In this Union Life broadcast, Norman Grubb continues his series on who we are in Christ. He emphasizes that as believers, we are called to be living rivers of water, allowing Christ's life to flow through us to meet the needs of others. This is not something that happens immediately, but rather a process of growth and transformation. Grubb explains that as we understand our identity in Christ, we operate from the spiritual dimension of faith, seeing life's circumstances in a new way. Ultimately, the goal is for Christ's life to pour out from us, becoming a source of nourishment for a needy world.

Week 11, Program 1. This is David Ord introducing Norman Grubb with our Union Life broadcast for today in this series of programs which we've been in for some weeks now, in which we're discussing the whole question of who we are in Christ. Now once we know that we are living as Christ in this world, that He is our inner life manifesting Himself through us, His living letters in this world, then we know that we operate as Him in the physical dimension, but we operate out of the fourth dimension of faith. We operate from the spiritual level and we see with the single eye, which Jesus talked about, the single eye of faith, whereby our whole body becomes full of light. Now this means that we look at all of life's circumstances in an entirely new way, and Norman Grubb has been explaining to us in the last few programs just how we begin to see the evil, the problems, the difficulties that there are in this world today, and how this changes our whole perspective. Now we're talking about this third level, David said, in which the Holy Spirit is coming out in living action by us, and we see that the first form in which He comes out by is our faith attitude. We see this tremendous fact that all life hangs on the attitude. You can't say a bigger thing than that. We function according to the way we see things, because we're spirit people, we're not talking about visible seeing, we're talking about the inner seeing, which sees things as they are. And we're seeing this radical fact that the attitude of the Spirit, of faith and hope and love, will not come out of us until we're settled into it that we can always see God operating in every kind of situation. But for the human eye, which has divided the world into light and dark and good and evil, it's difficult to see that. So we've already discussed it at some length, how we see that evil is the misuse of God in His perfect manifestations, everything is basically perfect, nothing else being in itself. But evil is the Spirit, nothing in the thing, which misuses things and produces the confusion, the corruption and difficulties that come out of that. When we've come back into being one with God and seeing as God sees, which is speaking as we do from the heavenly situation, then we see God in perfect purpose and action through everything, because He purposes freedom, and out of freedom, the misuses, the sins and evils have come through misuse, first by Satan, then by us, of our freedom, turning it into self-centered operations which produces all the chaos and evil in this world. But we see that while God means us to have the purpose of freedom, because He's a perfect God in perfect purpose, He always meant these things to happen, His purpose is to turn those into a new manifestation of His own self, in some form of deliverance by our presence. So we move into a situation where we have a single eye, because we see evil only as a misuse, for which God's not responsible, which come out of our freedom, but God's meant us to have the misuses which come out of our freedom, but He's always the one operating everything out of the control of His own will. And that is the first form in which the Spirit flows out of us, because when my attitude is one that God's in the situation, God meant it, and God's good, and there's some good purpose, however horrible it is, immediately light's shining from me, life's shining from me, people see it in my face, they see it in my words, and it may cause puzzlement, it may cause even offense, it'll certainly cause hunger in people, they say I wish I could see things like that. And when we can go further and explain why we see it like that, and if we like, momentarily the painful process by which we started, as we must as humans, by seeing a thing negatively, seeing its horror and its terror and so on, saying now I see, I do see that on that level, but I'm no longer on the natural level. I'm seeing things in Christ from the heavenlies, I'm seeing as God sees, as God has a perfect purpose to bring into being through every situation. So this is the first way in which the Spirit flows out through our very attitudes, which changes our outlooks and our words and our attitudes and our habits, to some extent. Now, that's only the attitude. Spirit operates in action, faith is not attitude, faith is action. Faith action is the word of faith. We've explained that a good deal in other situations, that all life consists of seeing a thing a certain way, we've continually said you see it as something available to you, then you see it as something desirable to you, something you'd like to, a place you'd like to go to, a thing you'd like to have or something you'd like to do. Now what you do, the action of your faith is to say, I'll go. That's the human freedom in action, in the inner spirit of freedom, I'll go, I'll take it, I'll make it. That's an inner activity of the Spirit. Now this is how we're to operate like this, in faith action, in the third dimension, as people of the Spirit. What it means in this situation is this, that we're now being confronted with situations which are not within our reach, it's not like something we can make with our hands or something we can take and go and do. We're talking now on the level of things which are beyond our reach, changes needed in our loved ones or people around us. Situations, they'd be financial, all different kinds outside our reach. We're talking about all kinds of situations which confront us, about which we have to say, well that's beyond me, can't do anything about it. Now this is where in the third dimension, as people of the Spirit, we move into faith action. And the way we do it is, first of all by, as we say, getting our attitude settled. God's in this thing. Now that brings a whole new, I have to use the word attitude again, it's a prayer. This word we all commonly use, prayer. Now our common concept of prayer is we're bringing needs, prayer by way of request, prayer of worship or prayer of praise, I'm not thinking of that at the moment, I'm talking about prayer that says we bring needs to God. Now this is the old outlook we had, we humans have needs to bring them to God. Now the new outlook, when we're seated with him, seated in heavenly places in the third level, is not we're bringing things to God, but we're seeing what God sees. We're not seeing what the human thinks about him, we're seeing what God's thinking about the thing. So our attitude to life changes, we say now, what's God mean by this? This situation's happened, he's not responsible, he's an evil one, he wasn't responsible, but we understand that he's there in that situation, it's some situation of his, some person of his being misused. Now we say, what's God after in this thing? So our whole prayer life changes, because it becomes, first of all, I would almost call it a consultation with God, not a bringing request to God. The prayer that all life now, it's not we operating, it's God operating by us. So prayer is kind of a condition in which we're sitting together and say, all by ourselves, what do you want to God? What do you mean by that thing? So now we begin to move a step further there, we say, God meant this thing, although he wasn't directly responsible for it, he meant it. Now we go and say, why do you mean it, what purpose do you mean it? Now then we go further, acting as sons, in precisely the same way as the son, the word, operates