Norman Grubb explores the profound questions of life: what it is, how to live it, and why we live it, emphasizing that true humanity is found in self-forgetfulness and spontaneous expressions of God's love. He asserts that Jesus Christ is the embodiment of life and love, and that our existence is meant to be a reflection of God's self-giving nature. Grubb highlights the importance of recognizing our relationship with God as one of union, where we live not for ourselves but for others, embodying the love that God has poured into our hearts. He concludes that the essence of Christianity is not about self-improvement but about allowing God to live through us, transforming our lives into expressions of His love.

We have already prayed, so we needn't be like the heathen and make vain repetitions, need we? I can only share with you and hope that it is only the application of what's already given us in the scriptures, I think, based on all I say and what seems to me the scriptures of truth are saying to us. I have, through a number of years, felt the need of a coordination in my understanding of life, like putting bits of a jigsaw puzzle together. And so I have, kind of, sought, in God's word, other books which have helped other people and so on. What I'm saying now is really just an attempt to share with you some of those things which seem to me to be comprehensive, understanding, shall I call it, the facts of life. There are three questions I've asked myself last year or two. We'll stick to one answer as far as we have time. One is, what is life? And the other is, if I know what life is, how do I live it? And the other is, if I know how do I live it, how to live it, why do I live it? What is life? How do I live it? Why do I live it? Now, I would say all I seek to say relates to humanity. Our interest, in the end, is ourselves. That's all we can have. So, what I'm talking about is, what is the answer to our human problem? What is life? And so on. I think that's what the Bible is, the book about man, man's creation, man's deviation, man's restoration, man's activities, man's destinies. So, we want to center around that. But now, to start getting facts into focus, I've found I've had to go, what I'm saying is obvious to most of us, of course, to the other end, which is, we've got to forget ourselves as humans before we can find ourselves as humans. We don't become real humans until, as it were, we disappear as humans and then have to reappear as humans. And the disappearing act comes first. What I mean is this, I've never found an answer to life, and don't believe this one, until I found that the Bible presents me with the fact that there's only one person in the universe, there's only one person in the universe. My evidence for that, for instance, is where the Bible says only one person says he's the life. Well, if he's the life, that's all there is. Jesus Christ said, I am the life. The Apostle John, interpreting, said, I'm going to write about that eternal life, which we've seen, touched, and handled, which is Jesus Christ. It's a big thing to say, and I mean it. Like the Bible says, Christ is all. That's a big statement. That's in Colossians 3, Christ is all. Christ who is all in all. If he's everything in everybody, there isn't much left, is there? The ultimate is that God may be all in all. I'm saying, again, the strong thing, I don't believe I've ever come to the focus until there is only one person in the universe, and the whole universe is this person by different forms manifesting himself. Everything else is derivative. What took me further into putting this fact, this person, into focus was what Jesus said of him. Now evidently we can say Jesus is the final authority on God, being God himself and being the Son of God, and he made the starting statement that God is spirit. Very simple. He didn't say that to a theologian. He said it to the woman at the well. God is spirit. Now the significance to me of spirit is this. The spirit is the within person. He's the within person. Now we know the spirit is the within person because the Bible also says later on that we're spirits. In Hebrews 12 it says God fathered our spirits. In other words, what we understand by spirit, it may be perhaps a biblical older terminology, but it means you're humans yourself. Yourself. That self which you can't describe, you can only affirm. You can't describe yourself, you try. You can only say, well I am, I suppose. It's exactly what God said of himself. He said I am. Of course the difference between God as spirit and us as spirit is you have to put a name after the I am because you're only a little bit of a person. So you have to say I am Bill or I am Jane. God just says I am and put the whole dictionary after that one. Because he's the whole lot. But the significance of what I'm saying is this. I'm saying therefore I'm to recognize God as a within person in the same sense as you are a self and you're within. Now you as a self are meaningless unless you have a means of expressing yourself. Just to be a self, I, thinking within self is meaningless only you have attached your spirit, your self, for a means of expression which is your reason and your emotions and your body, your soul and your body. And by those means you express yourself. Now there must be spontaneous means of expression. It must be perfectly natural and perfectly easy for you to express yourself through your physical, through your emotions, through your reasons, a part of you, yet you're deeper than them. Now this is the relationship between spirit and its means of expression. Now why do I say that? Because therefore when God, Jesus, says God's a spirit, he's a meaningless person unless he has a means of expression. And I'm to understand then that the whole universe is this person expressing himself. In other words, I've taken God up from up there and put him inside here. Now being universal he may be everywhere, but as I haven't got to the galaxies yet I'm not so interested in them. When I get there I'll find out. But I'm very interested in humanity. So what I'm saying is this fact. I've had to relocate God. I had to find not a person way up there somewhere I've got to approach somehow, a person who is, he is everything. Everything's a means of expression. In the same sense as you're not exactly your body but you might be near to it. There's so much part of you, it isn't exactly you but it's part of you. Now the whole universe is this person actually expressing himself. It's his formative expression. That's what Paul said. Paul said that the non-Christian was without an excuse because they could perceive the invisible God by the visible because he's expressing his Godhead exactly. In other words, I'm to begin to find every single thing is a form he takes. There's no single thing that isn't universal which isn't some form that God takes. Here he is, here he is, here he is, this is a form he takes. Of course I have