truth about what IS TO COME? Or as Jesus puts it often "What is now already....and Is TO COME."
• It's ALL ALL ALL about the Father, in the sense that Jesus wants a whole bunch of companion Brothers and Sisters with whom to worship and give consummate glory to His Father. see Hebrews Chapter 2 verse 11:

¹¹ For both He who sanctifies and those who are ^[l]sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, ¹² saying,

“I will proclaim Your name to My brethren,
In the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.”

• This will come about, but NOT BY MIGHT, NOR BY POWER,BUT BY MY SPIRIT says the Lord. Worship is in spirit. Because God is Spirit, Jesus says. 
• GOD IS LOVE. GOD IS HOLY. All these things are communicated in Spirit. If we were not of the same substance and likeness of God we would feel awkward. We actually would not be able to bear it. Psalm 1:⁴ Not so the wicked: But -- as chaff that wind driveth away!......⁵ Therefore the wicked rise not in judgment, Nor sinners in the company /assembly/congregating of the righteous,
• And in truth . 

Which is the main subject of this post.

Digging Out the Ears.

Three words and phrases.
Rock.
Digging Out The Ears.
Truth.

We are to build our house upon the Rock. Anything else is to build upon sand, and the storms come, and what looked so good, comes tumbling and crashing down because it has no foundation.

Knowing the deep things of God awaits the work of the Spirit of God in the believer. Jesus did not play the game of modern religion—that of trying to fabricate a life and then present it to the Father as an offering.Who is the Life in Paul’s writing? We know Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” This coupled with Galatians 4:19, “until Christ be formed in you,” presents the idea of who the Life is and where he is. It is in Paul and it looks like Paul.In Colossians 1:27 Paul speaks of “Christ in you.” Dan Stone

Digging out the ears is both a longterm process,as well as meaning just a set point in time,on a certain day or in a certain gathering of God's people.
I associate the phrase with a couple of places in scripture and the time period God spoke through Stuart Wentworth and Ian McCulloch in Emsworth to introduce the concept.

Strong's Hebrew: 3738. כָּרָה (karah) -- dig

concordances.org/hebrew/3738.htmCached

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[כוּר] verb meaning dubious, perhaps bore, or dig, or hew (DlProl. ... כ Psalm 40:7 ears hast thou dug (with allusion to the cavity of the ear) for me, thou hast given me the means of hearing and obeying thy will. ... KJV: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land ... NAS: which hENDe had cut out for himself in the city ...End quote

It was the first week of my arrival in Emsworth. A prophet had come to our door Nathan style, to question me regarding adultery. Within hours I was in another church in another part of Britain stripped of everything and everyone I knew. If anything is going to get your attention and begin digging things out, a supernatural brush with the government of God is probably going to do it.

You see, like many of the Bible characters, this was IN THE CONTEXT of God's people ,of worship,of  a relationship with God.....so that's going to get your attention. How can I be this sinful?Where did that all come from in the midst of this wonderful Holy Spirit life?  So effectively, your inner ear starts getting pinned back, and you nolonger take anything for granted. Because if not even God stuff is to be trusted, what's going on?

Well God stuff IS TO BE TRUSTED. But not the way we interface with it.
God stuff I continued to learn is not just Leftbrain learning. And it's not just charismatic feeling,or to put it more accurately not just surface feelings which rise and fall with the wind.
Whole philosophical movements swing pendulum style from generation to generation on whether to trust feelings or the insight. In themselves, the enemy can draw upon either and lead us astray. So we must learn a deeper way....and indeed this is HOW we begin to learn Spirit.

For God CAN be in feelings and He can be in thoughts, but the Bible says the mature know how to train their senses in righteousness.

The question we are asking ourselves really is WHAT IS GOD DOING?
To see with a single eye is to see what God is really about in a matter.There  really is only One Life going on in the Universe. Everything else doesn't really flow. Is not really happening. There is no grace for it. God's not really in it. It is empty. It feels really heavy to our insides.....things like that.