in the creation. We see him there, as it were, his God manifested son, and he was, as it were, catching on, to use that phrase, to what were the purposes of God in creation, not what he would do. The proof of that is, he didn't say, let there be light, meaning he understood God's purpose to send light, or moon, or vegetation, or fish, whatever it is, God had these purposes, he was interpreting them, so it wasn't what he wanted, it's what he understood the eternal person, his father wanted. And then when he understood what his father wanted, he'd say, let that be so. Now that's where we act as sons in faith. Now humanly, that's where we do it. If we take a position, we go to a place, we'll go. Now we aren't saying, let that be, we say, we'll go, because we're able to go. So instead of saying, let that be, we say, we'll go. Now when we're dealing with situations in life which we can't handle, now we're moving in, we've moved to say, God has a purpose in this, God meant it to be, and my next stage is to have, to catch on to what appears to me to be what God's purpose is. Now that's where we've got to begin, as we talked before in the union life, not question our own motives, our own desires. Expect that God operates his mind and will through our desires. He works in us to will and do. So we aren't questioning our desires, we just sit down and say, well now, what appears to us to be the thing which would be right in this situation? What's the thing that would be to the glory of God? What's the thing that would be the best for the people concerned? Now we're using our minds, yet we're saying because of the union, when we think it's God thinking, when we desire it's God desiring. That's why the Bible goes so far, Jesus goes so far as to say, whatever you desire, that's a staggering statement. He puts no strings attached. He says, at Mark 11, 24 and 25, whatever you desire, when you pray, believe you will see them. So if I may put it in those terms, God himself is daring enough to trust our desires because he sees us as those whose desires are being motivated by him. So he trusts our desires. He trusts our desires maybe more than we do ourselves often. Whatever you desire. So now the situation is quite plain and common sense. I say, now, what would I like in that complication in that person's life? That thing that's troubled that life? Or in that financial complication? Or in these problems we've got? Whatever kind they may be. What I desire to happen, God meant the situation to be. It's God's situation. He has a purpose in it. I'm the one to interpret that purpose. That's the Son's activity. Like at the creation, the Son interpreted what the fathers are. They said, let there be this, let there be that. So that's the next stage in the action of faith, the attitude of faith. Now moving into, we are preparing for action. We are now preparing to say, what will say God will do? When you really catch on to this understanding of the single eye of faith, your entire body is going to become full of light and your whole prayer life is going to be absolutely revolutionized. There are different levels of prayer. There's that which the babe just born in Christ does and there's that which the mature father in Christ does as he speaks God's purposes into being because it's really God speaking them into being through him. And so prayer then becomes catching God's will and saying it into being. Now if you'd like to begin to understand how this all operates more thoroughly, we want to offer you a brand new booklet on the book of Job. Now that's not the title of the booklet, but just ask for the booklet about Job. Now we want to send it to you. It's absolutely without charge. There's no request for money and we know you're going to find it a tremendously exciting booklet. If you write to 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee, 38118, we'll send you the booklet about Job. 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee, 38118 or you can call area code 901-795-0121. That's area code 901-795-0121. 901-795-0121. Ask for the booklet about Job. We'll also send you a copy of Union Life Magazine. No charge. It's bimonthly. A lot of exciting articles which explain how Christ operates in life by us. Now we're heard on this station daily, five days a week. At the same time, be sure to tune in for the continuing programs in this series. Until tomorrow, this is David Ord. Program two. This is David Ord introducing Norman Grubb in our series of broadcasts on Who Am I? Norman wrote the book Who Am I? which I know many of you have read and it's a very exciting book. It's available in Christian bookstands. If you can't get it there, if you'll write to our address, we'll tell you how you can get it. But the most important knowledge a Christian can have is to really understand who he is in Christ. To know that Christ is his replaced life and then to go on to experience the rivers of living water flowing out from him to other people. Now we begin by seeing ourselves as very thirsty people but then we learn that as we drink from Christ the one time, as he comes in, he becomes a well of water within us that springs up and we never thirst again. But then we must move on to a further stage where now he begins to operate his life through us for others and that's what we're talking about in this series of programs. Rivers of living water flowing out from us, meeting the needs in this world today. Now Norman Grubb is going to pick up right here on how that operates by the word of faith. We're understanding how the Holy Spirit comes into action by our spirits, by our spirits and by our bodies. We're at the moment just speaking about it coming into action by our spirits and we say by our spirits means by our inner activity of faith because the main operation of our human selves, which is our spirits, is when we come to a decisive moment when we say I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll go there and so on. We speak our word of faith which produces action. And we're now seeing that we're dealing in the realm of the spirit when we're confronted with all kinds of problems which we can't just fulfill by our own hands and feet and so on. People's needs, whatever needs there may be, whatever problems there may be, whatever size of problems there may be. We're looking at it from now as those who have risen and seated with Christ, we're seeing as he does, and we've learned this first fact that whatever happened, always God meant it. Our key is that. However difficult it meant, although God wasn't responsible because it comes out of our misuse of freedom or Satan's misuse of freedom, God meant it and God meant it for purposes of some new work of deliverance, some revelation of himself in those situations. Now we step in as sons on the situation because we begin to understand that life consists of God confronting us in our different situations with things which press upon us. We start by the things which locally confront us in different ways, by things and people, and they confront us. So it's something which challenges us, some person's life, some situation, local, whatever it may be, that presses upon us. Now our next stage we've seen already is that we're saying well God meant that, so that's it, that's a changeover, God meant it. Now as those who are confronted with this thing, we say God has a purpose through us, through me as a son, through my activity of faith, he has a purpose to fulfil in this situation. What's God after? So I begin now to consider what's the kind of thing I'd like to see happen in that situation? And here I begin boldly to act as operating as the mind of God, the expression of Christ, not be afraid of my thoughts or my desires or my conclusions. I don't wait for some mystical thing from heaven, I just follow along with what appears to me to be the thing which is most to be the work of God and the act of deliverance in that situation. Now having done that, I move into the action of faith, the