'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Part 6

Before we enter the Life of the Spirit we must go through both the negations of God:

Not by might
Nor by power

First the natural, then the spiritual.

Twice we are warned; twice we are rebuked for a crime not yet committed, but it is the grace and mercy of God to warn us beforehand, as He did Cain. Zerubbabel was, and we still are, in danger from both traps that lurk at our door. 'Power' is not just a synonym for 'might'; there are two negations - not one, and both doors need to be slammed, if we are to enter into the Life of the Spirit in a particular work of God.

Would He allow us to take up 'Might' and 'Power' without complaint. Absolutely! The warning has already been given; we are expected to seek Him and not to put into motion any mechanical production. Once He tells Zerubbabel, He tells us. It would be so easy to employ all these mighty powers for God and then we could boast that we did it and not God, but on behalf of God, something like a franchise. God may permit this, but He will not bless it. The life of earth is demonstrated by ability and its execution: the mechanical system that produces the end result has an independent life of its own. It is the human system, and it mimics the life of God. Why on earth should we sidle up alongside it and consider it an option or leave it on the backburner? Well, if God doesn't come through we can always . . .

This is treachery. If the Lord bans such modes of being emphatically, so should we. Would we rather fail than embark on a enterprise that is 'successful' for God, yet doesn't have His seal of approval? But we can't upscale! We can't repoduce the franchise model! It's taking too long! It's not going to work like that! There have been too many problems - we should . . . Who is in control here? Who is exerting their power of veto and their power of might? It certainly isn't the Lord.

God will only allow the growth and 'success' of the natural enterprise so that He can eventually chop it down to expose it for what it truly is. If we try to rebuild it, our judgment is sealed.

Our wrists are slapped twice because our natural inclination is to reach for those things that have proved successful, and for which we know and understand and do not need to rely and depend in our weakness upon God. Each little task in church is an opportunity of throwing oneself upon the Lord's mercy and resolutely know nothing but Him crucified. It is His kingdom and not ours and His kingdom is from above. We need to be unplugged and to go off-grid to access the Life of God.

We must meet those negations as deaths; the organic life of the Spirit must come from a seed that must die. The Life of the Spirit is nothing less than the resurrection life that makes dry bones live, but they must be dead first. This is the prerequisite for the Life: death. It is a fast from all the power and might that could simulate the life of heaven. It is the quiet watching of a fire as it dwindles in the evening; it is the waiting for the ripples in a pond to cease, until the very rhythm and beat of human society drops to its resting rate, for it is only out of the Rest of God does God speak and we must work. Surely, by now! No! Past that boredom threshold into a different state of being steadfast upon Him, until the routines are shattered and we see Him. When we see Him, we will see like Him, and then we will be in the Life. Then we will know Him and speak for Him and act for Him.

It is the negations of God that we need to negotiate - but we have circumvented them. We have opted for an empty cross, for a C-section rather than the pain of contractions, for knowing rather than for not knowing.

It suggests to me that if we have entered into the 'Life of the Spirit' all too easily, then we are children. It is most dangerous to be given a job by the Lord for which we are qualified to do, as Zerubbabel was; more as like it is a test. And if we have entered too easily into a project and out the other end without meeting the negations of God or having had them resolved, then was that project God's? If we did not experience the pain and joy of birth, was the life demonstrated the Spirit's? Or did we just use a spiritualised 'might' and 'power'? Did we just counterfeit the work of God and what type of spirit inhabits such a work?

The Self-Sent Judas

We are in a deadly -- yet needless -- competition with the world to prove ourselves. The lust of vindication weighs heavy on the Church's soul to justify its position in the market of the world: to prove itself relevant, contemporary and compassionate. It shouts with the other clammering voices to show how astute we are; we yearn to be listened to, to be taken seriously by the world, to be noted by the world's media. But we are playing their game by their rules and we sink in self-degradation, for the Church -- the vessel and ark of God's promises -- has abandoned the ground for which her Saviour bled and died. We have descended into the fray, into the midst of the battle because we have focussed on men and their needs -- not our Lord. Rather, we should have stayed on the mountain top with our arms outstretched to the Lord, until he had given victory. But we have looked down from the mountain and, moved by the sight of our brothers falling in battle, we have been pulled by an empathy and emotion little better than human sentiment from our ground into the valley. We call this 'love'. It is the disobedience of a deserter.

