'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 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.

'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Part 2

"What are you, O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone . . .."
Zechariah 4:7

We want to start something; we want to plant and we want to build. Man has been doing this for millenia and he has built one of two cities: Babylon or Jerusalem, both with different foundations. One city of the 'I will' and the other of 'Your will'. But before a single stone can be dragged onsite, before a single stone can be laid as a foundation, before any of that starts, there is a mighty work to be done and it is not to build up into the air as in Babel - it has always been to dig down, down into the dirt to get to the rock.

And who is it that digs? It is not us who performs the work; it is the High Priest. And who is the High Priest if He is not Christ himself? And upon what or whom does He perform His destructive work? It is upon us. We are the object of His levelling. Up to this point we have got it completely wrong. We thought we were doing a work for God, but - in fact - it has been Him who needs to turn us into the workmanship of God. Like David, we have offered to build a house for His Name when in fact the Lord has turned round to refuse the offer. Instead, He will be the One to build a House for David to rule over for ever. We can always offer but God will always trump us; He always has something better in mind. We look to build something temporal when God looks to build something eternal.

That proud, rugged and wild mountain must be brought low and circumcised before God can begin to build. Where once people would say, 'Look at that fine, beautiful mountain,' they now say, 'Look at the temple mount, the house of God!' They no longer see the mountain, it has disappeared. Its pride has been brought low. Where once nothing could touch it save for groves of olives and wild animals, it is now brutalised under a building site, marred and scarred beyond recognition. Its lofty heights laid low, all that it took pride in is now despoiled. It is a woman bereft of her hair, a soldier shorn of his weapons. The mountain lies naked and exposed. The guts of the mountain have spilled over to reveal what is inside. And when people pass by to look at the work in progress they will be appalled - disfigured beyond that of any mount. They will not recognise the likeness of the mountain ever again. They will remember the former mountain and shake their heads. But the haughty mountian must go through this if it is to be beautiful once more for wholly different reasons. Before, it was beautiful for its own sake, now it is beautiful because of what it bares - a place for God to dwell.

Remember this when the stone masons get to work on your stone heart, when the chisels and the pick axes fall, when God digs deeper and flattens you out. You thought you were a mountain; now you are a footstool.

It will stop. The rasp of metal on stone will cease and all will feel like paradise. And when they bring out the capstone what a shout will rise up from the mountain. What delight will be yours when the perfect stone is laid on a perfectly level surface. Before anything is built the mountain has as its heart one joint, one union upon which everything is built, from which everything is measured. What delight will be yours when God comes to rest in your centre, upon you, without a gap between you . . .  complete contact.

You thought you were a mountain, now you are the resting place of God.

Of Dreams and Log Jams Part 2

When I cogitate these log jams appear as symbols and metaphors in dreams; stories to unlock that I will think on for days and weeks after. They, at times - much to my shame - have a way of prizing open my heart in a way that undiluted scripture doesn't, a bit like a parable. They are impenetrable; I come up against a wall I cannot scale. I meet the end of my own understanding. I flounder in my own weakness and can't fathom it because I am in the flesh or using the power of my soul. Spiritual signs are spiritually discerned by the Spirit of God.

When we hear scripture we are in danger of thinking we know what it means and maybe apt to dismiss it. Characters with actions and metaphors with meaning are there to be understood and unlocked. It is because we are weak. If God were to speak plainly our conscious mind might object to it and reject it. His command would give a chance for disobedience. Reason it away and we will be in peril. God persuades us in story and anrrative. Then I am led full circle back to the scripture in the first place to say, 'Ahhh, that's what it means!'

One thing we mustn't do in public is admit our weaknesses; the show of 'faith' must go on. We must look competent and in control. Our weakness and emptiness is the door for the grace of God to get to work to fill us up. Let us hold to no pretense.

Our weakness is the beginning of dependence on God.

What is true fellowship with God?

It is not the tingling of the hands or the hairs of your neck standing up. It is not the flitter of your closed eyelids or any relaxed respiration - though all these things maybe present while in the presence of something 'other'. However, this is still not fellowship, it is not even the signs of fellowship. It is not by the flesh, it never starts with the flesh - it is always by His Spirit.

We must not confuse His Presence with His Fellowship. It is possible to be near God and not know God; it is possible to enjoy His Presence but never let His essence and character possess us. We can be tourists looking for another experience, another march up to the top of the hill with the Grand ol' Duke of York with the trumpets in tow - but never enter the holy citadel. We may admire its imposing gates of pearl and its immense walls of pure crystal from the outside, but then it's just an object in our lense and the conceit of the eye is to control what it sees; what should be truth to us suddenly becomes a lie in our own mind, and we deceive ourselves. We say: I have experienced God. We might as well have dipped our finger into the still waters rather than go down completely into the River Jordan. Our world is saturated with synthetic and simulated experiences of one kind or another. We go from one meeting to the next looking to re-live something past and it becomes nostalgic and if we ever experience it again we reminisce; we look over our shoulder at something we should flee from: the reduction of God to a series of senses. It is not by flesh . . .