attitudes of faith, to get the way we see things right. Now the action of faith is the word of faith. One of the best illustrations given in the Bible, it was given by Jesus himself, it comes in the second chapter of Mark, when with his disciples he passed a fig tree which wasn't bearing fruit, although he loved the fig tree, he took everybody else. He wanted to set an example of faith, so he said as he passed, don't let anybody eat any fruit of that again. He just said the word of faith. No one eat more fruit of that tree. When they passed the next day, Peter, quick on the mark, commented, look master, he said, the tree you cursed is withered. Then he took his opportunity, he said, that's to show you how you speak the word of faith, he said, you do the same. Now that's the striking thing, his word there he said, you have faith in God. In the actual original it says, operate the faith of God. What does that mean? You speak as what God will do in a situation. Have the faith of God means you say what is the thing God will do in a situation. That means having the faith of God. But the point is saying, you have it. It doesn't say call on God, doesn't say wait on God, doesn't say, you act as me, because I express myself by you, so your words are faith and my words are faith. And then he explained the word of faith to be like this, he said, I said that word, that tree is withered. Now he said, whatever mountain confronts you, a mountain isn't necessary Mount Everest, it's the next thing in your life which confronts you. Maybe a domestic challenge, a personal challenge, a people challenge, something which presses upon you as a confrontation as a mountain. Now he said, who shall not say unto a mountain, be thou removed, be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, he shall have whatsoever he says. Now it's as simple as that. That's speaking the word of faith. And means I speak as God, that thing's out. That thing's not there. That thing's disappeared. God's changed that thing, whatever it may be. We'll see through the Bible, there's been always saying that kind of thing. Like Elijah said, it won't be due, nor rain according to my word, and so on. Shout to the Lord's given you a city, Joshua said, around the walls of Jericho and so on. Speak that word. Now this is where we learn to operate in the freedom and simplicity and if you like to call it boldness of who we are. We're to act as God and speak that word that God's doing something. That's exactly why it's privileged to operate as a son. Like his own son did the creation, said, let that be so and so. God's now bringing in animals. God's bringing so and so into being that word of faith. Then they came. Now we're to do the same thing. So whatever kind of situation it is, we use that way of doing it. It's only the same we've actually practiced on ourselves. When we first came to Jesus for salvation, we didn't get salvation by saying, please save me. We had to say, thank you Lord, you've done it. We had to see that Christ had died in our place and taken our sins away. The Bible said so, now we couldn't prove a thing. But we had this word, we had to speak the word. And a person doesn't get saved. I talked with a person a little later, a little time ago, and said, I want Christ as my saviour. And she began to pray. I said, I don't waste my time asking Christ, I don't waste my time on your time. He's already offered me a saviour. You don't say ask, you take what's given you. Oh I see, she said, thank you, thank you. Now she's spoken the word and said, thank you. She said, alright, in other words, he's done it. So faith always is recognising that God's done the thing, that we've come to him to see it done. And that we do that for salvation, we do it again for the indwelling presence of Christ in our lives. Now we're to go farther. And we're there to say, God puts situations, confronts us with them, because he already has the answer ready. He operates through his son, like creation, he operates through his son to bring creation. He operates through us. Therefore, the one thing he requires of us is what the Bible calls the obedience of faith. What's that mean? Not works. It means, I'm to believe he's done what he says he's done. I'm to take it, if he's put me in a situation, and he calls me to say the answer to that situation would be the salvation of that person, or the deliverance of that person's life, or the financial supply, or health, or whatever it may be. And I move in then and say, therefore I said you've done that. Just as if I say, thank the Lord you saved me. Thank the Lord you live in me. So you'd say right out, you've done that thing. Now this is where it becomes what we might call, what the great writer King had called the absurdity of faith. But we're talking spiritual because we're spirit people. So the world isn't absurd. It isn't here it is. It isn't done. It isn't there. We're not living by appearances. We're living as people in the spirit realm, which is the universal realm, all power, everything already has been done in equation by God, and God still does his mighty works. And operating on that level, we therefore say, God you've done that thing. On the same principle, you would say a prince as Jesus, when he had to feed 5,000, he only had five loaves to do with, but he wasn't operating on five loaves, he was from the universal God, which is universal bread. So he said, thank you father, he just said thank you and pray. And then he said, set them up in rows. Then he just took the bread and began to break it, took it as he broke it to feed 5,000, and the bread stretched up to 5,000. So God's surprised you know how it happens, it just happens. Now this is speaking of that word of faith. And it hangs on our obedience, what's obedience? I do it despite myself. Now often to obey you have to do a thing despite yourself, because he's had you to do it. Now all you, doesn't even say pray, doesn't even say pray, just say it. In other words, because he's given me the privilege, where he can trust me in a situation, he's come to do a thing in that situation by me. That's why he puts me in a situation, there's this need and that need and that person and that problem, all I do is be bold enough as the father of God to sort it out and say, what I like to see happen is that. Now I've got to go right in, and my obedience, I'll obey, he told me to believe him. Well I must obey by believing him. He says, have the faith of God. In other words, believe that God's done what he sent me here to convey to me, he's done, which is channeled to my faith. And so I speak that word of faith. And it says, do not doubt in your heart. Now your heart's where your feelings are, that'll change. So, I'm sorry, I mean, I got that wrong, I mean your heart is where your purpose is. So, you may doubt your mind, your mind may doubt how can it be ridiculous, your feelings may doubt, we haven't discussed the soul and the spirit, that comes in there, your feelings may doubt about the thing. But your heart, your choice, you say, I don't doubt there, I've said it and I've said it. I spoke that thing, I've said it and I stand where I stand. That's speaking the word of faith. Now one of the things we'd like to do for you is to send you some written material which will help you to check this message out more thoroughly in the scriptures for yourself. And Union Life Magazine is a bi-monthly magazine in which we have the room to put many articles from different angles, explaining how this works in real life terms. Now in one of our issues, coming up in a short while here, we have an article by Malcolm Smith, which is entitled Living in Infinite Supply. And we want you to get that article when you write for Union Life Magazine. It's free of charge, there's no price, no request for money. And when you write, we'll be sure you get the issue which has got in it the article Living in Infinite Supply by Malcolm Smith. Now I know you're going to enjoy that article and many others. Please write