'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.