to pass over many of these things quickly because I need ten hours for one hour. Best we can about that. Now, the next thing I see with this is that as we accept the foundation the Bible gives us, which is the foundation of this universe is a person. He's a person, a thinking, willing, acting person. A person can't express personality through things because things are limited in their means of expression. Personality is unlimited, the potential is unlimited. Therefore, a person can't express personality through a tree. It can be one form of what he is it can't suddenly become a chair or something, it's a tree. Now how can a person express himself as a person by persons? Therefore, what we're saying, what I claim the Bible is saying, is the only reason for the existence of humanity is to be spontaneous expressions of deity, but it must be spontaneous. Exactly the same as your body must be a spontaneous expression of you. It must just be perfectly natural for you to function through your reasons and your emotions in your body. It mustn't be something put on or something worked up, something natural. Now the only reason for the existence of humans is to be perfectly spontaneous expressions of deity. And only when I'm a spontaneous expression of deity am I a real human. If not then I'm a subhuman. And it's got to be in a relationship, as I say, spontaneity means that he and I are in such a relationship that I'm living and yet is he living. It must be something you can forget. Actually the relationship of God is something which should be forgotten. This life is not a becoming, it's being. It's a becoming to be. Thus, for instance, John said this, John takes us to the top of this thing in his letter. For instance, he says this, as he is Jesus Christ, so are we in this world. Not so ought we to be, not so are we not, not so might we be, so are we, that's being, in this world. It's something about us that we are he, as he is, so are we. That's not becoming, that's being. Now you become to be and then you forget how you become. That's why what we call the gospel is something we've had to forget and now live. The gospel is equivalent to a foundation. Now we're not bothered about the foundation of this building, we take it for granted. We need to have one. Well, we're living in the superstructure. Now the gospel is a foundation you haven't forgotten to live. Or like the bible says, Christianity is a way. Now we're not bothered about the way under our car or we want a good strong way and we just drive on it. You forget the way and drive. This is the meaning of our relationship. There has to be a relationship to us to God which you forget and just are. Not something you've got to keep going somehow, something which is and you're living now as a consequence of it. This is the relationship. This is God in a relationship to man that man just is and that is God expressing himself. This invisible person through his meaning expression. Now the other fact which soon arose to me when I was considering these things obviously is this. If it's true that there's only one person in the universe and the whole universe is this person expressing himself by that variety of means, I better find out what kind of person he is. It's rather important. He's the only one there is. And mind you when I say I include evil as well as good, I include devil as well as man, everything, the devil is only a negative expression of God. Every single thing, everything that is is an expression of God and nothing else. I'm not separating saying there's some here, some there, there's only one. That's a big thing to say again. But as I say, if he's the only one, it's rather important what kind of person he is. Now we come back to the Bible again. And if there's a three-worded statement saying God is spirit, there's a three-worded statement saying God is love. But there again I've found all the time I have to go back and seek to find something near the ultimate significance of the thing. The Bible is a book of ultimates. Light is an ultimate. It's an absolute. And I have to get back to the ultimate of absolutes. Now the reason is this. If biblical standards or statements are too hot for us, we cool them down a little and take part of them and say it's the whole, which is always very convenient. For instance, we take a word like love. We say love, well, all right, I love means I'll give something, my money will keep plenty too. I'll give something as long as it isn't too inconvenient for me to give. We divide the word in half. Now I go back to the Bible, what do I find? I find some startling things. For instance, Jesus was God in the flesh. Therefore Jesus was love. Now how did Jesus, what illustrations or analogies did Jesus give of himself? Well, for speed's sake, take two. He said I'm the living bread, didn't he? He said I'm the living water. What's bread? Bread is something which once lived in a cornfield, now it's you. You've eaten bread and you live by bread. Love means you live other people's lives. Love means the only meaning of life is others. God's only life is other people. God's life isn't living in himself. God's life is living in us. That's what bread is. What's water? Water starts in streams, ends in us. The meaning of water is us, is we. If we don't drink water, if vegetation doesn't drink water, as you know around here, not much hope. But the existence of water is we living, not it living. Now you see the character of God. I said before, it isn't difficult to see that everything is an actual form God takes. Why? Because every single thing in the universe is something whose real existence is for somebody else. I don't know, these aren't days of wood, that's a wooden desk. That was once a tree. It's now a desk for somebody. His real me is to be a desk for me. Every single thing in this room is something which has an individual life away somewhere or other. It's now become something for me. This is what life is. Now the important bit, that's what I am therefore in this union life. If I'm a manifestation of God, life for me means others. It means my real life is insofar as I'm involved in other people's lives. So I'm my neighbour really. We are our neighbours. God's us. That's exactly what love is. That's exactly what Jesus became. Became us, exactly. That's why we're redeemed. He is us now. Christ is our life, it says. Where is your life exactly, isn't it? You see how absolute it is? This isn't a life of fooling, it is a life of absolute. Life of ultimates. Now that, again proceeding as quickly as we can, raises another immediate question, a very important question. The essence, the meaning of personality is unlimited potential, unlimited potential. The meaning of personality is a freedom which can produce unlimited potential, which is around us. Unlimited reproductions of the human mind. Marvellous. It's a marvellous world, isn't it? Marvellous. See what comes out of the applications of the human