for Union Life Magazine, no request for money if you'll send your letter to 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38118. That's 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38118. Or you can call area code 901-795-0121. Now if you've got a pencil or a pen handy and a piece of paper, just jot that number down and call and ask them to send you Union Life Magazine. It's 901 is the area code, 795-0121. Jot it down, 901-795-0121. You won't be asked for money. No one's going to call on you. We just have got together a group of us who really know Christ as our life, want to share it with others. That's how it's paid for, just by those people have donated to make it all possible. And we want to send this magazine. And when you do, as I say, you'll get that article living in infinite supply, because it's going to revolutionize your life. Instead of operating from lack, you're going to begin to operate from Christ who is our total adequacy in this life. And you're going to see the love, the joy, the peace, the Holy Spirit flooding through your life in this rivers of living water pouring out and meeting the needs of other people. It's 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38118 or area code 901-795-0121. We're on this station five days a week. Be sure to tune in at the same time. Until tomorrow, this is David Ord. This is David Ord welcoming you to another Union Life broadcast in which Norman Grubb has been speaking to us in a series now for several weeks on who we are in Christ. And we're now moving into that area of life whereby we operate as living rivers of water, where Christ's life flows out from us to meet the needs of others. Now that's not something that happens when we're first babes. There may be a trickle of Christ's life flowing through us in love for people and a change as we've been talking about. But we're talking about now a state where our whole life becomes that which is lived for others because it's Christ pouring out His life, the bread being broken in our form for people to feed a needy world. And we're talking about the infinite supply. And we've got an article on infinite supply in Union Life magazine which we want you to have and we're going to tell you how you can get that at the end of this program. But Norman is talking about how this comes about as we speak it into being through the word of faith. The word of faith is a Bible term used by Paul in Romans 10, the word of faith. This is the first form in which the Spirit moves out by us through our word of faith. Because it's by our word we move into action, or now in the spirit dimension, by our word the practical fight of faith. That's because speaking the word of faith is where we meet certain we may call personal inner oppositions. That's why the Bible discerns for us between soul and spirit. Now the Bible shows your spirit is your inner self which makes these choices. That's the one that says I'll do this, I'll go there. That's the word of faith. That's the book about inner self. Now your soul is the way by which you express yourself. You express your love through your emotions. You express your mind through your words, your reasons, your reasons. Now your reasons and your emotions are the means to express yourself. Now they're very variable and you may say really how can I say the word of faith? You may feel I couldn't say the word of faith, how can I say a thing is there which isn't there? It's nonsense. So a fight arises here with your own inner, your own utter self which isn't your inner self. It's this utter form of you which is your soul, which is your reasons, your emotions, your feelings and your reasons and they appear to oppose you. So we have to learn then to reckon on these oppositions and then replace them by the fact of our word of faith. A very good example of it in the Bible is when that man, when Jesus had come down from the mount of transfiguration and the disciples hadn't been able to cast out the demon possession of the son who went into fits with the demon possession. And the father came to Jesus and said, if thou canst do anything heal my son. And Jesus said to him, if you can believe, all things are possible until you believe it. Now his answer was a very honest, good one. He looked at Jesus, doubtless he'd seen the kind of thing Jesus had done before. Lord, I believe. He said, hope not my unbelief. Now his emotions and reasons said it's possible. There he is all caught up by Jesus. How can I say he's healed? So my emotions and reasons say, oh he couldn't be healed. But I do believe. So he said, Lord, he meant and said, this deliverance of unbelief, he got his answer, he got the healing. So it shows he's faith at the bottom of the day. Now faith has that element in it for us. Our soul life, we say, oh how can I say that? That thing I've lost, I can't just find it. Or that financial deliverance will come. Or this, above all, this victory will come to a person's life. A person gets saved or a person will find what the deliverance of Christ in them or whatever it may be. How can I say that? So against me inwardly is my soul factors, which are wonderful factors. God comes through my emotions and reasons, but it can be reused in the verse by the pressure of the appearance. We judge not by appearance. The appearance is all against that. So that's where I go to Christ and say, no, don't take that. Against my reasons and emotions, I said this and therefore I stand. And to understand the meaning is, when I say a word of faith, if it's human, I do it. I'll go there, I'll go, I'll take up Christ, I'll be there. I'll go to that home this evening, I said the word of faith, I mean by that, I've got the car, I'll go there, I'll be there. So in half an hour's time I'll be there. So I take up Christ, I'll be there, I said I'll go there, meaning by that I'll be there, but it takes my car half an hour to get there. Now in the spirit realm, the operative power is the Holy Spirit. He's like the automobile. But I have to take the same position. I have to say, I hope it may be. I now said that's done. When I say I'll go there this evening, I mean I'll be there, it takes half an hour in my car. I really mean it, I'll be there, not I may. I'll go there, it means I'll be there, but it takes me half an hour for I'm actually there because I'm human. Now in the same process, that's why the Bible says in faith in spirit, faith, I have to call things to be as though they were, because in God they're already there, there's no time factor in God, no past or future, only the present, so we're there. So I'm there to say that thing is there, meaning by that the spirit is bringing that thing into operation, I said so. So the important thing about faith, once you've said it, you've fulfilled God's word which has said you may, he allows you to put him on the spot. He's going to do it. He says you say it, it'll go. Of course you don't put it out, you don't put the mountain out. You say it'll go means it's the power of God is moving that thing and making the mountain into a plane, making the thing smooth and rough and so on. So you're affirming God's power. So what you're saying, not that you, so you don't question your belief, you're doing what God told you to do, you'll say it, that's all, and you're affirming God's power is doing it. So what you must not do then is step back and question why hasn't it happened. Even if it never happens, if I say that, if I say why hasn't it happened, I mean it has happened, faith says it has happened, not it may happen. It causes things to be not as though they are, not as though they will be one day. That's the important thing, that's the acid test, that's the critical moment of faith. Now you often miss it, I mean, I was reading just now, in our missionary activity, they've put a list, they say we've trusted the Lord in the next two years to send us thirty more missionaries. That's not the answer. They haven't said they're coming. They're kidding themselves. They're