Fellowship January 20th, 2013

Fellowship in the Household of Faith

01/20/2013

BELIEVER 5: The Lord said to the multitude and to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take his cross and follow Me.”  How difficult that is.  This statement cannot be taken except by prayer.  Prayer means knowing that we are nothing, and that we can do nothing.  This implies that prayer is the true denying of self.  Therefore, to pray is to deny ourselves knowing that we are nothing and that we can do nothing.  Futhermore, praying also means to declare, No longer I, but Christ.  Lord Jesus, that it be Your will and not my will.  There is a little bit until BELIEVER 6 gives the word.

BELIEVER 6: The Life and the Person of the New Man.  To participate in the subjective Christ as our life and person in a practical way; we all need to learn to take Christ as our life and person.  The Christ is our life and person.  He is the Life-giving Spirit.  This is a crucial fact.  According to traditional teaching Christ is merely and objective person who is in the heavens to be worshipped and praised.  Nevertheless, the New Testament reveals our Christ is the Life-giving Spirit, that dwells in our spirit.  1 Cor. 15: 45 And Romans 8:16.  For us, He is not merely objective but completely subjective.  He is the Spirit who dwells in our spirit.  And He makes that His Spirit is one with our spirit.  In 1 Corinthains 6:17, “But He who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit.”  Today we don’t simply worship an objective Christ, that can be found in the third heaven, but that we experience and enjoy  and participate in an subjective Christ, who is the Life-giving Spirit who dwells in our spirit.  We should all learn to say, “Lord Jesus, since you are such a Spiirt, I surrender my being and all to You.  I surrender all of my knowledge to You, I surrender my precepts, practices, rituals, my works, my activities, and my all.  Such things don’t interest me Lord Jesus, I just wsant to take You as my life and person.  Lord Jesus,  it is not longer I that live, but Christ htat lives in me.  I don’t want anything, be anything, or say anything that You don’t want to do.  Be nor say.  Lord Jesus You are my life and my person. 

BELIEVER 3: do you know what you confessed in this night.

BELIEVER 5: this almost kills me.  In reality we don’t need long prayers, we only need to call on the name of the Lord Jesus.  Even this short prayer means, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ.”  Our prayer testifies that our own strength is not sufficient to meet circumstances, but that we need to apply Christ.  This is to put into practice that Christ in His death and resurrection is our replacement. To accomplish the organic building up of the Body of Christ, we need the divine life and prayer.  WE understand that we need another life, and that we were created as vessels through which God can accomplish His work.  However, apart from this we need to pray.  Prayer means to recognize that within ourselves, with ourselves and in ourselves we are nothing. 

BELIEVER 3: It seems that God has given a double portion to each one today.  It seems like there has been a lot of tribulation but also a double portion of grace. 

BELIEVER 5: There is something I want you to open up to me BELIEVER 3.  “As it is written in the law of the Lord, every man-child who opens the womb shall be called holy unto the Lord.”  This is a question that I have.

BELIEVER 3: all the firstborn belong to the Lord. 

BELIEVER 5: Luke 4

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.

Malachi 3

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.”

That is not what I had to give still, but just a little bit.  A little here and a little there.

BELIEVER 4: Amen, you are a citizen of heaven.

BELIEVER 5: Amen, and God confirmed this by giving me a passport to go to the heavens.  The children of God are not from here or there, we are from heaven.  The only thing that we know is that, wherever we go, there God is, nothing else. 

BELIEVER 4: well here is just a brief testimony, I shared about your citizenship with a sister today, and her husband was in military intelligence, and I just shared with her about being there in Washington with some friends.  We had the kindle out and the tablet and we had a nice time of fellowship.  I went over to pick up a check for the next day of work.  And then we ended up spending an hour and a half in fellowship.  She was watching the Billy Graham memorial for his wife; the praise and worship, all kinds of stuff. 

