The Position of the Believer

PART I: The Believer as a Container for God's Presence

When I was in the British army in World War I, God very plainly called me, though I'd planned another career, to join a little independent missionary group just starting in Africa. I wasn't there very long before I deeply felt my inadequacy.

It wasn't that I was lukewarm for Jesus Christ; it wasn't that I had turned away from Him to some other interest. I was a servant of His, and my whole interest was set on introducing my brother Africans to Him. The inadequacy I felt in myself first of all was the need of love. I deeply felt, when I got among them, that I just didn't have that love which bridges the gap. With that went the need of faith - and with that the need of power. All of these were linked together.

Response to the Christian message in Central Africa, like the United States, appears to be quite large. But I soon found there was much more profession than possession. I began saying to myself, Are we bringing the Africans anything really worthwhile? Are we just bringing a code of ethics? Or a liturgy, or historic faith? Have we got something genuinely transforming to transmit to others?

Then I made the question personal, "Have I?" As I asked these questions, I discovered that when your ministry is disturbed, it tends also to disturb your personal life. I found myself, as my wife well knew, irritable at home in a way I hadn't been irritable - and critical of others to cover my own failures.

As I doubted, asked questions, and searched the Bible for some kind of an answer to my inadequacies, I found some amazing answers. Some of them have shaken me considerably. They have changed my whole viewpoint - and my experience. I can't call them revelations, because they are based on the revelation, witnessed to by the Spirit. To begin with, my attitude was that God should improve me.

Well, I'm a servant of Jesus Christ, I thought. I've been redeemed by His grace, I belong to Him. I must ask God to make me a better servant of Jesus Christ.

I thought He should channel in some love into my heart, some faith, some power, some holiness - and improve me. I had to learn sharply that self-improvement is both a sin and an impossibility. It came as a considerable shock. But though my idea of how God should answer my problem was completely wrong, my sense of inadequacy was good. It sent me to the Bible. And my first discovery came as I read one famous verse in the first letter of John: "God is love."

Suddenly the is stuck out. What dawned on me went something like this: It doesn't say God has love, but God is love. If some body has a thing, it isn't he himself. It's something just attached to him, as if you've got a coat on or something in your pocket. You just have it, and you can share it. But the Bible doesn't say God has love, but God is love.

I Could Never Love!

Love, therefore, must not be a thing I can have. Love is exclusively a Person. God is love. Therefore, there is no other pure, self-giving love in the universe beyond Him Himself. Love is exclusively a characteristic of one Person only - and that's not Norman Grubb. That was a deflation for me. I had thought I could have love imparted to me, channeled into me, and I'd be more loving. But I suddenly found God saying, "You'll never have one iota of love. I am love, and that's the end of it."

Love is a Person; one Person only loving - and that's not I, and that's not you. God is love and, therefore, love is God loving. That set a new trend of thought going. I began to relate this to my other need of power. And I suddenly found a verse in the first chapter of I Corinthians where it says that Christ is the power of God. Not Christ has the power, but He is the power.

Once again, I had thought power was something which was given to me, and I'd be a powerful servant of Jesus Christ. I suddenly found that power, also, is a Person. And that person is not I but is exclusively Christ, Who is God; it doesn't matter whether you call Him Father, Son or Holy Spirit.

Then I came to the one thing every Christian claims to have. Every believing Christian accepts the fact that he has eternal life. He takes it that he has a life which will go on forever in Heaven. ("The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.")

But I suddenly found that eternal life is not something I can ever have - for Jesus did not say, "I have the life to give you" - but, "I am the life." Once again I had found that something I had thought I had - eternal life - is one person only, and that's not I. Jesus Christ is that "eternal life."

But where did I fit into all this? Finally I came to a statement which gathered all together and finished off my investigations by its absoluteness. The verse was Colossians 3:11, where it says of believers in Christ that "Christ is all and in all." Christ is all, not Christ has all. And if Christ is all, what's left for me? Not much by my mathematics!

I had thought I was somebody, and something or could get something. I found God had taken the lot. Christ is all. Then I got the link. Christ is all and in all. Then I saw for the first time that the only reason for the existence of the entire creation is to contain the Creator! Not to be something, but to contain Someone. So there dawned a very important truth. We humans naturally regard the human self as important. But we've got the wrong ideas of the reason of the existence of the self.

An immense distortion has come into the very warp and woof of humanity. It's the distortion of the ego - of the self. Though we feel self to be important, all of this showed me that self is extremely unimportant. There is only one Self in the universe who is really important. I would almost say there is only one Self. Why? Because there's only one Person in the universe who ever said, "I Am."

God said that was His name thousands of years ago when Moses asked what he should say when people would ask, "What is the name of your God?" (Exodus 3:13, 14). We are told that at the end of the history of the universe it is God Who will be all in all. God all in all! Then what's left? It's terrific.

Why We Exist

There is only one Person, and the human creation is brought into a living relation ship with this One, so that He can manifest Himself in His perfection of life and love through us.

The whole creation exists because Spirit must have a body in which to manifest Himself. As the Scriptures say, "The whole earth is full of His glory." They say that Christ ascended "that He might fill all things." If He fills all things, all things are containers of Him. Here is both the height and the dangerous depth in humanity.

The height is simply this: the rest of creation can contain manifestations of God; we can contain God as a Person. A person cannot manifest himself as a person through anything else than a person. You can't fellowship with a dog or a stone. You can enjoy the marvels of the atom or of a precious stone, but you can't fellowship with it. But I can fellowship with you because we are of the same makeup.