mind. That's what personality is. In other words, what personality really means is this, it's freedom, but actually, I have to point this out, freedom means something a little different from what we think. Why? Freedom doesn't mean being anything. You can't be anything. Not one of you being anything. You can't sort of be anything. You all come down to be something. Or life is moving from anything to something. And what freedom means is the capacity for choice. And we may take capacity for right choice. And freedom means the capacity for making right choices, and then your freedom is in the development of that choice. Now take for instance, you chose to come down here. Alright, we hope you made the right choice. Now, what's your freedom? Your freedom is being stuck here and you take what you get. That's what your freedom is. Your freedom is, you exercise your freedom in absorbing or giving what is part of the complex. That's your freedom. All life is built on that. Freedom isn't being anything. It's making intelligent choices, and then your freedom is the development of that choice. All professions are that. You take seven years to learn to be a doctor. Now, you could change, being human, but probably your whole life then is the development of nothing. Your freedom causes you to choose a certain line of profession. Now your whole life is the development of medicine, development of business, development of law, development of motherhood. Marriage is meant to be that. Marriage is meant to be a sensible choice. And having made a sensible choice, your freedom is expressed. All your family freedom is within the limits of your marriage, the development of your marriage. Now, it's a very interesting and marvellous thing to me, I've discovered, that God's made a choice and God's a fixation. And therefore, it isn't really a fact to say God's unlimited, because God isn't unlimited, he's limited. Because the Bible says so. The Bible says on two occasions, God that cannot lie, that's his letter to Titus, and God, in a way, it is impossible for God to lie, same phrase, that's in the letter to Hebrews. So there's something God cannot do, not didn't do, shouldn't do, might not do, cannot do. That's a strong thing to say about God, isn't it? The Bible says so. Why? Because freedom is the capacity to make a right choice, and your freedom is the development of that choice. What's God's right choice? God is a primal self, the first self, a self that must love itself. That's what a self is, a lover of itself, affirms itself, loves itself, is itself. Now, how would it express its love of itself? There are only two ways in which it can express it. Fundamentally, a self can only express its love of itself by saying everything is for me or I'm for everything. There's only two ways. Either I express my love for myself with every mortal thing a person is for me, no matter what happens to them, everything is for me, or I express my love of myself by being for everybody and everything. Self-getting, self-giving. They're the only possible fundamental choices of a love. Now, the Bible says God's made a choice. Why? Because it says God cannot lie. What lie? Lying, of course, is preserving my own skin at your expense. God cannot preserve his own skin at other people's expense. He gives his skin to other people. God cannot be a self-preserver. God cannot be a self-seeker. He cannot be a self-lover. He cannot be a self-lover. He can only be a self-giver, that's love. What a tremendous fact. At the basis of the universe, a person who can only be loved, and every single thing he does is a development of this basic choice. Freedom is the unlimited development of your choice. A doctor is the unlimited development of medicine. A self-giving love, a person who is self-giving love, is an unlimited development of self-giving love. So there isn't a single thing God can do which isn't a form of self-giving love. That's tremendous. That's love. That's what you and I are in this new relationship. As he is, so are we. This has no point unless it comes back, or functions back, in our humanity. Now again, I've got to hurry quick, because there had to be, therefore, if God is to express his unlimited potential through the unlimited forms of humanity. See, the whole meaning of humanity is your name, say, is Bill. All right, you're Christ and he's Bill for. If your name is Jane, you're Christ and he's Jane for. If your name is Tom, you're Christ and he's Tom for. That's all life means. An infinite variety of forms, which is one person's expression of human potential, in all forms of self-giving love. This is what life is. But of course that means the preservation of freedom, the infinite delicacies of preservation of freedom. The moment you touch freedom, you've got the curse of the world, you've got dictatorship, all the problems. The beauty of God is the preservation of freedom, is he wins us, so we freely join him in a certain relationship, and then we become the free expressions of the freedom of God, and the freedom of God is self-giving love. Then you've got your freedom. There's got to be freedom. So, we come to the human history of humanity, and the potential for the freedom, and the wrong choice. Mind you, there's something in making the wrong choice. God must have adults. God must have people who know themselves. God doesn't want a bunch of kids. He wants people who know they've got their powers, who know they've got their passions, who know they've got their business. That's what maturity is on any level. You know your job, then you use it. So God must have people who know themselves. The fall was a wonderful, delicate way in which God brought our forefathers to know themselves. I mustn't spend too long on this, but that was the inner meaning of the temptation, because by the temptation they could find their potential. For instance, the temptation to Adam and Eve was, oh, this will make you wise, to find that he had a capacity for wisdom. Or, this will be nice to eat, he has a capacity for self-gratification. Or, this is nice to look at, he has a capacity for acquisition. So, humanity, through the temptation, has developed to find his potential. The trouble is this. There are only two alternatives. There is only one person in the universe, and that one person is self-giving love. If you're not spontaneously part of him, you're self-loving love. You can't be nothing else. A human, the human race is made as part of God. Everybody's part of God. Every single thing is part of God. The devil's part of God. Everybody's part of God. There's only one being. And the Bible says, everybody has his being in God. You can't have anything else. So, the only way in which a human can be spontaneously a self-giver, is if he is spontaneously part of the self-giving person. The moment a person pulls himself out, that's what freedom is. You can do so. Although, in a sense, it's an illusion. You pull yourself out and