But even those things can be manipulated. Daniel Yordy calls it " we only learn by story....our story"
And like walking , we learn by falling on our face.
Proverbs 1 describes a kind of extreme version. To summarise, we swing along in life, in our naivety thinking what purports to be wisdom is really heavy and restrictive, and we are really sure that while it might be OK for some people, there is no way that message is for us personally....until....suddenly we find ourselves without any more rope. We've actually gone over the precipice, and we can't just turn back. We may be allowed further time on earth, but one thing is for sure....our Eden is no more....and if we are going to learn anything and not remain ignorant all our life, we have to,in the face of very real obstacles,and wisdom appearing to call us names.....Dig INTO the unseen world
by faith, and CALL our self by a NEW NAME.....one resurrected in Jesus 2000 years ago.

And it's hard, because all else is screaming at us that it s not so. Now it would have been  easier perhaps for us to have learned this when our life was still looking pretty normal. But somehow we don't. And it was the same for the Bible characters...like Peter, who told everyone unequivocally that there was no way on God's earth a person like him would ever deny Jesus. Jesus roundly addressed him and said not only will you....you will do it three times.
And when it came to it was worse still...because Peter used the foulest of language to accompany it.

So, as I said digging out our ears has a longer arc to it , over months and years and decades. But thankfully there's a short instant meaning to it too.  Until we are practically just living there.

Any time we are seeking God.
Having meetings.
We are really having our ears dug by the Holy Spirit. He has to do it. And He will instruct us what He wants us to do to help bring it about.
One session for me was when He put it on my heart to get up early and wait upon Him. No praying. No praising. No tongues.Just waiting. Wow...that was hard...and the times I dosed. But I knew there was no condemnation.

There is a verse which I want to bring up here : Psalm 51:17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

The verse appears in the context of people doing outer forms of penance or religious activity  but not engaging on their insides.

The thing is we are incapable of being contrite in the natural. This sort of phrase is something the Holy Spirit works in us and it is the working of His grace. Just getting up at 5am to do some religious activity is a load of rubbish...even if it is written in the Bible. "Seek Him early".

This is Law. Jesus Himself awakes in us the things He's asking us to do...or not do.
Churches are filled with people who know the verse about God dwelling among a people of contrite heart. The old denominations are filled with this stuff. Well if He dwells in this stuff why is there no revival?

Because 98% of it is just pure religion. Not only have we got to the stage of mimicking penance with all the outward show that is criticised in Psalm 51, we've now reproduced the "inner contrition" with manufactured religious soap opera. Trouble is the Holy Spirit knows this stuff. And His Spirit people perceive it too.

No, in third level terms Psalm 51:17 is just a state of believing.
Who ARE YOU REALLY?
Are you a self-powered human self, swanning around making your choices as some sort of independent self picking from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.....??? And....as your life clearly demonstrates...that just doesn't work does it? You see, the independent posturing doesn't exist.
That very spirit, is hooked into the devil himself. It is he in fact living his life through you. Which is why it is so puzzling for charismatics, where one minute they are soaring into the heavens in praise and a very real sense of the Presence of God....but their day to day living just doesn't cut it. And the more they try, as Romans 7 says,the more their noses are pressed against the glass to realise that the "independent state" just doesn't exist. It's a lie.

So a contrite heart, is one that permanently has reached this realisation....and even though he or she slip in future...they don't have to beat themselves up to much about it...but more like getting back on a bike...realise Life is in the Son...literally. That our life IS ACTUALLY HIS LIFE. There's not two of us. I have died as all of Adam died in the Cross, and my life is now hidden within Christ IN GOD.
This is really what the phrase "Henceforth we see no man after the flesh means."
We see ourselves, other Christians, and nonbelievers all as one thing....as having been created to have God live through. And yes we can't help but observe then "false seeing" on our insides and other's insides as all of us seek to overstep the mark of what God is actually doing. But this is the true Spirit meaning of Psalm 51:17.