BELIEVER 5: something happened here.  On the way to the citizenship test, I went studying the questions.  When I got out of the car I was so nervous and frozen.  When we entered into the immigration office, God changed everything.  I told BELIEVER 3, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I am in peace.”  He said, “go ahead in peace, God in here.”  When I feel that sometimes that I can’t do things, I usually don’t allow him to leave if he are with me.  Right now something is happening, the same thing that happened when I returned from Israel.  I said on the plane, “God is waiting until I go to Israel to give me a job.”  And the day that we got back, someone called me to offer me a job.  Today the same thing happened.  I didn’t want to work while I was dealing with the things of the citizenship, studying, etc.  And I said to BELIEVER 3, “BELIEVER 3, the moment that God wants, when I pass the citizenship test, God is going to open doors.”  And a person called today that we haven’t talked to in 7 months over a job offer.  We haven’t called, but she called after all this time, in the same afternoon that I passed the test.  When one says to the Lord, “My job is Yours.”  He says, “take it, and returns it to us anew.”  When one says, “the citizenship is Yours.”  He gives it back anew.  Nothing belongs to us, everything belongs to Him. 

BELIEVER 3: How difficult is this.

BELIEVER 5: how difficult, but how real. 

BELIEVER 4: this is an incredible fellowship; the overflow as I come back to Baltimore, I have been going from house to house just allowing it to spill out and overflow.  So I look forward to the opportunity to the times that the Lord brings back to share with you all just some of the fruit of the blessings of the fellowship that we experience at God’s house.  You can’t even thank Him enough for what He does, you just go and start praising the Lord.  The last place that I was at before I came to the house today was at a brother’s, and we ended with that time with Terry Macalom there, and the worship and the praise and the people’s faces; we were sitting at the table just feeding off of the people’s faces, as we were partaking of Christ in this fellowship.  It was wonderful.  We love you Lord, and thank You and worship You.  You’re undeniable presence in Your people.  And BELIEVER 6, every time you are reading the One New Man, I have shared with others about this brother from South America who is teaching me about my citizenship in reality.  You are doing a fine job by the grace of God. 

BELIEVER 2: I will share a little bit.  I am going to mention I was reading the Gospel of John on the way to work, even driving, but I have a large type bible, so I can glance down and read it.  There’s no traffic in the morning.  The gospel of John was new this morning.  It was like I had never read it before, even though I could probably quote chapter 1, but it was completely different this morning.  And the main things that was put on my heart were first, there is an introduction of who Jesus, what He is, and then there is explanations about the process He is going to go through in order to come and live inside of us.  And there is a lot in both of those, it is almost to much.  But I enjoyed this verse,

“The law was given through Moses; Grace and Reality came through Jesus Christ.” 

So I said to myself, “you mean the law is not reality.”  I can’t believe.  But it says, grace and reality came through Jesus Christ.  Not to say anything bad about the law, but it is not reality.  Praise the Lord. 

BELIEVER 3: Are you okay today brother?  I feel that you are really okay.

BELIEVER 2: I am going to take one of BELIEVER 4’s comments and say, “I don’t know yet.”  What does that mean BELIEVER 4, when you said, “I don’t know yet.”

BELIEVER 4: I will tell you a little later on.  So what we do is we end up walking together, and after we have broken the bread together BELIEVER 2, our hearts begin burn within us.  And then we begin to discover together the Living Christ, and then we begin to know how we are.  So when we meet people on the way and they ask, “How are you?”  Where we are really encountering the Lord in that opportunity, and as we begin to fellowship like BELIEVER 6 reading our history of this One New Man, the Lord Jesus begins to testify of Himself in the actual presence of our being, and the reality of who HE really is begins breaking through, and the law, the prophets, everything falls away and we begin to experience the reality of who we are together as One person.  And we are ignited with the reality of our true citizenship in heaven displayed on the earth, and that is how we are today.  This is how we are! Hallelujah! 

BELIEVER 2: wow.  I can’t explain things in this way, but I feel that these things are wonderful. 

BELIEVER 4: well, we enjoy your words as the Lord gives utterance, but in the meantime we will enjoy feeding on Christ from your face.  So BELIEVER 2, you just keep on beholding the Lord and we will continue to enjoy the fellowship that is being transmitted through your countenance.  Lord we just Thank You for Your pantry, You are baking and cooking us so that we can enjoy this love feast. 

BELIEVER 2: I noticed that there is a mirror in the bathroom that is always clean.  I don’t know who cleans it so that we can see our face. If it gets water on it and spotty than you can’t see it as good.  But according to some fellowship that we had with BELIEVER 4, we need to clean the mirror, our interior mirror, our spirit, so that it can reflect the Lord.

BELIEVER 4: there is a beautiful portion BELIEVER 2, in Andrew Murray’s God’s Best Secrets.  It talks about beholding.  Keep on beholding the Lord, and then His impression is made upon us.  Then others are able to read God in us.  The title is called, “The Glory of God.”  At the bottom it talks about, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Selection of daily portion From Murray’s book “God’s Best Secrets” March 29, “They Glory of God.” 