God can manifest His marvels and His beauty through the flowers and trees. We can view them through the microscope and telescope, and marvel-but we do not say, "That's God." The greatest marvel, the greatest height of personality, is when we can look at a human being and say, "God is there." The depth, the dangers, of humanity are that personality means freedom. Intelligent choice is the essence of personality.

Therefore, God appeared to be on the horns of a dilemma when He created people. (Of course, He wasn't, for He knows His own business in the end.) But it appeared so because the people He created could turn around and say, "Thank you very much, I don't want You to live in me." That's exactly what happened.

We make self our god, not God. We just naturally run our own lives. And that's our whole trouble.

There isn't a single problem in humanity except our self-reactions: not one. The Devil is no trouble. He was dealt with 2,000 years ago. Your neighbor is not your trouble. Circumstances are not your trouble. The only trouble is your reaction. Distorted self, self out of gear, is our problem.

Once we know how to handle the human self and put it back where it belongs, we've found the key to life. That's what we're going to examine.

"An important example of a panentheistic doctrine of deification within professing Christianity is Union Life, founded by Norman Grubb, who at one time was a respected evangelical leader.
In 1980 CORNERSTONE, an evangelical magazine, ran an article arguing that Union Life was teaching pantheism or panentheism. [7] Union Life has attempted to argue [8] that panentheism, unlike pantheism, is not heretical (despite Grubb's admission that he does not know the definition of pantheism!
[9]). However, neither pantheism nor panentheism separates the creation from the essential nature of the Creator, though panentheism does posit a differentiation in which the creation is the expression of the Creator.

The heretical nature of Union Life is made evident by such statements as, "there is only One Person in the universe," "everything is God on a certain level of manifestation," and "Nothing but God exists!"

[10] Therefore, Union Life's claim to following the traditions of the church fathers [11] is no more valid than that of the Mormons."

Adam and Eve were created to be in union with God and be participants in His love. They were not created to live independently from Him.

When they sinned this union was broken leaving all of Mankind cut off from His Live and Love.

There was NOTHING man could do to solve this issue.

God in His loving wisdom provided the solution to this issue in Christ before the world was created.

We were reconciled with God in Christ and put back in union with Him. WE have been made one with by HIS doing

Without union with God - true Christianity can not exist!

tuc,

Thanks - fixed that

Norman Grubb stated many times that pantheism is an error because "God is not a thing."

Jesus said, "By their fruits you will know them." The fruit of NPG's life leaves no doubt that he was a man of God.

The ministry that produced Cornerstone Magazine, on the other hand, has been exposed as a pedophilia mill and I would not put any more stock in that publication than I would "the traditions of the church fathers."

_________________
Wayne Kraus

Setting aside Norman Grubb lets see what else the PERSON OF CHRIST IS.

HE IS TRUTH

HE IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS

HE IS OUR WISDOM

HE IS OUR LIFE

HE IS OUR PEACE

HE IS OUR JOY

HE IS OUR SANCTIFICATION

HE IS OUR HOLINESS

HE IS OUR FAITH

HE IS OUR DIVINE NATURE

WE ARE PERFECT IN HIM

HE IS OUR OBEDIENCE

Can you add to this list

This is the stuff I love, brother. :-)


Our Deliverer

Our Savior

Our Mercy

Our Healer

Our Shield

Our High Tower

Our Defender

Our Rock

Our Hiding Place

Our Lovingkindness

Our Compassion

Our Counselor

Our Great Shepherd

Our Friend

Our Brother,

Our Husbandman

Our Source of all Blessing

Our Restorer

Our Victor

Our Forgiver

Our Redeemer

Our Captain of the Hosts

Our Banner

Our Standard

Our King of Kings

Our Lord of Lords

Our Merciful and Faithful High Priest

Our True Israel

Our Alpha and Omega

Our Beginning

Our End

Our Apostle of our Faith

Our Sacrifice

Our Anchor

Our Strong Tower

Our Shield

Our Ancient of Days

Our Forerunner

Our Surety of a Better Covenant

Our Light

Our Door

Our Truth

Our Way

Our Treasure

Our Pearl of great price

Our Eternal Intercessor

Our Holy One

Our Harmless and Undefiled One

Our Tree of Life

Our Minister of the Sanctuary

Our Mediator of the New Covenant

Our High Priest of Good Things to Come

Our Lamb of God

Our Lion of the Tribe of Judah

Our Holder of the Keys

Our Qualified One Who Alone Can Open the Book

The Expression of the Heart of the Father

Our Nearest Kinsman

Our Honey in the Rock

Our High and Lifted Up One

Our Giver and Giver Again

The Glory and the Lifter of our heads

Our Righteous Judge

Our Refuge for the Oppressed

The One Who Hears the Cry of the Humble

Our Inheritance

Our Portion

Our Branch

Our Root

Our Greatest Teacher

Our Baptizer

Our Resurrection

Our Comforter

Our Guide

Our Girder of Gladness

Our Infinite One

Our Eternal One

Our Glorious One

Our Majestic One

Our Servant

The Lover of our Soul

The Keeper of our Hearts

Jesus, Our Everything

So John Lennon was correct eh?

Beatles – I Am The Walrus Lyrics

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

NOPE

Joh 17:20-26 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.