This is having our ears dug out.
This is getting down to THE ROCK and building upon it, firmly and surely.
What must we be doing to do the works of God? Believe ON ME says Jesus, and Him who sent Me.What do you mean believe on You?
Believe that I am from God. That I am a new entity called the Son of Man, living entirely IN the Father who sent Me. That such a Life exists and that I am reproducing this very same Life in you as you take My Word and believe it.
Contrite heart is where you allow Me to disabuse you totally of the notion that there exists a self-powered life. That you must choose between one of two Deities living through you as you...and instead of the devil, you have chosen Me and the very Life by which
I lived as a man, from the Father in heaven.

Digging out the ears also means forming the mechanism whereby we can hear and act on the Faith that actually is the faith of Christ Himself.
Faith does not come from the Word of God direct.
Paul said there is an intermediary stage.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing....spiritul hearing....is formed or comes by the Word of God.

So to sum up. Worship, unlike praise, which is commanded of us in whatever spiritual state we find ourselves, comes from a different place.Worship bubbles up from this newly excavated discovery of the ROCK within us, which is Christ's actual Life.

Praise, as we have been taught is how we enter into His courts. "I will enter into His gates (the external part of the Tabernacle) with thanksgiving and His courts with praise."
The Lord's Prayer starts
Our Father
who art in heaven
Hallowed be your Name.....

But worship comes out of "true inward seeing"

it comes out of Jesus consciousness
It is actually Jesus praising His own Father from within the entire congregation.Remember the Hebrews passage? He is not ashamed to call us His brethren.

After the mid section of the Lord's Prayer...as our internal seeing has again been adjusted
we rise, with force, and conviction and power and declaration,
and we all say  with Jesus Himself

For Thine Father is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
Forever and eveeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr
Amen!!!!

You getting the hang of it?

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• Footnotes
• Cross References
• Verse Numbers
• Headings
• Red Letter

So if Christ has done it all - what, to quote Watchman Nee , shall this man do?

We're having a crucial discussion on Facebook along the lines of this post's title.
Ern Baxter discussed similar things, but more in terms of the common belief that as Jesus is coming back, we surely, just tell who we can about Jesus, and apart from that sort of kick around watching things get worse and worse waiting for our bus trip home.
I always remember his phrase in Thy Kingdom Come Kansas City 1975...
This has paralyzed the church for centuries!!!!

As you read this discussion....what do you think? If you read Peter Stott's message on Psalm 24 you can see he has very clear ideas about what we are doing on earth.

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Wessel Wessels (Rom 8:29) God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.(Heb 1:3a)This Son pe...rfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God's nature. He holds everything together by what he says-See more
Tues at 07:08 · Comment ·UnlikeLikeYou, Andrea Lynn, John Madden, Mankwe Clement Phukubje and 12 others like this.
Chris Welch What I see now is life is a series of doors in exactly the same way as it was for Jesus. If we walk in Him, we take these doors that lead onto the sort of life He lived. Without Him in our life we routinely miss these doors, and then get very disappointed with life, because we think....is this all there is? It isn't all there is....we just missed all the clues by living in our delusive sense of selfhood, and not recognizing Him in us.
Andre Oosthuizen Good thinking Chris.
Tues at 09:19Wessel Wessels They call it revelation knowledge, it is in this way that God reveals Himself to us in many ways, Amen my Brothers!!!
Tues at 09:22Mike Daniel Chris - I DO like your illustration, while at the same time rejoicing that in God's perfect love and sovereign foreknowledge, He uses both the doors I take AND the ones I miss to bring me into greater intimacy & dependence with Himself. The difference is just that the door I take is in deliberate cooperation and participation with His plan & ...
See more
indwelling life, whereas the one I miss is His plan at work FOR me, but sadly WITHOUT my participating (yet) with Him.