“God Himself must reveal His glory to us; then alone are we able to know and glorify Him aright.

There is no more wonderful image in nature of the glory of God than we find in the starry heavens.  The telescopes, which are continually made more powerful, have long proclaimed the wonders of God’s universe.  And by means of photography, new wonders of that glory have been revealed.  A photographic plate fixed below the telescope will reveal millions of starts which could never have been seen by the eye through the best telescope.  Man must step on one side and allow the glory of the heavens to reveal itself; and the stars, at first wholly invisible and at immense distances, will leave their image upon the plate. 

What a lesson for the soul that longs to see the glory of God in His Word.  Put aside your own efforts and thoughts.  Let your hart be as a photographic plate that waits for God’s glory to be revealed.  The plate must be rightly prepared and clean; let your heart beprepared and purified by God’s Spirit.  “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  The plate must be immovable ; let your heart be still before God.  The plate must be exposed sometimes for seven to eight hours to receive the fullest impression of the farthest stars; let your heart take time in silent waiting upon God, and He will reveal His glory. 

If you keep silence before God and give Him time, he will put thoughts into your heart that may be of unspeakable blessing to yourself and others.  He will create within you desire and dispositions that will indeed be as the rays of His glory shining in you.  Put this to the proof this morning.  Offer your spirit ot Him in deep humility and have faith that God will reveal Himself in His holy love.  His glory will descend upon you.  You will yourself feel the need of giving Him full time to do his blessed work.

“The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.”

“My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him.”

“God hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.”

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

“Dearest Father, this morning I offer my spirit to Thee in deepest humility and have faith that Thou wilt reveal Thyself in Thy holy love and glory. Amen”

BELIEVER 4: this goes back to what you you were reading in John 1 about grace and truth coming through Jesus Christ.  And when we begin to live by the Christ within us, the grace and truth of God begin to shine and become a reality out of us on the earth, rather than us just trying to live on some kind of law, or rule, or principle, or a prophecy about Christ coming at some point.  Now that Christ has come, grace and truth is at hand and we become a living reality, the showbread, the provision to be able to feed multitudes.  Praise the Lord.  So BELIEVER 2, you are in the food service business. 

BELIEVER 5: this is what I wanted to read to you brothers.  Prayer is between God, the devil, and us.  Because when we pray, we involve ourselves with the enemy.  When we prayer for people, sometimes the enemy begins to attack them. 

BELIEVER 3: We have lived this today.  Not only in some, but in the majority of all of us.  The only thing that we need to do is abide in Him.  To abide in Him is what delivers us form the enemy.  Even though we want to understand these things with our mind, we can’t.  the only place we can understand is in the Spirit. 

BELIEVER 2: In the gospel of John.  It is so much, I could only just read it to you.

BELIEVER 3: I don’t consider it, “Just reading something”, because when we enjoy something of God it is living. 

BELIEVER 4: as you read, you are literally pouring forth the ink on the pages, through your spirit and this is like the water that washes the brother’s and sister’s feet.  This is an example of the Red Heifer offering right now, as you pour forth the communication of the reality. 

BELIEVER 2: I enjoyed, John’s testimony of Jesus.  He said, and it seems like this may have been the first tiem that anybody recognized who Jesus was, besides his mother.  He said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  That is what he said, that is how Jesus was introduced.  “This is He of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me, who has become ahead of me because He was before me.’ for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”

Then I will skip forward a little bit to Nicodemas because the Lord deals with a little bit with how to enter into, what God wants.

This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”  Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 

that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

And then we go forward a little more and He meets the woman at the well and says,

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, 

And then Jesus feeds people and tells them that He is the true bread.  In other words it is like, there is a really important person that is not just remaining important in Himself, but is wanting to give something of Himself to all of us, as whatever we need. 

BELIEVER 4: hallelujah, whatever we need. 