substituting what they call trust for self-deceit. They haven't been obedient at all. Their trust, I mean, if they say they've come, see God has no future, no purpose. You say it's come. Faith means those twenty missionaries are there. And if they say the right thing in that magazine, they say watch with us while they come. They won't say we'll trust the Lord in two years we get twenty missionaries. We say watch with us, they're coming. That's faith. And that's how Jesus always operated, you see. He didn't operate by saying with an arm. He said I see a healed arm, it's there, stretch forth your hand, let it heal. You see it healed. As I said previously, when there's a storm on, they're all rough in the storm, and they're sinking, Jesus says peace be still. Isn't it water? Isn't the water peace? Peace is God's calm, God's power, power of harmony which makes calm water. He says there's calm water there. Peace, there's calm water there, you be still. Because of calm water, calm water stops the roughness. See, as seeing a thing as happening, now that's the key. It's precisely the key we use in salvation. I said before you do not get saved by saying please save me, or may I be saved. You say I'm saved because he says so. And then you are. Christ is the person living in me because he is? So you see always the authority is the word of God which says use the word of faith. And so he says that. So Eden says if you want to strengthen your position, you can pray in this sense. He goes on where he says sail to that mountain, whatever comes in front of you, be gone, believe in your heart, have it. Where he says you add this to it, what you do desire, which is your mind is, when you pray you can move on now if you like and pray, which means you're in the atmosphere of the presence of God. Believe you receive. So the centre of prayer is not praying what we call praying, it's not asking, not at all, it's not considering. It's coming to the point of considering situations, that's what we understand, that's what God will do to our minds as well. We say we believe we received. And the important point of that received in the Greek is that we tend to call the heirs to it, which means the thing that's part of it. We say we believe we received it. Now that's prayer. So you don't say I trust, which means you doubt, you say that's a done thing, I'll say it's a done thing, you watch it happen. That's faith. So see we're talking about salvation on and beyond, but you've used it. If you're a saved person, you only got saved that way. If Christ has replaced Satan in you and you know you're Christ in you, you've only got it that way. You have to say with Paul I've been crucified, not I hope I be, I trust I am. He'll say no I don't believe Christ in me, I have to say so. You just said it because of what God says, and he is there. Now you're living by that recognition. Now that's this matter. So I have to move into the situation in which I said I said that boy is saved. Doesn't look it, that's not the point, I said that's a done thing. Now I'm going to live, I do that, I assume I had my eldest son left the Lord years ago and his wife's got saved now and now his granddaughter's got saved, so the poor fellow's surrounded by people now, but he's still a back-shiner. I say he's there watching. I did that to my granddaughter who's just come up for Christ. Several years she's been worldly. Oh no, yeah that's not the point. God, now she's delighting us all with her service to the Lord among us all. I said it. Now you say as a done thing. Don't go back on it then. If it's ever happened, don't say that. Even if it doesn't appear ever could happen, don't say that. It's not your business. You put God on the spot, leave him on the spot. And he asked you to do it, his fault. He trusted you to put him there, put him there, leave him on the spot, leave him on the burner, leave him to get off. It isn't your fault, it's you who said he is doing it, he told you you could do it. Alright, you said you'd do it. And you say God, you said so, up to you now, up to you now, and you've had 20 years, up to you now. That's faith. And so there's a great deal of subtlety goes around when we pretend, you're watching, when you say I believe something, you haven't quite got it. Believe means I'm not quite sure I believe I've got it. I've got it. If I hold, I said before, if I hold a book in my hand and say I believe I've got a book in my hand, that means I've got it. It means I've got a book. So faith doesn't use the word faith. And therefore when you're praying saying I believe, it means you haven't really believed yet, don't kid yourself, you may be on the way. If you believe, you say thank God I've got the thing, it's there, praise the Lord. And the best way is to believe is praising, affirming. That's what we're talking about. Now this is just like you already use it, lift it up now to operate, this is God's operation by you. And it's fantastic using anything, anything within your God reach, you'd better start with using it in your reach, reach higher and better until you're keeping the world free of the gospel, that's a little farther on. Well I'd use it, anything. So using a universal power, what's the power? The power is God does things through his sons. He operates through his son and his sons, that's his way. He brings us into fresh revelation by the operation of his sons. How do I operate? When I go, I say I'll go, then I go. Well now I'm saying he goes. Well on earth if I go, I say I go and I go by my car. Now in heaven I'm saying he's gone, he's gone, he's gone, I'm there. But you must say he's gone, or you don't get the point. There are a great many people today who know Christ as their saviour, but who are still uttering prayers of pleading and Lord I hope you'll do this and please do it Lord, and tacking on the end of it, in Jesus name, Amen. Praying in Jesus name means we pray as Christ prays through us. He tells us what to pray and we speak it into being. It's not just some formula of words at the end of a prayer. Now if you really want to begin to understand this, write for Union Life Magazine. There's an article in one of our issues, we'll be sure you get it, which is entitled Living in Infinite Supply by Malcolm Smith. We want you to have that issue. It changes your whole approach to prayer and what you see happening in life. If you write to 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38118 or call area code 901-795-0121 and ask for Union Life. Until tomorrow, this is David Ord. Well that's about it, really. This is David Ord welcoming you to another Union Life radio broadcast in which Norman Grubb has been talking to us about who we are in Christ. And we're specifically getting into the whole field now of how we operate as sons of God manifesting the life of Christ as living letters of Christ. Now when you get a letter, you don't see the person who wrote the letter and you don't see the pen it was written with. You just get the letter and you catch what's coming through the letter, which may be the love or the joy, the peace, the warmth that's coming, which is really the person coming to you in letter form. Now when Christ writes living letters in our lives, the world doesn't see Christ and it doesn't see the pen of the Spirit that's writing the letter on our inward parts, the heart. All it sees is us. So in a sense, all this world ever sees of Christ is what it sees in us. And we're operating in this dimension as the living Christ because 1 John 4 says as He is, so we are in this world. So we live as Him and His life floods out to the world in rivers of living water. Now Norman's been sharing with us how this happens by the word of faith. Now he made a statement once which really stuck in my mind when he said doubt is the seed plot of faith. Now maybe you thought doubt had nothing to do with faith. So I'm going to ask Norman if he'll explain to us just what he meant by the statement doubt is the seed plot of faith. Only what we've been