So, where Jesus' participation (& therefore experience of joy, rest, peace, sufficiency, security, signifance, acceptance, etc.) was total, my participation (& therefore EXPERIENCE of each of these) is limited by walking in the flesh instead of abiding in Christ.
Tues at 17:24 via Email reply

Chris Welch yup Mike...that's a good summation of our record on the subject:The Bible. Kadesh Barnea was very serious for the lost generation though....although in the long plan of things...it only held things up. Whenever we live as Christ as me though...it's not simply a right choice , it seems to unlock things in another dimension entirely. And when we ... See moreutterly utterly fail like David in the Bathsheba episode...if we're ruthlessly honest about the whole thing, allowing those figleaves to be pulled right away....then, again God seems to snatch us up again into this"other dimension". In David's case he unlocked levels of worship that we're still trying to catch up with thousands of years later in the whole church. So in His grace it is a win win situation, though devastating to our pride.
Mike Daniel That's interesting, Chris. I disagree on a certain issue, though. David certainly did nit unlock levels of worship that we are in any way constrained from at any time. Nor are we pursuing a different dimension or reality in our walk or relationship with. I read Eph. 1 as saying we already have every blessing in Christ. I read Peter's words about His divine power having already given us everything necessary for life and godliness. My response then is not to achieve a new level of anything, but walk in the fullness of what is ALWAYS available to me in Christ.

ridiculously graced...
-mike.
http://StoneLife.org... See more

(Sorry for typos - Sent from my iPhone

Wessel Wessels Amen Mike we live in the reality of an accomplished work, we entered God's rest and we also now rest from all our own efforts and attempts to try and please an already pleased God. God is not resting because He is tired no but He is resting in the perfection of an already accomplished work in Christ, therefore this mystery which was hidden for ages... See more and generations but now revealed namely Christ Jesus in us, is the only hope of realizing the Glory or "DOXA" of God's original foreknowledge which was a mystery to man due to the fall and the ignorance that followed it, but now we have the mind of Christ so that we may know what the riches are of what God already bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus, now we only need to come to the knowledge of a fullness of what already is ours, so God is calling man all over to repent from their own way of thinking and exchange their ignorance for the truth which is God's way of thinking, and you will realize then that this is something which we as man had nothing to do with, it was all God's idea from the beginning and therefore there is nothing that we can add to perfection, it is an acceptance of a death that we as man died with Christ 2000yrs ago and were co raised into a new life with Christ therefore our very lives are now hidden in Christ in God, we are in agreement with God, that the testimony which He testified about His Son is the truth and that He gave us eternal life and this eternal life is in His Son, which is now the very essence of our lives...There is only one door and that door is Jesus Christ Himself and no one goes to the Father but through the one door which is Jesus, for He said I am the vine and you are the branches, he that abides in me will bare much fruit for without Him we can do nothing, the Adamic man expired, man died to an old inferior might be perhaps right kind of life, we are the new generation that God had in mind and came and planted Himself therefore we are His offsprings, God's peculiar people, kings, priests and ministers of the reconciliation and revealers of the mysteries of God, we are the new creation man that's got only one mission and one only and that is to do the will of the Father through Christ who is our life. He is the fountain of Life and in His light we see the Light.
Tues at 20:35