BELIEVER 5: I have a little bit more.  In romans the Lord says, “if you turn to  Him with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and return to the Land that He gave to the fathers, and to the city that You have chosen, and the house that I built for your name.”  This is what we lived in Jerusalem.  When we were in the hotel we heard people praying at midnight, and they would face Jerusalem.  The same as Daniel would do, kneeling “like he had always done, three times a day, praying and giving thanks before God.”  In kings 8, there are some certain conditions that have to be met for God to attend to the prayers of His chosen people.  The holy land that typifies Christ, the portion that God has given to the believers, the holy city that represents the kingdom of God in Christ, and the holy temple that represents the house of God the church on the earth.  That means that the Lord will listen to our prayers whenever we pray, when we have our face turned to Christ, turn to Christ, which is the kingdom of God and the house of God and all that constitutes the goal of God’s eternal economy.  The spiritual significance of God’s interests is Christ Himself.  Whatever we are praying for, the goal of our prayer should be Christ.  We should pray for the saints, but not with our own prayers making them the center of the prayer.  We do prayer for them, but we pray for them in view of the interests of God for them.  If our prayers center in the person that we prayer for, this will provoke the attack of the enemy.  This should be our strategy in spiritual warfare.  We have to remember that prayer involves three parties: us, God, and satan.  In occasions when we prayer for certain people, satan comes and attacks. 

(This is all from the Holy Word for Morning Revival on prayer, week 2 day 4)

The situation for that person gets worse.  That happens because we take the person as the center of our prayers and not God’s economy.  It doesn’t matter who we prayer for.  We should always center our prayers on God’s Christ, who is all of God’s interests in His economy.  The correct prayer consists in praying to God in the name of the Lord Jesus, centering ourselves in what God is interested in His economy.  To pray in the name of Jesus is the pray for the interests of God on the earth, and to know Christ as the portion that God gave to us, the kingdom and dwelling place of God.  All of our prayers should be a compliment to His economy.  If a person only worries about themselves, and their own interests, they can prayer but they will not be a man of prayer.  A man of prayer is considers God and His will as the only interest in the universe.  We can see these characteristics clearly in the Lord Jesus.  He had fellowship with God concerning His death saying, “if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” and later He said, “but not my will, but Yours be done.”  Three times He said to God, “Your will be done, not my will.”  I believe that in our strength, we cannot say these words.  It is not sufficient that a Christian live before God, but one should also learn to live in God.  Only when you live in the Lord, can you be one with Him.  So, you can say to the Lord, “Lord, it is not just me who prays, it is You and I.”  I always say to the brothers, “the things are between you and Him.” 

BELIEVER 4: I sense that this new citizen has been already drafted to the warfare.  Lord, You are moving really quickly. 

BELIEVER 5: when one goes to the war, one needs to go ready to die.  If we want to save our life, we will lose it.  This touches all that we live.  If you want something, you need to give it to the Lord, so that He can give it back to you newly. 

BELIEVER 4:  Lord, we prayer for more citizens of heaven like this, on the earth, in the United States. 

BELIEVER 5:  I received a message from a friend saying, “while haven’t you called me.”  I called the number for the friend that I had listed in my phone and my son answered.  I don’t know how this happened.  God allowed me to have fellowship with my son.  I hadn’t wanted to call him.  But God is so great that He opened the door, and I can’t close the conversation even if I don’t want.  God allowed to say in love all that I have in my heart.  And the conversation was good, that the Lord allowed to pray and minister to him.  We didn’t talk about anything of this world.  God put in my heart the prayers that I needed to do.  I finished to prayer, and he started to prayer.  I also called another friend of fifty years, and the Lord blessed that conversation to. 

BELIEVER 4: here is a citizen getting drafted, getting the passport; things are happened quite rapidly. 

BELIEVER 6: I just want to share something that I think applies to this situation.  Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”

BELIEVER 1: by myself I can do nothing.  One of the difficult lessons that the Lord’s children have to learn, there are lessons which Abraham had to learn through Isaac; don’t allow any personal clinging to hinder from receiving a God-given thing, whether it be a promise or possession.  But have faith, don’t hold on to fear.   Hold on to the Lord Himself.  None can take from us what He has determined to give us.  But there are many dangers which arise in our own will in relation to the purpose.  First is making things ours instead of holding it for the Lord.  This leads to fierceness and personal uprisings.  Do not allow jealousy destroy the fellowship; allow the fellowship to be spontaneous.  Do not allow things of your personal interest to come in.  If you realize how privileged you are, the fact is, that you have the possession of all the Lord’s things if you believe.  All things are by His grace.  We should be very grateful that we have a connection with Him.  All things that we received that have been promised or we have believed for only come through Him.  May the Lord save us from taking credit.  Allow the Lord to come in so that He can make a way for the element of the will to be surrendered and proved to be terrible.  Once again, a strong mind and will to things, makes us follow law unto ourselves.  We should not get into attitudes that implies that only we know the will of God.  We don’t trust that others may be guided by the Lord in this thing so the corporateness of the guidance so necessary to the house of the Lord is destroyed or paralyzed. 