say, I'll be myself. You're a meekly self-lover. That's the problem. And that's what's happened to humanity. The Bible tells us this doesn't start with humanity. The Bible says there was another person of another created order of beings. Spirits. They're called spirits. Angels. We've got the whole idea that angels flap about with wings. We find that a bit difficult when we get there. They're called spirits. Persons. A spirit's a person. I can't stop at great length. But the Bible says there was a created person. A created person's a free person. Has the capacity of a choice. Who could have remained part of God as, therefore, a manifestation of the self-loving, self-giving of God? Instead of that, he's tied a new order of beings. He says, not at all. I'm perfectly free. I love myself. I am myself. I'll be for myself. I'll make the whole damn world for myself too. That's a devil. And he formed a kingdom of hell, chaos, darkness. All the powers of the wrong realm that captured us all. The king himself says this. He's called a god because a god doesn't originate. He's only a human. I mean, he's only a created being. God handles him. The devil's just a convenience. Why? If we had no devil, we'd have no Jesus. Anyhow, so thank God for the devil. He got Jesus Christ crucified for us, so thank God for him. Anyhow, he gave us Jesus. God's too clever for the devil every time. Doesn't look like it, but he always is. But he's only an agency of God, a negative agent, that's all. Well, but he was an agent. He did form this kingdom, an opposite kingdom, anti-kingdom. He got that into humanity. What happens is a human exists to be motivated by a spirit who is God. A divine spirit, related to his spirit, but which motivates him. That's the meaning of those two trees and two fruits in the Garden of Eden. Why do we know that? Because we are told that the tree of life, the other one, gives eternal life. A tree doesn't give eternal life. A fruit doesn't give eternal life. It's a symbol, of course. What gives eternal life? God gives eternal life. Now, we know that taking that fruit symbolizes eternal life. Why? Because you still do it. Every time you take the Lord's Cup, you take the fruit of a tree to symbolize a person. You take a fruit of the bread and the wine to symbolize you're taking Jesus Christ to life. So the symbol runs right through history. And what happened at the fall is quite simple. The wrong God got inside. And humanity became captured in its freedom, mind you. But I might have stopped too long. Actually, it wasn't an ultimate freedom. There's a somewhat superficial choice you make, and there's an ultimate choice. Now, the Bible says this satanic person made an ultimate choice. He became fixed as a self-lover. To him, good was evil and evil good. He's a total pervert. Self-loving is good. Self-giving is bad. He's a total pervert. Now, the human race hasn't gone so far as that. They've got the Bible caught up and attracted and tempted by this person and joined this person and became captured by him. But they haven't given their whole being to him yet. The proof is that God communed with them at once. God doesn't commune with them, there's no doubt. That's why humanity is redeemable, thank God. We've been captured by the spirit of Satan. The Bible says this, we walk according to the course of this world, and it's now under the inclination. We walk according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the pardia, the spirit that works in it, the children of disobedience. And we produce the products, which are the fulfilling desires of the flesh and the mind. That's it. Actually, the fact about humanity is this. This relationship, the Bible says, John says this, for instance. John says, greater is he that is in you. Now, that refers to the redeemed people, meaning the Holy Spirit. The greater is the Holy Spirit, the he that is in you, than the he that is in the world. He says there's a he in the world. He says, they gives him their two names, this is 1 John chapter 4. Hereby know we, these spirits, remember the spirit of God, these spirits of truth, that's the Holy Spirit, this spirit of error belongs to him. So humanity has been captured by a false spirit. Now, a spirit can be so deeply united to you, you don't know he's there. That's what to a certain extent happens in the new life. When you've got into this new union, you're fixed in it, you sort of forget God and live, that's the fun of it. He's so deep inside you, you just live. This is what life is. It isn't a sweating at it. You've been gutted, I've been trying to escape for you. I've been trying to escape for seven years and can't do it. What is fortune you're done for. You just live. So in the old life you just live, not recognizing who's motivating you. Now, why do I say that? Because the whole basis of Christianity, of truth, is not to dissolve the human, but to redeem, to relieve the human. Now, if you've got an idea the human is something nasty, how do you get the nastiness out? And you've got Christians who drag their feet, oh I oughtn't to be like that, I oughtn't to grumble, I oughtn't to have this, I'm a nasty person. Then you remain nasty and think everybody else is nasty too, because you always think other people are what you like. Because you've got a wrong concept. The human is never nasty. The human is captured by a nasty or nice God, that's all. That's all. There's only one type of humanity. That's us, with our appetites, practices and so forth. But we can be under the dominion of one or other of two gods, not interchangeably. I'm talking about the potential. Once you've made the change, it's fixed. Thus, for instance, the Bible says about the Christians, seeing as you've put off the old man, put on the new man, the man doesn't change. You're just the same funny fellow you always were, only a bit funnier maybe, that's all. But the person inside you changes, the old is the old God and the new is the new God. That's how the old man becomes the new man. Now, why do I say this? This only is the purpose of Christianity. The purpose of what we call the gospel was change of gods. That's all. Why? Because the most tremendous thing that's happened, the greatest potential God has of revealing the unlimited potential of self-giving now has been lost to him. We've stolen property. We've produced goods. We've been stolen by the devil. And the whole glorious human race, with its glorious potential, has been producing products of self-centeredness, self-seeking, self-aggrandizement, self-giving. We've lost property. And the highest we can have, why? Because you can't create higher than yourself, or you have somebody higher than God. So when God creates us like himself, he can't create higher than himself. Poor God, he's caught on to us, but he likes us not. He creates us on his own level. So he's lost the topmost of his creation. Now, what's the gospel? The means by which God regains his stolen