Chris Welch For 1800 years the gospel lived side by side with slavery in the Earth unchecked. From the time of the Cross the truth was out there! We are all One in the New Adam. There is no place for Mike Daniel to be my slave! But it wasn't until this truth was unlocked by the intercessory action of John Newton and William Wilberforce, that the whole thing ... See morestarted to fall like a pack of dominoes, first here, then the States. That is the spirit in which I am speaking. You are speaking eternal truths, I am speaking of historical invasions of God's realms into ours. You are speaking of the train leaving at the main station, I am speaking of the trains arriving on Platform 4. And unless you continually walk with the glory shining out of your body, I would suggest a moment like the Transfiguration was a time when an earthly carpenter was manifesting a different dimension.
"David certainly did nit unlock levels of worship that we are in any way constrained from at any time" He certainly did and no we're not constrained by them....because they were so huge...we seem to have a hard time catching up...even in our charismatic times. It is plain in Acts about David being a type for us. But it is ofcourse understood when Paul later speaks of Abraham and David as types, they are but shadows of the greater who is Christ.
Guys, I am seriously disturbed that I even have to write this.It's like the evident grace revelation you have needs a bit more digestion.
Mike Daniel Oh, my friend. What a great heart you have! But David and John Newton had no more to do with those revelations of our flesh and God's glory than Peter caused the transfiguration! No, just like on that mountainside, God reveals His grace - in direct conflict with our flesh - according to His good pleasure, not our unlocking, uncovering, undoing, ... See moreor revamping in any way. And as for the trains - His finished work has brought them all back home - their is no where left for them to go. All that remains is for us to allow Him to show us (not gain for ourselves) all the ramifications of being safe in the terminal of His finished work! Sadly, our charismatic days speak more to our desiring edification than glory by grace, but that is another debate for another day. His glory has not not been diminished by our flesh nor is it revealed by our efforts, but all is working solely by His perfect timing and sovereign will (Eph. 1) that by His unfolding grace to us, He would be glorified through us. The New Covenant Economy is one of walking in what we already have and what He's already done - all His requirements met; all His rewards delivered - in the Person of Christ.

You are loved!

Wed at 15:05

Chris Welch Not as "separate beings" no....it was your Saviour and mine living directly through them to turn these historic keys..."making up what is lacking in His afflictions". This is how church works.
Wed at 16:00 ·

Mike Daniel Yes - we must be available for His revelation and to participate in what He's doing, but the more we live out of and teach a paradigm of what we must do to experience what God has, the more we lead in performance and merit. As long as we are trying to turn the keys, we will continue to experience being on the wrong side of the door. In Christ, all things have ALREADY been opened - we must walk then in faith by grace alone.
Wed at 16:05Mike Daniel ...and Church "works" by an infinite God revealing Himself through the plurality of finite beings who walk in availability by the sufficient grace of His finished work.
Wed at 16:06Chris Welch "As long as we are trying to turn the keys, we will continue to experience being on the wrong side of the door. In Christ, all things have ALREADY been opened - we must walk then in faith by grace alone."
It is important to see when Jesus said to Peter, after His bold confession, "I give you the Keys of the Kingdom." that when Peter turned the ... See morekeys to let 3000 into the Kingdom for the first time, it was not an add-on to his salvation.He was not the wrong side of the door.He was not "trying" anything, he had been given this specific task to do. It was complete grace, and he knew it....because if anyone shouldn't be turning those keys it was Peter.
Was he adding to Christ's work? Nope. Was he declaring Christ's completed work. Yup. Was Wilberforce taking away from Christ's declaration of total freedom by being used to stop slavery? Nope. If Peter hadn't turned those keys would 3,000 have been saved? Probably some would....but maybe the majority wouldn't. Does this make Christ's total complete work invalid just because He required Peter to use the keys?
Who is the One who has unlocked all obstacles for all time?Jesus. Who is it who has to obey Christ to see the finished work manifest? We do. Who is we? We, as struggling Christians trying to add to Christ's work? Nope. Christ's work is already complete in heaven? Who has to enforce this victory on earth according to Revelation 12? We do...by the Blood of the Lamb,by the word of our testimony and by laying down our lives even unto death. Does this buy us salvation. Nope. Who is we? Independent selves, born again yet struggling to do the works of heaven?Nope. People who are dead. Yes. People who now live by the faith of the Son of God, by the Christ who lives within them. Who is doing the work? Difficult to tell. When you eat a Hershey bar, can you separate out the Hershey bar from your innards? Nope. You and the Hershey bar are one.