BELIEVER 4: BELIEVER 1, I am tasting the life of Christ in you.  I am enjoying the bread. 

BELIEVER 3: in me I don’t have anything, but in Him we have everything.  Before continuing with what the Lord is doing.  The Lord is showing us that in the middle of the difficulties, He is becoming greater and greater.  We have a lot of difficulties with what He wants to do with us in every direction.  I enjoyed various things, but I feel to put something that the Lord is doing in this night, and that is to collaborate what all the other brothers have put on the table.  I am going to share something that the Lord gave to brother Helm and it is very good.  At is on page 341, in “A Voice in the Wilderness.”  “The secret of beginning and continuing a walk with God is to remain at the bottom of humility always in your heart.”  This is for all of us.  This is fundamental and is not easy for anyone.  Because to abide in humility is to abide in Christ.  And to always abide in our heart is to put all things into His hands, and normally we don’t do it.  After brother Helm says this, “It is not in the nature of a man or a woman to go in this way, however.  The path of humility is absolutely contrary to our own nature.”  In the middle of the difficulties and struggles that we have, the Lord needs to show us day by day, why it is that we can’t walk in this way in ourselves.  Why?  Because we still have a carnal spirit, and a carnal mind that we acquired in the fall, and this carnal mind brings us to death, and is an enemy  of God, and is not subject to the law of God.  So we can see the law of sin and death.  And a little later brother Helm says, “And He became the propitiation for our sins.”  And Paul said something precious, “I am a sinner saved by graced.”  This is glorious, because to admit on one side, what we are in our old creation and it is also to admit the grace of God that is available to us.  “It is this inbred carnal nature that refuses to acknowledge the right that God has to reign over our lives.  It is this carnal mind that resents, resists, and rejects anything that is in the divine mind which is in Christ Jesus.” Before continuing, I can say, “Lord Jesus, what have you give to this brother!  This is precious.”  Later Helm continues, “therefore, this carnal mind must be dethroned.  The carnal nature in order that God can replace it with His own nature, with the mind of Christ.  He wishes to give us the Spirit, but He can only give His Spirit to those who obey Him.”  This is very difficult, to abide in the “place of the skull.”  We need Christ.  And then brother Helm say, “there is so much carnality in us, much more than we are aware of.  We are angry, envious, spiteful, resentful, critical, contentious, argumentative, foolish and jesting.” In other words, we have a little of everything.  “Some people are willing to relinquish part of their carnal selves, but retain 5 to 10 percent.”  I would say, “Many people…, not some people, then 50 percent and above.”  If we give more than 50 percent to God, the mercy will overflow to others.  How great He is, and how much grace is upon this Christ that is in our heart.  “God wants to slay this carnal nature out of us completely.”  We need help. In Christ this is possible, there is hope.  All this part, until here, 90 percent of what brother Helm has said, “OH LORD JESUS!”  This is the Word became flesh.  He says, “Oh, my friend! – Jesus wants to live in us!  He wants to work through us in little humble ways of holy love and selfless giving.  But we are trying to have Christianity without the cross.”  Oh Lord Jesus.  All of this, “clicks.” 

BELIEVER 2: without the weapon of mass destruction.

BELIEVER 3: the cross is simply God’s will.  The cross is where the carnal nature is nailed and crucified. 

BELIEVER 4: doesn’t this make a way to release the inheritance of the sons of God, so that they can enjoy the liberty of this new life.  So to the measure of which we are going to allow ourselves to be 100 percent co-crucified, we don’t get to enjoy a 100 percent inheritance.

BELIEVER 3: how do we arrive there? 

BELIEVER 4: when  each one of us are so broken down by the cross, the eternal riches of Christ are able to flow through us to one another, this is awesome.  We are so rich, and so wealthy as heirs of God.  The cross becomes a wonderful position to be able to release the reception of the inheritance, the overflow of the inheritance through the cross.  This is such a mystery to the natural man, he does not even understand this.  I am going to be quiet now and allow others to flow.  Because of the breaking of the outer man, so that this release of the spirit can happen in each other.  Praise the Lord.  The Lord has made a way, He has broken down the damn, we can overflow.  There is an overflow, let it flow. 