We have centred on the seen need rather than the unseen Lord of the Harvest. It is easier to look at a physical need, meet it and move on rather than look into the sick dark souls of men, including our own.

We have sent ourselves because we felt vindicated at last by a blanket divine diktat: "Go!" We have run ahead and fallen headlong into a trap. We do not Go! because we or God love the world. We do not Go! out of utilitarian necessity: they need Jesus! We do not Go! out of emotion or empathy or tears. We Go! because we are sent by divine commission, by the Sovereign authority and will of Jesus Himself. There is no other reason that compels us. It is in His name that we go - not ours!

"Stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." (Luke 24:49)

But we have not stayed in the courts of the Lord on the temple mount. We were told what to do; Jesus told us! We have not waited for the Holy Spirit to fill us. But Jesus breathed the Spirit upon us! We have left the city. Jesus sent us; who can stop us? Wait! I know how to do this! I've seen Jesus do it before. WAIT!

We have left the city before Pentecost; we did not stay and abide in the temple. So taken with our cause we have forgotten the reason for the cause and the first cause Himself. We should have waited in the city; we should have met and prayed daily in the courts; we should have pondered the life and death and the resurrection; we should have allowed His Spirit to put together the complete jigsaw of Christ from the Law of Moses to the Psalms and the Prophets; we should have waited until we saw Him who is risen, until we saw Him -- for who He is -- in all His wholeness and perfection and completeness; we should have waited until we got Him, until we got it, until we understood, until we grasped Him, until we had been clothed with Him from on high.

The power for going cannot be separated from Him who sends, and Him who sends cannot be separated from Him who died and rose. We do not go to finish a work for God, as if there is anything we can add! But we go because it is finished. Until we get the perfection of His work, we will always seek to complete something that is completed already, for we have an inferior view of Jesus' work upon the Cross. We cannot leave until we are completed, untilt here is Shalom: no work is perfected until it comes out of the Rest of God. But we are taken with ourselves and the self-importance of our role, that it is an emergency! They need us now. Jesus waited days before raising Lazarus; we would not have waited. We are taken with our trip and our destination and what we will DO when we get there. God is on our side. Our authority, our commissioning, our cause. God does not need us, Jesus has done All. Nothing more need be done apart from obedience.

But we have absconded too early on an errand we thought the Lord had given us . . . just like Judas (John 13:27). We want to do it quickly, in our time. But ultimately we betray Him. We convince ourselves it is God's will: the errand is even performed in front of the whole church, and the apostles look on; the contract is completed in the Temple before the High Priest. We thought we had a cunning way. We thought our way right, but we left before the supper, before the bread was broken and the wine shared. We left to do what we thought was right. We came to Gethsemane too late and from the wrong direction.

Every refusal to wait is a betrayal.

The Crucible and the Mount

The Lord doesn't take the dross from the furnace of our heart continually, otherwise there would not be enough dross to take and some of the gold would be taken with it. Seeing as it is the gold that is precious in His sight and that the purification of our faith is His goal, it would be counter-productive to do it continually. 

 

Yes, we are continually pruified, but even a rose, if it is to produce a pleasing bud, must be pruned in-season, not on a whim. Rather, the Lord allows for the dross to accumulate and, from a willing and obedient heart, take it in one fell swoop: minimising the pain and maximising the benefit. Why submit a believer to continual disaster and trial? For most of us, the only thing that will reduce will be our faith - not our impurity. He knows our frame; he remembers that we are but dust. But if our faith appears to shrink then perhaps that faith was leavened with something that only fire can winnow: perhaps a hidden conceit or false premise – what we thought was genuine has now been made to be false in the crucible of His fire. 

 

Thus there is a rhythm to His dealings; there are seasons and we cannot force his hand - nor should we. If this were the case, we would be trying to purify ourselves - not the Spirit of Holiness. We are the dumb waiters in all this: hidden and a thoroughfare for all kinds of linen, laundry and food.

 

However, there is the trial of Job that looms like a mount out of the darkness. I do not say we shall all take that path, but the closer you walk with Him the closer that Mount gets. Abraham took it with Isaac and the Lord took it with His cross.