saying all through these talks that the negative is the base, the founding base for the positive. And you have to have a negative upon which a positive can build itself. That's what I mean. I always use the illustration when you said yes you'll come to a place. Before you said yes I'll be here this evening. You're a busy person. Three times over you said no I won't stop and do that, no I won't do that, no I won't do that. That's your negative. No, no, no I won't do that. When the negative is a firm negative it gives foundation for a firm positive. Therefore what I will do is this. I won't do this, therefore what I will do is this. And it's only a strong yes because it has behind it settled no's. Now the settled no, no, no, no is a foundation for the settled positive yes. But all life is that. That's exactly why we have a saviour because we have sins. There would be no point in a saviour if there wasn't sins for us to be saved from. And this is the whole meaning of life. And it comes in this fallen world because we've stripped into this appearance syndrome. We live by appearances. We judge by appearances. And it's only we who have come out from appearances who have come to learn the reality of spirit, the invisible. Paul says, well we look not at the things which are seen, which are temporal, but the things which are not seen, which are eternal. And we look at them. We say that's the real, the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ. So to speak, they're real. And with them they have a family in heaven. And what's more, all this is just an outer temporary form of that. Which is exactly what science is saying today. This is what it looks like. It comes out of these particles at an incredible speed. We don't even, can't describe them today. They're beyond description. And they even say those particles are light energy, light in energy form. And then we say God is light. So this is God as light come out in energy forms which make matter, and here's matter. So we're now seeing that the whole of this thing, it's really a kind of delusion to think this is the real. It's only an outer form of the real. Now in that sense, therefore, the doubt is the seedpot of faith, because we always start by doubting, oh well, it could be like this. The appearance is like that. There is that need of finance. There is that sickness. Is that person bound up in sin? Whatever you like, large or small. And that's our doubt level. But when we know the truth, we say that's the very thing that sparks out. No, we don't see that. We learn that those things are only appearances, that God meant them to be because God's behind that appearance to come out in a new manifestation. So the very appearance sparks happiness. No, no, no. We know better now. We're seeing sparks of happiness that God's coming through in his manifestation. And that's how doubt is the seedpot of faith. And it works all through life like that. That's why the Bible says that God laughs at his opponents. When they rise up and say, let's cast that bond from us, let's cast him out, he says, he'll sit in heaven, his arms, to laugh, have a laugh. He's not a king if he only heals iron. But that's what's happened. We couldn't get a better example of course these days of communism. Looks built, no power in it. It's an empty thing trying to keep people down. You can't keep people down. They can't do it. They can't do it. They can't stop these dissidents. They can't stop the belief. We see the remarkable fact that God uses the negative to get negative things. There was a vast cloud of negative religion over the old Russia. That ritualistic stuff. Working of icons which had practically no salvation. I know because I was in touch in those days with some men of God in England who were working among the aristocracy of Russia. There were a few aristocrats, some of them doing it. A handful, often a few others, who got saved. But very small. The vast majority of Russians are dissidents. Up comes communism and wipes that stuff out. Oh, that's a bunch of nonsense. Pie in the sky. Cut it out. There's no God. Look at the God who just helps the wealthy and all that kind of thing. Wipe the thing out. Made communism without a God at all. Well, then people begin to see that control by man is only another form of control. Instead of being controlled by a forced religion, now you get control by man and you get all the slavery of communism. And so underneath communism there arises a living faith. There is a living God now. So there are thousands more believers in Russia than there were in the days of the Tsars. It has burst out to spiritual life and it's thrown out to the whole world. And the shock of communism, atheistic materialism, has shocked the world back. Let's find the real faith. So here are magazines like the Time magazine saying there is a restoration to believe in a personal God. Even the big noises of theologians who think they can criticize, even they are saying that today. So it's restored the world to believe in a personal God and then he's sweeped to the spirits here. Also the world. So you have tens of thousands coming to Christ as a reaction. Doubt is a seedpot of faith. It's built up a faith in the free world in which millions are finding Christ. So you never live in a day like it. So that's the way in which we see through. And some of us always say, don't bother about communism, just blow it. We always said, the Bible says the nations are a drop in the bucket. You blow a wind and they disappear. They're like dust in the balance. I've always said communism is just dust. You watch. It's blown away. God laughs at it. He has sent his King as a holy design. His King is crowned in millions of lives today in Russia and out of Russia, in China and out of China. And meanwhile watch that stuff. It will disappear. You can't hold people down under human control. Of course it will dissolve and disappear. So then Norman, you are saying to us that if we see God in the whole of life, we see with a single eye of faith that Jesus talked about, instead of saying, oh, communism is bad and attacking communism and the immorality is bad and attacking that, so that the church is always seen as being against things. Rather, although we recognize it as an evil, we recognize the good God who is out of that negative going to produce a positive. That's what you're saying. Yes. It blocks out faith and love. We contribute negative. Now, while I say negative is communism is wholly evil, I think all communists are evil. They're not. It makes me think, oh, rotten people. They're not. They're precious people. And even the leaders are deceived. They're blinded and they think they've got a philosophy. It works. They've got to find a human philosophy that doesn't work. It never has worked. There's another form of human philosophy that doesn't work. But when we see an evil, we judge everything and we downgrade everything. Instead of saying, here are precious people and God's working in their hearts. Let's see God's working in their hearts. Let's watch God work in their hearts. So it's the same principle, for instance, like Mohammedan, a Muslim. Now, we're inclined to say, oh, they're hard. They're tough. They're Muslims. They believe in the false God. This Mohammed's a false prophet. And you judge him. And you put a barrier. You haven't got faith and love. Now, supposing instead of that you say, wait a minute, that's the only faith they've known. At least Mohammed believed in one God. At least he stood against idolatry, believing in one God. And he never said he was Jesus Christ. He's a prophet. He only said he's a prophet. In fact, he believed in Jesus Christ to a certain extent. And he taught them to bow down and pray to God. That's all they know. And therefore they won't have a faith. Of course, their faith can't give them a living God, because they don't know Jesus Christ. It makes a personal relationship. But they have a sort of faith in a God like this. Best they know how. Now, if I say, oh, they're