Wed at 20:15 ·

Chris Welch Christ suddenly angered a whole host of grace message people who'd loved it all until then. He said "Unless you eat Me and drink My blood you will have no life in you?" He was talking fusion. Loads left that day. After fusion, like the Hershey bar it's difficult to tell anymore between the believer on earth and the Christ He has just noshed. There ... See moreis no dividing line. What disturbs me about you feeling you have had to write and "put me right"....is that you obviously see a dividng line. Focussing on Christ in the heavens is great for starters. But not for opening doors here on earth. For that you need to know within yourself that you are dead. That you are fused. If you are still seeing dividing lines, you will not be turning any keys, but it will be given to the next generation who Jesus has just had for His lunch!
Wed at 20:23 ·

Mike Daniel Chris, clearly I've offended you, and I am really sorry, Brother. I love your passion for God and His word, and realize that you stand wholly and irrevocably uncondemnable before Him, so we are definitely on the same side of faith. I do not want to divide.

I do disagree with some critical points in what you've shared, but have no need or desire to "put you right" but only to edify and encourage in the Truth as I have been sharpened so many times. If you (or anyone reading all this!) would like to see a fuller response I'd be happy to send a direct message to you with some of those points (having written it out, I've thought better of posting it here!) :)

You are right about one thing (more than one, actually) - I will NOT be turning any keys ...but resting on His finished work, fixing my eyes upon the Finisher of my faith, and focusing my heart and mind where I am seated in Him with God.... See more

Thanks for sharing your heart authentically with me, Brother!

ridicuslously graced...
-mike.
Wed at 22:25

Mike Daniel Bunch of folks have asked that I post those "last thoughts", including Chris, so, reluctantly...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris - I'm very sorry that I've come across as having to "put you right" by anything I've written. I praise God that you, having put your faith in Christ, are completely and irrevocably uncondemnable (Rom. 8:1), and I don't mean to speak any critical word of judgment or condemnation. My hope is only to sharpen a brother even as I am so often sharpened - as we are mutually edified by the Truth.

I don't want to play tug-a-war over any issue with a brother, but want to agree with you on a couple of points and ask a couple of questions. First - love that you are saying you're not adding to Christ's work. Also - love that you're using Scripture for doctrinal defense. I especially love your citing of Christ's blood and flesh. I do disagree with a few issues as you've described them, but I may misunderstand your points, and certainly don't want to get into a semantic debate if that's all it is.... See more

Christ's flesh and blood seems to me to speak clearly of His provision - having already provided all things for life and for godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). However, I definitely agree we have an inseparable union with Christ. We must receive His provision to have life, but that is a receiving act, not an achieving act. We don't do anything to receive it, but acknowledge it by faith - it's a choice, not a behavior. Jesus himself said the only work of God we must do is "believe upon the One whom He's sent."

I don't see the correlation between the keys Christ promised Peter and what happened at Pentecost. Clearly, Jesus DID intend to illustrate something in "giving keys" but I believe this to be the principle of Christ's identity and Peter's co-identification based on His understanding of who Jesus is. This principle - upon which Christ will build His Church (again, jesus doing the building) - is I believe the crux of all our entry into heaven, namely, knowing Jesus as God's Son and being identified by our relationship with Him as a recipient of grace. I don't see any evidence (but I'm open) to the keys having anything to do with Peter's behavior then or later, and this seems to contradict some of Peter's own statements in his letters.

One statement concerns me greatly: "Focussing on Christ in the heavens is great for starters. But not for opening doors here on earth." This seems dangerous to me - I would only ask that you prayerfully consider the implications of this statement. Hebrews says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author AND Finisher of our faith..." He initiated and will finish all things He has designed for us. Colossians 3 directs our focus again, "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God" Praise God I died! Again - have to agree with you there! Now my life is in Christ alone. All of His glory through His Church will be by His grace to us for His glory through us.