God is not in the earthquake nor in the storm, nor even in the dark clouds that shroud his immense light from the known universe. These are all 'things about the thing'. We must concern ourselves with the Root and not the leaf, the cause and not the symptom. We could build a whole life around these 'things' and never know the 'thing' itself.

God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him . . . we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship . . .. (1 John 1:5-7)

There is no fellowship without light; light that searches and knows; light that deals and exposes the shadows of the heart we have long since been blind to; light that prepares and prepares; light that reveals every secret. Fellowship with God is exposure to God's searching and testing, standing still for His plumbline to stop swaying, falling upon Him to be broken, being spun to be moulded, being poured out to be refined in the fire. Fellowship is not knowing God's secrets but allowing God to deal with yours so there is nothing between you. God longs to remove from you all that stains and casts a shadow so that there is nothing between you, that He might enjoy you for Himself. This is the highest calling of man, not that you might enjoy God in your flesh but that God might enjoy making you like Himself for darkness has no fellowhsip with light; only light fellowships with light.

'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' Part 1

'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the Lord Almighty. (Zechariah 4:6)

The signature verse for this blog was given to me as a baptismal 'promise' 26 years ago. I didn't like it at the time as I always wanted some great promise about me as a great man of the future, not some note of caution or rebuke implying some character flaw. I never liked anyone telling me what I couldn't do or the limitations to my evidently great spirituality; my flesh had always to be pampered to and puffed up and very few people in my life opposed this in me. I couldn't take criticism at all and was always extremely sensitive to it. I wished someone had opposed me with some godly wisdom, but I am completely responsible for this flaw.

The upshot was that I spent the majority of my christian walk trying to make something of myself when I should have been making nothing of myself (Philippians 2:7). I got it completely the wrong way round: I had been taking the high way instead of the low-way.

Back to this verse: it has been nagging away at me for decades now, like a bad penny, like the big bit of grit in the centre of an oyster. It has puzzled me in its conciseness and plainness. It's language appears straightforward and it sounds spiritual. I barely know what it means today!

Recently, however, something was unlocked inside of it when I read Watchman Nee's "The Latent Power of the Soul". Something clicked into place. To put it simply, the "might" that is disallowed by this verse refers to the physical strength to achieve and build; the "power" that is forbid may well refer to political machinations to achieve, but for the individual, it prohibits the use of the soul in all its intellectual, emotional and psychological (conscious and sub-conscious) power to counterfeit any work of God; this includes any projection of the soul to persuade and manoeuvre people into your way or methods.

It is not by the use of soul power that God's temple is built, though that could quite easily achieve the required end result more swiftly. No, the Spirit of God must build His temple if He is to dwell in it, He will dwell in nothing less than His own creation. Other temples maybe built with more guile and apparent skill and may appear more beautiful, but they will not stand in the flood or the fire. It is only the true spiritual house with its foundation on Christ that will stand both.

How often are we tempted to counterfeit God's work with our own well-qualified programme or ministry. Therefore, bind up your flesh and your soul as you plant the seed of God's work and make them slaves to the will of God for His purpose - do not start your work and ask God to bless it. The world will but God won't.

Smashing Ashtrays

When I was three - so family legend goes - I wandered around the house smashing every single glass ashtray I could lay my hands on. Even at the age of three I was an anti-smoking protester!

I remember nothing of this, by the way.

My parents gave up smoking 14 years later; so the ashtray strategy didn't work.

That same year I was baptised and the scripture given to me was Zechariah 4:6, "Not by might, nor by power but by my Spirit". It has stuck with me ever since, sometimes as a garland of grace but at other times as a chicken bone in my throat. God knew that beyond my teenage years I would take his purposes and try to achieve them through my own methods and my own strength. I see a little boy running ahead of his father only to fall and graze his knees or was that a rebellious toddler willfully smashing ashtrays? As a man, when I graze my knee or smash ashtrays it is a tad more serious.

I write this remind myself of those words spoken to Zerubabel all those years ago that nothing of any eternal worth is attained by the wisdom of men.

I write this to remind myself of the young zealous man I once was to somehow reignite the passion I used to have.

I write this to you the reader to promise that I won't fill this blog with foam and frippery but only what is honest, true and just. It's my contract with you.