no good. They're a bunch of tough people. I batter their religion to pieces. All I get back is a battering back. Now, Paul didn't go like that. When he saw them to an unknown God in Athens, they didn't say, that's no good. He says, whom you ignorantly worship, I'll declare, oh, I accept that you're on the way. And that very God you're talking about, you have your being in him. I assure you now, you've got to come to repentance. And through Jesus Christ, you've got to come to salvation. He could put that to him because he first accepted what they were. Now, if we say, well, Mohammed says, they've got strength. He says, like any of us. Oh, I accept the fact that they worship. Maybe it's a fact that they worship one God. That's better than communism with no God anyhow. Let's say that. They've got some moral sense of a kind. And with respect to a certain extent, Mohammed called back people to work. He cut out the authority. There's not an idol in a Muslim, what do you call the place they live, working. They outlawed them. Well, start like that. And then say, now, yes, they said, what do I worship? I worship a living God. I can bow down, even if you worship a living God, this God. But I can then say, but he to me has become a living God to me. I can show how. And he's given me someone which makes me able to be the person I'm meant to be and so on. Now you approach it that way. This then is the positive, confident life of faith where perfect love casts out fear. Yes. And we see God working in everything. Now if you want to understand this more thoroughly, write for Union Life Magazine. There's an article which we want you to have in there. We'll be sure you get that particular issue which is written by Malcolm Smith and it's called Living in Infinite Supply. Now the magazine is bimonthly. It's free of charge. There's no requests for money and we just want to send it to you. It's made possible by others who have given so that you can have it free. Now the address to write to is 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38118. 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38118. Or you can call area code 901-795-0121. 901-795-0121. We're on the station five days a week at the same time, Monday through Friday. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for another in the series of broadcasts on who we are in Christ. Until then, this is David Ord. This is David Ord introducing Norman Grubb with another Union Life broadcast in this series of programs when we're asking who are we in Christ and more specifically now seeing how Christ operates by us in this world. Now I want to ask Norman in speaking the word of faith and in moving out into this world as Christ in His human forms, Christ expressing His life, we being His living letters, all the world sees of Him, quite frankly. If you get a letter, as I said on the last program, you don't see the person who wrote it and you don't see the pen that wrote it. We don't see Christ in this world with visible eyes. We don't see the pen of the Spirit that's writing internally on our hearts. But the world sees Him because as He is in the spiritual dimension, so we are in this world. We're His body. We're His point of manifestation. Now the word body doesn't mean just a nice spiritual phrase. It means that that's where Christ, the heavenly Jesus Christ, is manifest so that the world can see Him. So we then are Christ living in this world. Now we move out by the word of faith speaking into being His words. A lot of Christians are praying prayers, pleading with God and asking with God to please change something if it's His will. God wants us to know His will. And the way we know it is not by saying, Lord, if you'll show me Your will, then I'll take a step. No. The way we know is in the biblical sense of knowing, which means we're mixed with it. We experience it so that we are the will of God in action. Now this is a spontaneous thing. This is rivers of living water bubbling up from us whereby we find that we're speaking into being the will of God through the word of faith. Norman, I want to ask you, just how is it that we can really know the will of God in our lives and can express that will? Can you explain that a little more fully for us? Well, the Bible says we have the mind of Christ. Don't we ought to have, might have, we have the mind of Christ. That's in 1 Corinthians. Well, the mind of Christ is Christ thinking things in His way. So, in this union life, I'm not living by a kind of mystical separation which has a God somewhere, mystically can speak to me somehow through the clouds or through an angel or something, and I've got to have something conveyed to me. The secret of the gospel mystery, as we call it, which you come into, is a union in which we are functioning as He. It's an actual union in which we are He in our human forms. It's He with a form of him. And so, we are He. Now, I therefore don't find the mind of God outside. I interpret it as how things come to me. And the mind of God or the mind of Christ is, as I'm in situations, I first adjust that negative. My first tendency always is to see the appearance and be bothered by it and say it's hopeless and difficult. That's my negative background. I always get that question, shout, shock and so on. But when I learn to say, wait a minute, that's not it. I replace this negative thing by saying, this is Christ in the situation. He's there imitatively. He's there. Now, I'm now in a spiritual, I mean, spiritually in tune. I'm able to see from the heaven. It's not from the earth. Now, then, in that situation, I understand I am the one by whom He expresses His mind. I haven't got to find Him. I am, therefore, Him in expression. So, the next thing I do is, I just consider the matter. Now, what appears to me to be the answer in this situation or the supplier of the need? What appears to me? Now, I may take time or I may not, as the case may be. That's where the word we've already said comes in, the poor Jesus. What's the word? Ye desire. Ye desire. Well, then, I take that to be the mind of Christ. And I move in and settle and say, that's the answer. I, therefore, will be bold and say, that's what He's done. As He said, what I desire, I believe I've received, and I'll have it. That's what's done. So, the mind of Christ, in my mind, is just coming through my mind. There's nothing, what we may call, weird or fanatical about it. It's the next stage, because I'm this new kind of person, which is a spirit person in human form. And I interpret things from the Spirit, which is the mind of the Spirit expressed through my mind. That's as I see it. So, I've never, we've run our mission from a handful until today. We had about 1,500 missions carried all over the world. Where we started, that first year, we had about $5,000 for 35 missions. Today, we get several millions every year. We never ask for a penny. We never ask a man for a person. God sent them all these years. Now, all the way along, we've built always, by the next step, what we think the next thing we should do. What next field lies available? What's the next area we should be going to? What next workers do we need? And we've done it through our own minds. We say, well, we need new workers for that field. Or we need money, or something like that. All right, we say, now we moved in. We hereby receive this worker, this financier, and we'll move into this field. That's how we worked it. Today, we're a huge mission worldwide, where we're just a little scrap in one corner. So, our operation in the mind of Christ has been, through our minds, when we're a team or a fellowship, then it takes a little longer, because the fellowship must consider it. Leadership is a fellowship, probably, if the leader is the one who has probably been the first to say, as for me, I see it that way. And then, as I see it that way, I say, now, is she seeing it with me? We all say it's so. And we were talking about when we were over in the British headquarters of our