 

As He walked, so must we.

The Heart of Offence

How does the self-life respond to truth when it hears it? The spirit of a man, if made alive by God, will rejoice in truth, will love the truth, will delight in it. It is manna to his soul and it is a blessing to his whole being. But how does the flesh hear and respond to truth? The self-life does hear the truth, contrary to what you might think. It is clear that the flesh responds in an entirely different way to the truth. It will engage with the truth for it knows that to let it stand unopposed will mean the end of the self-life: the conscience will revive and respond to God. The flesh cannot allow this to go unchallenged. It has to reason it away; it has to cause the will of man to dismiss it, otherwise the play of self-deception might shatter. It has to somehow render the offence innocuous, irrelevant, inaccurate or pernicious; there are always grounds for this when the truth arrives, for the truth does not arrive in its 'purest' form - it is often encased within and through a human being - the Word always becomes flesh - either in someone we know or in Jesus Himself. Truth is not an abstraction, a creed, a doctrinal statement, though it is never less than these. Truth must be spoken out of the life that gave them birth with the authentic voice of the One who speaks. His Words are Life and Spirit and they are Truth. He is the One who is Faithful and True. Therefore Truth can never be separated from the Spirit of Truth from the person who is true, just as the breath of a man can never be separated from the voice box, instructed by the mind, if the voice is to be heard: if the voice box ceases then all that is heard is an unintelligible rasp, if the lungs cease to breathe out then we mouth soundless words and eventually we suffocate.

The flesh dons a wig and gown and argues it out, reasons it out and toughs it out in the technicality of words that sit upon the page. The Word is judged and our perspective reversed to what it should be. The flesh becomes an advocate to get his client off on a technicality. He sees the surface of the words and no deeper. How can I get around it? His only consideration is the desire of his client, and the flesh life is vain enough and blind enough to think its words will change truth. Everything is negotiable. The mind controlled by the flesh cannot submit to God's law nor will it choose to do so. There must be some kind of exception, some kind of precedent! So we argue, we test and probe and invariably ask more questions under the guise of clarification. We are looking for a loophole. The woman you put here with me made me do it! We must be set free to pursue our desire, nothing must get in our way. We are willing to betray those closest to us for really they were never close at all - not compared to the desire of our own hearts - for our self-gratification. We sell everything to get what we want; we sacrifice and we spend the last dime until we are all alone with ourselves. And this is the cause of loneliness: the pursuit and exaltation of our own personal desire above all else, to the exclusion of everyone else.

If grace abounds because of sin then let me sin more to make grace abound even more.This perverse simplistic logic persuades us that we are doing God's bidding; we are giving him glory. We think we can achieve God's end through our own means, without reference to how that grace was won, attained and paid for. I can still have my cake, I can still do as I want and still glorify God, in fact the pursuit of my desire gives God glory. We think we are so complicated, that somehow sin gives birth to righteousness: if I do evil, good will result. We dissolve it to a law, a mere dehumanised principle: if I do this, this will happen. It is mechanical; it experiments with God's grace; it plays with grace. Lets see. If I do this, what will happen? When the flesh engages with truth it always distorts and warps - it fuses and mixes. When the flesh apprehends truth, it produces religion. When the spirit confronts truth it begets life - after the death of repentance - while the desires of man are always ensconced within a religious form. Truth does not reveal itself by reading ink marks upon a page or by reading a bible dictionary or learning Greek or Hebrew; it only comes when the Spirit of Truth breathes out the words Himself when He chooses to reveal it. The words without the author is a ship cast off from its anchor without propulsion. It will soon dash itself upon the rocks. The exaltation of the words over Him who speaks those same words is another idol worthy of destruction.

'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Part 5

"Power" is the exercise of might and is not necessarily synonymous with authority, but with control and influence. It is that which flows from the explicit ability of "might". It is firmness and hardiness, together with the fruits of such labours. It may even be used in relation to the fruit of the vine or the quality of meat: all derived from the strength of the soil, of the earth, of Adam. Ultimately, it is cold-blooded and morally neutral. It does not care as long as it achieves its required end - to bring something about. It is no surprise one other use of this word refers to a large lizard - also present in the Garden of Eden, that also slid across the ground and ate the dust of the earth. "Power" and "Might" are masculine and earthy; they are from below and speak from the viewpoint of the world with the wisdom of this age. They are potent and seductive and are an ever present temptation to God's people in every work of His church. If such things are utilised the World can make a claim in the Church, the World can exercise influence with the Church; the World becomes a part of the Church.