Do we need greater revelation? YES! ...to understand all we ALREADY have in Christ's finished work. Paul wanted to know Christ more (Phil 3), and for us to know His love more (Rom. 8), and for His Church to have revelation of what is ours from Him (Eph 1). But it is all revelation of His finished work, not our unlocking new works or blessings He has withheld to date.

I debated with myself about sharing so much - concerned that it undermines my desire not to quarrel with you. I find a greater burden though in my heart - that to share love is often to share truth, especially with someone with such passion and desire for God. Please forgive me if I've overstepped your desire for clarifying conversation.
Yesterday at 22:31
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Chris Welch today
Brilliant reply.And so loving.We will just have to draw a line on Peter I guess. His was a unique gift from Christ never ever to be repeated. He got to announce that the Kingdom was now open for the first time to men. Nobody can ever be "the first" again. I would urge everyone including me to prayerfully consider the steps in Peter's life. Things like how God honours boldness and revelation and confession. God sorts out our inner stuff later. And boy, was it sorted! So here was a man brought to the right place and the right time in Acts 2 in much fear and trepidation, yet at the same time a kind of pure boldness in the Spirit. This whole cycle of events is worth taking deep into our beings.
You are right to point out that we should ALWAYS be fixing our eyes on the things above. I am writing a kind of shorthand there which can be misconstrued as....done that let's move on to works now.
No, it seems to work like this. In Ephesians we see a progression. As believers in God's school as opposed to the religious systems of men we spend at least 2 chapters or a third of our Christian experience doing NOTHING but focussing on Christ and our new position in Him. This is comparable with Romans Ch3-6. It seems we do nothing else and as believers we get a lot of flack for it. "You're NOT doing anything!!!" people cry. But because Christianity is an inward seeing, layer upon layer, like French polish...and NOT a left-brain seminary course....God has us in this bit for as long as He feels is necessary...THEN while living in Ephesians 1-2, and Romans 3-6, on our insides, the next phase is to get our believing working in 3D laboratories called family, work and friends...believers and unbelievers...This is Ephesians 3,4 and 5.
But nowhere have we moved outside of our continuous inward seeing of Ephesians 1 and 2 and Romans 3 to 6.
On Facebook we have to use shorthand...but the casualty is clarity. So naturally you thought I was moving on from ever looking at Jesus.
What happens after this is we begin to see Jesus clearer and clearer in absolutely everything that is going on. We begin to see what Jesus meant by "seeing what the Father was doing"...only for us it is seeing what Jesus is doing.

In terms of meetings, this is the key for moving in miracles. Jesus used to say..."Aaaah...I see the Presence of God is here for healing...who wants to be healed?" The phrase that is in the Bible is when Jesus saw that God was present to heal.
These Ephesians and Romans processes are outlined in the articles Merrill Thompson and Nancy Gilmore are sending out. The whole book of Norman Grubb’s entitled “Yes I am” is linked to also on my blog for download. If that’s too long, track down Romans 6-8 by Norman Grubb. It’s the same subject but more potted. More about keys and how the earth is given to the sons of men to either bind up or unlock is here in Peter Stott's series on psalm24.
http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2009/02/lift-up-your-heads-o-ye-gates.html

Having driven Ben to school I feel to commend you on stressing the finished work of Christ. The reason Rob Rufus is having to spend about 5 years teaching nothing but grace in an alien law-filled environment of Hong Kong is entirely correct in the Spirit.


Churches all over America are run by seminary trained individuals that have gone through a left-brain training mill of knowledge and they wonder why after spending 2 weeks a year teaching a left-brain version of grace, and 50 weeks on its outworking....why their Christians never grow.
We only grow by revelation. They themselves were never told it was an inward religion. The left-brain does not handle grace as a subject too easily, any more than it understands Christ in us the hope of glory and questions of love and being loved. The left-brain was just not equipped to do that.
Christianity in this way is condemned to failure in the west. The whole way it is run is doomed from the start. Praise God for people like you being raised up.