property, that's all. We're stolen property because the wrong spirit got hold of us, the spirit of self-centeredness. The gospel is the means by which the spirit of self-centeredness is put out, the spirit of self-giving is put in. We begin a life in a spontaneous union with the spirit of self-giving. And ourselves begin to produce the products of self-giving. Love. This is the new love. And that was this amazing revelation of this gospel, that God became flesh. It's tremendous. Absolutely it is. Absolutely it is. Nothing else can give you God except Jesus Christ. Who else could believe that God could take humanity to be up with himself as his own family? He had to come down to do that, to take it up there. So God became man, and man becomes God. This is what's happened to us. It's tremendous. This is the benefits of the Incarnation. That's why John makes so much of it. But do you see significance? You see here, love in action. And this is what we've become. Do you get the idea? Love is, you live other people's lives. Now, love is a remarkable word. Because love really means, love belongs to need. It's the slave of need. What do I mean? Well, I was puzzled for a long time by that verse, that statement of the Apostle Paul, about going with the gospel to the world. He said, I'm a debtor. I owe a debt to the Jew and the Greek and the wise and the unwise and the barbarian and the Scythian. I said, why debtor? You may say, I'm privileged to go. All right, I'll give it to you. A debtor means you're owned. A debtor is owned by his creditor. He's the property of his creditor. In what sense could Paul say that he's a creditor who owns me, has a right over me? Because love belongs to need. Love means you belong where need is. Need has a claim. This is a new life. Need has a claim. Now, do you see how you love your enemy? How do you love your enemy? Because an enemy is a person who's hurt himself more than he's hurt you. Now, of course, we subtle humans, we hurt another person and then we say there are enemies. I don't mean that kind of hurt, when we've done the hurt and then say there are enemies. I mean the sense in which a person really hurts you, unjustifiably hurts you. He's not hurt you, he's hurt himself. The murderer hasn't hurt the murderer, he's hurt his own self. So, that spirit inside you which calls you to do the wrong, that's the wrong. You are only wrong if you take it like that. Now, do you see God? You see, love belongs to need. Now, you see God in his creation. What happens? Well, we've insulted him, we've kicked him out, we refuse to believe in him, we do what we like, but love belongs to need. He doesn't see how we've hurt him, he sees how we hurt ourselves. And God's hurt isn't that we've hurt him. He's hurt you, that we're hurt. How can he rescue us from the hurt of self-centredness? He comes and takes our place, that's God. He becomes us and takes upon himself what should fall upon us. This is love. Love belongs to need. Do you see how you love your enemy? You love your enemy when you aren't occupied with the way he hurts you. You're occupied by the way he hurts himself, why is he hurting you? How can you move around and help him to see something of another God? Yes, this is God. This is wonderful God. And this is what we call the gospel. God for coming Jesus. So, quite rightly, he calls himself the son of man. He didn't say son of a man, because he was a humanity. Jesus is the opposer of humanity. He's God himself, the opposer of the universe. And the miracle of faith is to believe that he becomes a man. And as humanity, he went through a process which he needed to go through. First he had to prove that he never would take the wrong thing himself. He would never take from the devil, I can't go into that in detail. So he never got captured by self-sacrifice. He remained an expression of self-belief of God. Remember this, Jesus always said God was inside of him. Remember I said at the beginning, God's a spirit who believes. And that was one of the chief lessons he taught his disciples. Because when he was on earth, he kept talking about his father. My father said to me, I do what pleases my father. I do what I hear the father, what I see the father doing, and so on. Well now, because of our three-dimensional outlook, separation outlook, we immediately think of things in terms of height, length, width. So when they heard him say, my father said to me, of course they look upwards. They say, he must be up there somewhere. Then at the end of the last discussion on the supper table, he said, he's going to the father. Now that's got him. And so, and then he said, whither I go you know in the way ye knew. He said, the way you know. Now, using human terms, he was trying to catch them with the same things which they did say. He was pretty clever at getting on with other people. And he said, no, we know not whither you go, nor do we know the way. I am the way. Do you see persons are a way? Do you see the only thing in the universe is this person? All the rest is peripheral. All there is, is God and you and I joining as this body. That's all there is. This is it, this is it, this is the universe, this is eternity. Persons is the way. We are part of the way now. Are the people walking up to find Jesus Christ? Persons are a way. But that's not good enough for them. So one of them, they asked another very significant question. They said, all right then, you talk about going to the father. Sure, sure it's the father. But of course, they immediately, using the three-dimensional outlook, thought, up here somewhere, somebody opened up the heaven and they find God. You know what he said. He said, if you see me, you've seen the father. If people see you, they've seen Christ. Same thing. If people see us, they see God. Exactly same thing. Why? Then he went on to explain. He said, you've got it all wrong. I'm quoting what he said. The words I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, I'm a real human soul, he said, but the father that dwelleth in me. He said, you've got it all wrong all the time. He never was floating up here somewhere. He was inside me. So when I spoke, it was he speaking. When I think, it was he thinking. This is the union. Now notice this. In those chapters, those of you who know your Bible, they're the great last conversation around the supper table. John 14, 16. He never talked about the cross. He never talked about the resurrection. He talked about the spirit. He'd already said God was the spirit. He already said God's inside him. Now he says the whole point is, God's going to be inside you. That's all. The person that I know in this relationship of simple spontaneous union, that I function, but really he's the one there, this is going to be the same as you. And the tone of which could come to pass. That's why, what's called Pentecost. Pentecost's only a date. It means 50th day. It's something that happened to those disciples 50 days after