No!

What must be born must be born from above, and not of this world, so it can be clearly seen as being from God Himself. It is entirely appropriate that the word for Spirit - Ruach - is feminine.

It is clear, given the judgement of the Lord God in the Garden of Eden and the subsequent history of mankind through war and work throughout the world, that these two words, "Might" and "Power", should be allotted as masculine. The exercise of might through power is an overtly masculine thing.

Masculine nouns in Hebrew are often concrete, and feminine nouns - abstract. Still, it is the language that God chose to express His Testament of Promise. Man's essential relationship is with the Earth and the woman's is the man as they were taken from both. For both male and female, their origin of creation was cursed. There is only one hope here and it is through the woman. The fruit of the earth can produce nothing. Salvation will come through women. Feminity is the conduit and canal of salvation. She who was taken out from inside now gives birth. "Power" and "Might" are from below. The Spirit is from above. Out of the darkness of the womb, out of the unseen comes forth God's plan of salvation, and His heel shall crush the head of the serpent, that former "Power". Power and Might are in direct opposition to God; they are enemies of God. Even that term "Power" suggests explicitly the spiritual identity behind such Might and that it derives itself from the spirit of the air - even when that "Power" is sincerely considered to be God Himself; God will not lend Himself to such schemes of men.

Out of the smallest seed in the Day of Small Things where there is a watery darkness, through the travail of birth and the agony of contractions - those involuntary pulses that cannot be controlled, comes a nation of priests, comes the line of David, in the Ark of Noah through the waters of the Flood, sealed in pitch, squeezed through the Sea of Reeds, and finally up out of the River Jordan after going down into the waters of baptism, breaking up out of those waters comes New Life. God gives birth in no other way; any 'work of God' that was not born was manufactured.

'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Part 4

Both "might" and "power" in the original Hebrew are masculine, however, the "Spirit" - Ruach - is feminine. There is a reason for this.

"Might" refers to resources of all kinds, whether in ourselves or in the world or between collectives of individuals. It assumes either skill, organisation, qualification, ability or an inward worthiness through qualification of some form. 'In ourselves' implies valour or bravery or some such quality highly valued. 'In the world' speaks of a force or unit of military or financial or manual resources, as such recognised and known by a distinct identity. 'Between us' is the 'system' of efficency or production or a network of labour that is ordered or works as a unit. These, together, are all the abilites that would normally be put to good use to complete any job. However, there is a divine embargo upon this 'might'. Not only this, but there is this embargo on any and every work of God that has the hallmark of the Spirit upon it . . . not just for Zerubbabel, not just for Zechariah - but for all of us.

One could not conceive of any mighty engineering project without many if not all of the above 'mights' being included. Indeed, this was how the Tower of Babel was constructed and assembled. Man builds, but God grows. It is man's remit to plant and to water, to tend and to care. For every work of God there is a season, but for man any time will do as long as it is now and quickly. One thing man will not do is wait. How often we work for God but without Him! How often is our divine host and midwife excluded from proceedings?

All these 'mights' existed before the commission came from God. We could quite easily fulfil this commission through these 'mights'; we could fulfil them for Him but without Him - once more asserting our independence and autonomy from God whilst serving Him! Such 'service' is an outrageous sin and usurping of God's authority, a setting aside of God's 'niavete' for our own sophistication and 'knowingness'. After all, we live in the real world, we know how things are done and achieved - otherwise nothing will happen! How can a Spirit build a temple? But we forget how He brooded over the waters and what came of that. Or is it that we want to make a name for ourselves? By using our education, our natural talents and skills, our coordinated effort, we want to serve God out of ourselves out of our convenience to show what we can do.