mission last year. And they'd been moving in, by faith, some new buildings they had to have. The government made certain requirements, certain sizes. And they had to have considerable sums to pay these builders each month. It's finished now. It came altogether to about £100,000. And they actually told the builders, the firm. They said, we have no guarantees, but we trust our Heavenly Father. That's all we can offer you. And these world people turned back and said, we'll take the same guarantee as you. That's pretty bold. They said, we'll trust your Heavenly Father. They didn't pretend to be Christians. And we were there, a little thing. We were there one week. And they happened to be there. It was only down in private, because they must make these financials known in public. About 80 of us in the inner circle were with them that day. And this leader came and said, I better tell you, folks, I've got to pay a bill of £8,000 tonight. I've got to pay it. And we're still, I think, about £600 short or something. Well, you may not see very much, but when you got on the spot, these are not givers. These are missionaries. They haven't got the money. They couldn't be the ones to give us. It was the Lord's saviour somewhere. And so he quietly said, all right now, we'll take your guarantee. By tonight you'll be there. That's all. No big noise, no big shouting and praying. We don't want to, of course. God's doing this thing. Therefore, if you've paid by tonight, it's somewhere it's coming. Sure enough, he came next morning and said, by the night it was there. We paid out. Little thing, but that happens dozens and dozens and dozens of times. And the whole mission has been built on that. It's built on the principle, when you're... But it's a team. It may take time. To settle a thing, I mean, at one time we saw five new fields in West Africa. In those days, many fields hadn't got much gospel in them. Senegal and what was then Portuguese Guinea and Ghana and Ivory Coast. Well, there was some work, but there were areas that hadn't got much in. Well, we saw that as God's commission. We took a map and we put five arrows. And we said, here with God, we're watching you set the pioneers for each of those fields. And within about a year, they're all there now. Those fields have been built up. There are large churches of Christ all over the day. All we said, they're coming. We said, they're coming. We offer it like that. Well, therefore, the mind of Christ says, what's the next thing in our commission? Keep it within your commission. I used to say in those days, be like a horse that has what we call blinkers, I think called blinders over here, to keep them looking straight. So don't look this way, that. Stick within your commission. And I spent, when I was a young Christian, I read, it says, what's the reason to ask him my name, that will I do. I said, if I ask the whole of London to be converted, I know they won't be. Won't work. I missed the fact that you, your, your, your, your, your, water is within your commission. Get your commission. Moses got his commission. He'd get the manna as commission. He'd get the water as commission. He'd get, of course, the Red Sea as commission. That's his commission. Now our commission concern, getting new fields open, new areas of the world where they haven't had the gospel, getting the workers out any period of demand, getting the money needed to send them out, that's our job. So in that we operate. We just said, come along, come along, come along, come along. We've been coming all these years with this big number of 1,500 Western workers and thousands of precious Africans and Indians that operate today. So the mind just comes through this. In the case of a number of people, it might take us a week or two for 50 of us to agree, yes, that's it. We might talk it out. But the leader probably would have probably said yes, but he mustn't lead us to get people to follow you, not to make them. You have to wait until, oh yeah, we see, but now let's go into it. Then we say so. So we say it's a very common sense life. It's just being yourself as you are Christ, so believe that he does stick through your mind and feel through your feelings and cause you to be confronted with that thing. Just be stirred to confront it, because that means God says, I've got nothing to do by you in that situation, so I mean you to be confronted with the negative, that you may turn it into my positive, which is saying, I've done that thing, God's done that thing, and I'll be the agent in which he's done it. And that's why that scripture comes in, before they call, I will answer. Answer before you call. No, answer after you call. Before they call, which means God's already got the answers. He's universal. The bread's already there for the 5,000 before you thank for it. And the fish is in the sea before you thank for them, and so on. It's already there. So before we call, the answer's there. But he only comes out through his sons. The universal person comes through his particular form, and his son forms. So it comes through us. Therefore, the call is to make us say, come on God now, I'm disturbed by this. You made me disturbed, but I may be the one who says, God, you've done that thing in this situation. That's where my faith comes in. It's really his faith operating in me, and therefore I'm there saying, God, you've done that thing. Then what's his answers? OK, he says, the answer's here. Now it'll come through. That's what we understand to be. I'm always here. It's workable. As I say, I took it up 50 years ago when we had this little group of missionaries, and we were so starved that first year. We only had $8 for each person for a whole month in Africa. Not a week, only a month. Nothing. But God would give us the commission that we were to go to any part of the world, within just where I had been in the heart of Africa. He says, how can we do that? We had that commission to our leader, so he knew he'd got to be with the Lord, to eat his salad. We knew, therefore, that it was within our reach, the commission. How do you do it? By faith. What's faith mean? Then we found that faith means, we found it from Joshua. When Joshua had the command to cross the River Jordan after Moses was dead, God gave him general command, cross the Jordan. And then we said that after God had given this, had this interview with Joshua and given this general command, Joshua said a remarkable thing. Joshua called together the officers of his army and made the statement, prepare you food, logistics, for in three days you'll cross this flooded river. Well, we said, who gave his orders to say three days? All God had said was cross the river. Then we saw, God puts himself at our disposal. You put the details in, you're the son, put the details in. I'll do the practical, through your practical faith. You put it, it was Joshua put the blank, in the blank check, put three days. Oh, we said that thing, we put in the God's blank check, which is universal, so I said, we want this, we want this. And we'll have it. We've done it ever since, for years, from when we were 35 missionaries hanging on the edge of a precipice, we're now 1,500 foreign workers, and as I say, the Lord's just done the thing, so there's his churches popped out all over the place. This is a tremendous message on how we operate in life as Christ operates through us. He speaks things into being in our hearts and we speak it into actuality as we speak this word of faith and say it's done. Now, we want you to understand this message more thoroughly as you follow it in print in Union Life Magazine. The magazine is free of charge, bimonthly. There's a wonderful article by Malcolm Smith we want you to have in the magazine on living by infinite supply. So write for Union Life Magazine to 4606 Lamar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38118 or call Area Code 901-795-0121. That's 901-795-0121. Until next week, we're on this station five days a week at the same time. This is David Ord.