Jesus' death. What happened? A fixed awareness of a union to God. The difference of Pentecost, before Pentecost and afterwards, was before Pentecost, they knew of God external. Crucified, risen, ascended. Suddenly they came to an awareness of an inner union. And if you've had a fixed awareness, so it becomes part of you, you've had Pentecost. The meaning doesn't matter. It means maybe all kinds. But the end matters, but if you went to a fixed awareness, you and God are one person, now you live, and yet you kind of weak your eye all the time. Well, it's an amazing fact. I have a permanent objection that God can live in this kind of thing, but if he made me feel as if he had bad taste or something, I can't define his taste. Laugh as you like. No, it's not I. Now the letters, the epistles, define what they call the Pentecost. What do they say? Paul said, my great secret I'm going to share with the whole church, it's been hidden, he said it's always there, and now it's come out clearly to those who have received Jesus Christ, it's what? Christ in you. Not Christ for you, not Christ up there, not Christ in the past, Christ in you in the hope of glory. And what did Paul say? This is the perfect analysis, this is exactly what he said. He said three things in one statement called Galatians 2, chapter 21. He said this. Three things. I have been crucified with Christ. He's there referring to his own independent self, this false theory of God which has attacked all of us from before, by which we try to live a self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-acting self. That's been crucified with Christ. Now he says, I live, I'm quoting, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Now he kind of corrects himself, why? Because human language can't really put forth dimensional truths, it can only kind of picture it out, it has to say in terms of paragraphs. So he says, nevertheless I live, no, no, it isn't really I, it's Christ lives. You'll never find the key to life until you find it in replacement. The key to life is not God assisting you, it is not God partnering you, it's not God coaching you, it's God replacing you. Nevertheless I live, no, no, yet not I, but Christ lives. And you've made a great discovery in the very center of your being is another being which isn't you at all. And you've entered into this recognition, but that's not the end, that's number two. Number one, I'm out as an independent self, crucified with Christ. Number two, I live, no, no, it isn't I. Now it's a different fact about me. The fact about me is another person who's God himself, it's a person living here, I live, but it's really he living here. The third is, now the life, I now live in the flesh, I live in the flesh, you come back. This life isn't a dissolution of the human, it's a releasing of the human. So if you come back to be a full human, and exhale your full human compassion, but you've learned in your secret which is something you've come at home with, it's a night all really, then you have a big laugh and go and live. It's not just in you at all. Inside you, you've gotten down in the flesh, it's God, now go and live. It's a bad life if you spend it hanging on to him, it's a good life if you spend it hanging on to you. And once he's got there, he's a sticker, God. Once he's got there, he sticks where he is. And if you've been grabbed by God, you've been given up. I'm tired of people saying, how shall I commit myself to God? I say, I don't know, I don't know how to do it. I know God's committed himself to you, so you're done for, better give in. He's kept showing you, as I say, I've spent 47 years trying to escape, I can't, I'm grabbed. This is this life, you're grabbed, not did you grab. The hard life, am I holding on to him, am I waving him, am I seeming very mean, I'm grabbing, grabbing, grabbing, not quite sure he's there all the time. When you understand you've been grabbed and kicked, you better give up. If you don't like God, say, I don't like you a bit, but you've got me all the same, so carry on. I can't do your will, I don't want to do your will, you better get your will working on me, I'm not going to do it. Leave God and mind your own business, your own business. It's a great life if you leave God's mind's business and your own business. Live free. You go and try and go too far, you can't, you're grabbed, you watch. That's this life. Now that's supporting. I'm what this new life is. Now, again, I have to jump quick. That's the process of deliverance that we couldn't, of exchange of gods, exchange of gods, which we couldn't fulfill ourselves. We've been captured in humanity by a false faith. Argue what you like about the theology, you needn't argue about the fact. The fact of egocentricity is obvious. We're completely self-serving, that's obvious, so we needn't bother about the fact whether you like the theology or not. That's the fact. Now, we can't escape. Jesus Christ never was that. He was never captured by that false god. He was always captured by his father. Now, he voluntarily gave himself. He said, he didn't even die. He said, no man takes my life from me, I lay it down to myself. And he went through, on our behalf, as humanity, a process of death and resurrection. This is what the Bible presents. What does that mean? This is humanity dying, humanity being buried, humanity rising again in Jesus Christ. What's the point? Well, one point was that by taking our place and being separated as though a sinner for God, he took upon himself the separation which should come to us. That's how we can be reconciled. He took upon himself the wrath and the curse and the guilt and the condemnation which comes to us because we're lawbreakers and sinners. He took that upon himself. That's why he said he was finished. That's why, incidentally, when he rose from the dead, the rising of the dead is a proof that God accepted the efficacy of the sacrifice. That's why you have no business remaining in your guilt. Forgiveness isn't good enough. Forgiveness isn't good enough. If I forgive you, I know what you've done, and you know what you've done. If you forgive me, you can know what I've done, and I know what I've done. God hasn't given us forgiveness, he's given us what the Bible calls justification. Justification means by raising Christ from the dead, there's no sin there. No business has disappeared. Just as you are my righteous hand, so all those who trust you are involved in you and your righteousness. So it still disappears. Raising God as if it has never been seen. But that's not enough. The Bible reveals firstly the depth of the meaning of Christ's crucifixion and Christ's risen was this. Humanity dying, humanity buried, humanity rising. What's death? Death is separation between body and spirit. Now this was humanity motivated by a sin spirit which produces our self-sentiments. Death means separation between those two. So when Jesus Christ died for all