The question needs to be asked and answered; it is not enough to say I am going to use all these 'mights' for God. They may well be used, but it is not our place to choose them. Silence must come in the aftermath of the commission; reaching for the first tool to hand must stop. The "Not . . . " must sting us and shock us. This is a different project, wholly other, where the Eternal Spirit irrupts into this world; it must bear the distinctive of that same Spirit - not the world it manifests in. Until we are willing to let go of every competency we possess, and place them in limbo indefinitely, He will not use us in the work that will last. Undoubtedly, we could build skyscrapers and corporations and mega-churches but, when the fire comes, will they be stubble? The test is this: do we despise the small thing? Do we look down upon it and wince? The mustard seed? The wheatgerm? The stemcell? Or will we be like Jack and the Beanstalk?

The power of the Cross is the power not to do: we have the power to do something but we refuse to do it. We are silent; we are still in the face of the enemy; we stand and raise our hands; we call upon the name of the Lord; we consult the prophet and we obey. We are weak so that God can be our strength, and in that gap, that dark hopeless abyss of separation the Son of Man will rise. And if He is lifted up many will be drawn to Him.

Covering shame with identity

Shyness is a natural trait of the introverted. Those that look inward at themselves and withdraw from others are self-conscious in ways others are not. This is indeed natural but it is a hindrance and a barrier to all relationships. It is ingrained into us; it is provoked into us by pain and suffering, to make us aware of ourselves, and this is what the world would want us to be: self-aware, nursing our grievance. This is anathema to God's dealings with us. Shyness, withdrawal and self-consciousness bring isolation and separation; despair and depression follow hard on their tails.

The Lord would have us as unconscious as a weaned child with its mother, but how do we get there?

Realise where you are: wounded and bruised by all the pinching and prodding of those around you; you are carrying in your flesh your own suffering - not His, licking at your wounds like a dog. Him who was crucified naked, who scorned the shame thrown at him, off whose back slid insult after insult, Him who made mud with His spittle to rub into eyes, who walked upon water, who drove out the money changers - was not a self-conscious man but an obedient man, constrained by His zeal for the glory of God, . . . but we are touchy over our own 'glory'.

However, we cannot throw on extroversion on a whim like something learned at a seminar. We cannot act or mimic it, and we defnitely cannot draw upon God's power to help us throw off this hurt so that we may walk into freedom.

All the while we conceive of ourselves as separate entities from God we will never be one with God. How could we ever in our own selves unite ourselves with God? We continue to step out of ourselves and look at ourselves, reinforcing that separation, that isolation, that self-consciousness. A mirror has its uses but it is not for self-contemplative gazing. Where did this separation arise from? Where did this isolation come from? The first ever self-conscious act by a human being on the planet was for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness. The first ever technology was created in pursuit of saving face: they sewed fig leaves together and made covering for themselves rather than waiting for their master to give them a proper covering. We rush ahead and make for ourselves coverings to protect ourselves from shame.

Separation is born of sin. Adam and Eve hid: they withdrew. He only asks that you come. The covering He would provide would come from the slaughtered lamb that he has killed before you and skinned in front of you. It is still warm, and we cannot reject its warmth and shelter because of how it was won. It was willingly done! Clothe yourselves in Christ therefore. This is now your identity. He is our hiding place; we are hid with Christ in God. When the shame comes, where will you hide and where will you be found? But be sure, while there is still a self to be hurt there is still a self. And there is only one way to deal with self: the Cross. How could we ever expect to enjoy the benefits of resurrection without its necessary predecessor: the death of self.

The introverted among us seek refuge within and build defences without. The extroverted are not exempt either. Our individuality, our separation from others is marked by our bodies and our clothes, our affections and affectations. While others retreat into fantasy and sensual confort, others advance aggressively to mark themselves out with tattoos, with achievements, with loudness. But its me! It is you, it is not Christ. It separates you from your beloved. While there is still a You, an individual, you will always be separate and distant from God though you might trumpet otherwise. 

How else do we see our inidviduality? With our clubs and our societies, with our identifties and affiliations, with our possessions and our positions, with our labels and our tastes, our likes and our dislikes. In short, it is the politics of identity, we are a black box to the outisde world with labels upon. God would abolish this to delve into the personality and the soul of a human, the state of his being moment by moment in a live and unbroken relationship with Him.

The dividing wall, the barrier of hostility has been torn down in His flesh and made the two one, not just humanity but God and His image bearers. Come to Him, do not hide, in you individuality, in your assertions of self-dom. Take on His yoke; it is easy and light. Take on Him. Clothe yourself in the light that Adam and Eve lost when their eyes were opened. For the two will become one.

He will be with you until the very end of the eage.

Jesus loves you . . . as you are. (The Rooms of Tobiah)

"Jesus loves you . . . as you are":

a well-worn phrase from many evangelistic campaigns from the twentieth century until now. Even now the phrase causes conflict in my heart and I can scarcely explain why. Who could ever disagree with the love of God? Who could ever disagree with the assertion that we need to be loved? And who in their right mind would disagree with the free unconditional offer of love with no need to change or earn that love?

The love of Jesus commands devotion, it demands a response without any coercion purely because the love is given without reference to self. The love that is given is the demand itself. We must leave and go with Him and drop from our hands the very last thing that we cling onto: the rich young ruler was wise and had a form of righteousness, but he loved money. That very last thing is the thing that defines us as sinners, as rebels, from which we gain our status and identity - the very last bastion of human independence and autocracy. We may even think it has merit. Anyone can surely identify the rank sins of the love of money. Surely! I know I'm not like that! Everyone can see the grosser sins of lust and the kind - surely! But it is the very wood in the trees that we cannot see - the very last rock we do not want to turn over - can't see it - because we stand upon it! It exalts us and defends us. It is the adjectives we stick in front of 'christian' and use as labels to put everyone else, bar ourseles, into little boxes; it is the lens through which our distorted vision holds a plumbline to the world and finds it wanting. It may be the denomination, of whose doctrines and practices we may be proud of, it may be our age group, our sex, our sexual orientation, our job, our political affiliations or our opinons. We were called to be disciples - but we have made converts in our own weak image, tolerant of the labels and the baggage we imported into our new 'life'. We were called to abandonement and nothing less will do.

" . . . as you are," has covered - literally - a multitude of sins. And under that cloak it has been smuggled into Tobiah's rooms within the temple (Nehemiah 13). We await another Nehemiah to give Tobiah the treatment he deserves. As we speak, enclaves are being established within God's temple under the banner of love and tolerance: bridgeheads to de-stabilise God's church and render her powerless. Our own rhetoric, once used to win people for Christ, is being used against us to tolerate many kinds of sin: co-habitation, pre-marital sex, divorce, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, multiple-partner marriage and bigamy. One by one each battle has been lost by the church because we still cling to " . . . as you are". Some battles still remain and we get ample warning of them shining up our engine from our enemies. We see them coming but are powerless, undone by our own rhetoric: " . . . as you are." We ourselves still cling to that last thing, how could we ever expect anyone else to change and let that sin go that is now their identity.

What is it that God loves in us? It is not our sin and neither is it the sin that masquerades as righteousness. The love of God draws a circle around us that separates us from our labels and adjectives and our worldly identity. Once we drop every single one, including our skills and our gifts, we find that He has reduced us to one; he has isolated us; he has drawn us into the desert to be found as a bride. We are separated and denuded before Him, reduced to a being of worship. We are laid bare, we are exposed and we find the cause of the love given is the Lover Himself. He who is Love does not love us for a reason other than Himself. Even the love He gives robs us of our boast and we are enthralled by this love that is Him. We are taken with Him - not with the justification of self.

" . . . as you are" has strengthened the arm of the wicked against the Lord, it has tolerated sin, it has affirmed new converts in their sin and ensured that will never become disciples. The rooms of Tobiah proliferate in God's church under love and tolerance. The true love of God compels us, draws us on into devotion that is obedience to the faith for in this love we discover a God who loves us apart from our sin, when we ourselves defined ourselves by our sin. The love of God tears us from our sin and provokes us into action. Will we be a Nehemiah to kick Tobiah out of the temple in obedience to God? Will we calmly sit there and twine together a whip with the full intention of driving people out of the courts of God? Will His zeal consume us? Will we strap on a sword and go about the camp to deal with our brothers? Will we run through a brother with a spear who fornicates with a Midianite woman in the middle of the camp - while they are in the act? Will we grow up into maturity to speak the truth in love - no matter the cost to our reputation or the legal threats about us?

Tobiah may have many powerful friends, but God's opinion of us will be eternal.