humanity, cut humanity off from that invader that captured us in the fall. A dead body lies a dead body with nothing in it. What's a resurrection? A new spirit coming to the body. This was Christ. This was God's Holy Spirit joining himself back to all humanity receiving. That's the basis of the new union. It's something which was brought out for us 2,000 years ago fixed through Jesus Christ. Operated for us as soon as we in our freedom move in to accept the relationship. Now why do I say that? Because I now have to get on to one, at least this one last point. In all life, a general fact can become only a personal experience by a certain process. Life is the same. There's one God in all life. There's no spiritual section. There's all one. Everything is a form of spirit. This is a form of spirit. I'll slow down so you can see it. That's all. Everything is a form of the one person. That's all there is. So there are special laws for the spiritual, special laws for the material, same laws. Now there's one simple law which is all through humanity. How do I make a general supply or general fact a personal experience? The world's full of general supplies. Food, air, anything you like. Millions and millions of things available. How do I make something which is generally available a personal experience to me? It's what we call the law of supply and demand. Or the Bible calls it the law of faith. Although sometimes that word we've sort of rather forgotten we've missed. What we mean is this. Food, the general supply. Now you have a stomach which has a demand. Now because there's a general supply and you have a personal demand your freedom comes to action and you freely take food into you. That's the law of supply and demand. There's a supply, here's a demand, your freedom operates and you take the food. Then what you take takes you. You had a meal an hour ago. You can't stop that meal and drink plenty of things inside you now. You have to leave it to the meal. The meal's got you now. Whether it's nice or nasty. The law of supply and demand is what you take takes you. This is the law of life. This is experience. What you take takes you. There are 200 chairs in this hall. Very well, the law of supply, general supply. That's what in general way you call belief. Belief's a general thing, you believe lots of things in the vague general way. Faith means you move in in freedom and you lend yourself to the supply. Now there are 200 chairs here. When your body demands a chair, all right, supply, demand, in your freedom you sit in a chair. You're not holding that chair up, chair's holding you up. What you've taken's taken you now. You're held up by the chair. And the whole law of life is that. Sometimes things take longer. You learn a profession, you learn a trade, you learn music, you learn art, you learn a language. The law of supply and demand. The answer's supply, the trade, the language, the art, whatever you like. Now the law of demand, you want this, you choose. You begin to take. Now you don't get that in a day. It may take two years. But what happens is, we'll say in two years time, what you took, took you. And you're automatically a plumber, automatically a doctor, automatically a musician, automatically an artist. It's become part of you. That's how life functions. That's how you become experienced. This is how God becomes experienced to us. This is how this relationship of this person, who is the only one in the universe, who is nothing but self-giving love, who's a bit and so on, becomes part of us. So we become people who live under this new motivation and can't help ourselves. The only difference is this, and a very important difference. In ordinary terms, our demands are there. Your stomach's got your demand. Your body needs a chair, whatever you like. So it isn't very hard to create the demand. It's a different thing spiritually because we haven't got the demand. Because the law of self-centredness is so operated on us, all the people, we don't need God at all. So there's got to be a creative demand on this level. That's the crack-up which comes to us. If you've been a redeemed person, if you are, as many of us I hope are in this room, a redeemed person, you've had a crack-up in the sense of a personality. What do I mean? I mean, you were in a time when you were all right, you had a certain religion, you were a decent fellow, you had certain standards, and you made out you were all right. But you hadn't got God. You hadn't got God. Instead of saying, oh, I'm all right, suddenly you came strict, strict before God, in your own centre somehow. You recognised, no, I'm wrong with God. I've got my dirty centre properly. I've got my self-centredness, my greed, my covetousness. I'm away from God. You've discovered a need. The law of supply and demand, where there's a need, there's a supply. So you never got redeemed until you came to a place of such need in your unredeemed condition that something must relate you to God. Now, when you're in that condition, but you can't see it until you do a thing about it. That's why I like to use the word collapse. A collapse means you're done for. Now, there are two collapses you've got to have. You've got to have a collapse as a sinner, and then a collapse as a saint. And a collapse as a saint is worse than a collapse as a sinner. The collapse as a sinner is this. At last, you give up any claims to be all right with God. You give up any idea that somehow your religion's all right somehow. You collapse. There's nothing you can do about it. Now you're in a condition of demand. Now what happens? You're conditioned to see what? Oh, you can't do a thing. He did it for you 2,000 years ago. That's love. Love exists for need. 2,000 years ago, he came and did for you what you couldn't do for yourself. And by his process of death and resurrection, he took upon himself the good that should come to you, and the separation, and the curse, removed all business, and what we call the precious blood of Jesus. So the thing's up there. Now then, where there's a supply, where there's a demand, you've got your demand, here's a supply, your freedom moves in. In your freedom, you say, oh, that's it. Thanks very much. Every single one of you who redeemed, some way or other, by some means or other, you said that. You said, thanks very much, you're my God. You're my Jesus. You're my Savior. Now what happens? When you did that, what you take, takes you. The law of supply and demand is you take food, food takes you. You take profession, profession takes you. You take a chair, chair takes you. You take Jesus, Jesus takes you. And the proof you're a redeemed person is this. Something's happened inside you, but notice what has happened. You've had peace. You've had a sense of reconciliation. You've gone, that's not enough. What you've had is the first birth of self-giving love. Now have I made myself plain? The whole universe is one person who's nothing but self-giving love. His existence is living other people's lives with self-giving love. Now we've, in our freedom, being allowed to be free so we can re-relate our freedom to him, we've taken the other way around, self-loving love. And so the life we know is egocentric. Now you've cracked up with your guilt and your wrongness, and in your need you've found Jesus, who is God's love, died in your place. You take him, he comes into you. What happens? For the first time in your human history, you begin to love somebody else more than yourself. If you want the simple evidence you're a redeemed person, it's this. You can't help yourself. Inside yourself, there's somebody else you love more than yourself, and that somebody is Jesus Christ or God. The Bible puts it in this terms. For the love of God, not love for God, the whole point is you are nothing but self-love. You can never be anything but self-love. The only self-giving love is this one person from whom we've been cut off in the fall. Now it isn't you've begun to love God. The Bible says this, God's own love has been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. And if you're a redeemed person, why are you here? You can't help yourself. You've got a love for Jesus Christ. You've got a love for God and you've paid a price for it. You've proved that you love him more than yourself. This is the birth of the eternal love. You've become to be the eternal love. The whole point is ourselves in such a spontaneous union with God that we are the eternal love. We are the eternal love. We have it. We are it. And you've begun to express the eternal love, and the first form it expresses is you love God and love Jesus. The next form is, of course, you catch out. You're caught out, because God and his world are identified. We're not talking about a vertical God here. We're talking about God here, where people are, there's God. If you don't feed the hungry, you don't feed me. If you don't visit the prisoners, you don't visit me. If you don't give water to the thirsty, you don't visit me. God's people, God's people. Now, you can't love God and Jesus without loving people. And you've begun to find you want to share with others what you've got. This is it. You've begun to be the eternal love. You've begun to express the union. You've begun to be concerned for others and to share with others. This is it. This is the life. Now, I still have this. My watch says two minutes past three, but I say it's only ten minutes to three. Remember that. So I've got another eight minutes. I want to say one other thing. I spoke of a second collapse, and this is most important, as far as we can get. The first collapse is an unredeemed person, you collapse as far as being all right, and you find you are all wrong. And then you find somebody who's done the whole business for you, and you say, thanks very much. And then the thing began to work in you. What you took took you. Now, the error that remains with us, which bugs us as Christians, is this false idea that somehow we're the people. We've got a life to live. We've got personalities and powers and a business to run and a home, and I'm active. Well, I'd better be active for God now. And I've got the concept that life is we who would be active. Now we want to fulfill God's laws. And we've missed the fundamental bus. The fundamental bus is a human exists to be contained by a God, and then the God operates by the human, and the paradox is we then function as humans, but inside us we know that something's happened. So we function as humans, but inside us there's a new motivation. Now, because we haven't learned that, we go through a whole area in our Christian life where we can't make it work. We want to, but we can't make it work. We can't conquer our sins. We can't love God as we should. We can't love the Bible as we should. If we're honest, we're condemned and guilty Christians now, because we've got to have a second collapse. The first collapse is you didn't do what you should do. The second collapse is you can't do what you should do. The first collapse is you're a guilty sinner. The second collapse is you're a helpless saint, more helpless than a saint. Now, you'll find that takes place somewhere in every life, very often by a surprise. See, if you're prepared for it, you can take it. Usually you're caught out from behind, and something happens in your life which you can't answer, an unanswerable tragedy, something which beats you, and you can't handle it. Thank God. Thank God when you're in a place and you can't handle it. It may be your own sins. It may be some habit. It may be your relationships, something you can't handle, but you love God. You're a redeemed person, and yet somehow your whole Christian life's out of gear because you haven't learned the ultimate secret. Now, I haven't time to give the illustration of how I learned that myself in my own life when I was a missionary in my meeting. Oh, I'll say it very quickly. What I had to find was this. Because I had needs like you have—more love, more power, more peace, more this and that—I thought that with my wrong concept that God would kind of make me different. He'd improve me. I'm still waiting for the improvement after 47 years. It hasn't come one inch yet. So I find God doesn't improve humans. God dwells in humans. They're quite different. I had to discover that the real relationship between a human and deity is the act of a vessel, and that's what you can take. Now, we're modern vessels. We're people. But I told you you're going to disappear as a human before you reappear. We're still at the end of the disappearing act. Something's got to happen to you in which you discover you can't make it work. It's a great blessing when you give up trying to be better, trying to love, trying to be better. Give it up. Tell God you're not willing. Tell God you don't like it. Tell God you don't love anybody. Now you've got to be honest. I'm only a human. That's all a human is. But then you cease to think, I ought to love. I ought to be patient. Stop it. You'll never be. Stop it. Our relationship to God is that of a vessel and that which it contains. But vessel is a biblical word. Now a vessel in modern terms is a cup or pot or something. Now its only function is the capacity to contain. And what you put in the cup doesn't mix with the cup. The coffee doesn't mix with the cup. God does not mix himself with us. He doesn't mix his personality with our personality. We are a human personality. He's a distinct, unique, undifferentiated God, a person. He's the person who's the love. He's the person who's the power. And so on. And he's coming to us. And we have to learn now to get out of the idea we improved. We drop ourselves. Our habit of life changes. Our awareness changes from how can I be so and so. From activity to receptivity. You see, you watch. That's all I can say this afternoon. You watch the main problem we have in life is our self-condemnation.