BELIEVER 2: I am going to share something from the ministry of brother Austin-Sparks concerning the cross, from the book, “To Whom has the Arm of the Lord been Revealed?”  Chapter 4

The Cross Positive, Not Negative

Now here, again, the Spirit of God shows that God’s ways and means are always positive and not negative. I want to say that with emphasis; let us underline it in our minds. God’s ways are always constructive and not destructive; they are purposeful, and not just ends in themselves. And if God’s inclusive, comprehensive means is the Cross, let it be understood, once and for ever, that by the Cross He is working to an end—a large end. The Cross is never intended to end with destruction; it is never intended to end with a negative. God is working for some great thing, and He uses the Cross in this positive way.

You see, the weakness in our apprehension of the Cross is largely due to amisapprehension of the Cross. Our idea of the Cross is that it is destructive, it is negative, it is death. We revolt against that; we don’t want to be always talked to about this death of the Cross—death, death, death. It is indeed possible so to preach the Cross as to bring in death; but that is a mis-preaching. That is not God’s interpretation of the Cross at all. Let me repeat: the Holy Spirit here shows quite clearly that God’s ways and means are always positive and not negative; they always have in view something more, and not something less; not an end, but a new fulness.

If only we could really grasp that, it would transfigure the Cross. When the Lord confronts us with the challenge, what do we do? We revolt, we draw back—we don’t like it! Why? Simply because we have not seen that, in this application of the Cross, God is set upon securing something more in our lives—in our fellowships, in our companies, in His Church—something more than there has ever been before. That is God’s law. God is not a negative God. Other gods are negative gods, but our God is not a negative god. He is not working to bring things to annihilation; He has very large purposes before Him in all His ways and in all His means.

What we really have to see is that, whatever the Cross may negate—and it will, of course, negate some things—it is God’s most positive instrument for securing spiritual, heavenly, eternal values. The Cross is God’s most positive instrument for securing the enlargement— not the annihilation—of that which will abide for ever. While it is true that the Cross, in the first place, does represent God’s ‘No’, and that we cannot have God’s ‘Yes’—the Arm of the Lord—until we have accepted His ‘No’: yet once we are willing to come and accept God’s ‘No’, then the way is clear for us to come right into His ‘Yes’. And, mark you, God’s Name is not ‘No’! His Name is ‘Yea and Amen’ (2 Cor. 1:20)—He is “the God of Amen” (Is. 65:16)—the Positive, the ‘Verily’, the God of purpose

So it is very necessary for us to move on to this settled basis, that God always comes in with a mind to create (or to recover), to build and to increase. If only we could believe that of the Lord—even in our most devastating times, when everything seems to be taken away, and all is stripped from us; when everything seems to be going, and we think we can see an end coming: if only we could believe then that God is working—not to bring values to an end, but to increase them! That must be our ground—that He is ploughing, He is digging; He intends a harvest; He intends something more. He knows why He is doing it in that way—we don’t. But we can be sure of one thing: God is at work by the Cross to make things safe for Himself.

BELIEVER 4: that is a very rich portion.  There is a good treasure.  Talk about being daily loaded with benefits.

This cross in what it really does, as far as, here it says at the end of that chapter,

“This is the interpretation of the Cross. It is God’s means of getting rid of everything that makes it impossible for Him to do what He wants to do, to carry out what He has in mind.He has a mighty purpose in view, but He finds things in the way, and He says: ‘These must be dealt with.’”

Yeah, beautiful.To get rid of all the percentages, to get rid of all of the obstacles that get in the way of releasing all that He intends to do through us.  Hallelujah. 

BELIEVER 3: I feel He makes us realize who He is going to keep working.

BELIEVER 2: you were telling me one time, about seeing your old man dead, and you wept over him.  That is amazing.

BELIEVER 4: yes, I was beside myself.  It is like a white funeral, where the Lord came in with His cross, and was removing the obstacle so that He could flow through me, getting rid of that resistance.  Praise the Lord, there is Life after death, and it is present.  I am going to go ahead a read this last paragraph, from Austin-Sparks,

When we hear ‘The Cross’, let us say: ‘Ah, that means prospect! That means a clearing of the way; that means something more, not less; that means that God’s Arm is going to be revealed!’ Let us join with Paul in saying: ‘God forbid that I should glory in anything, save in the Cross...’ (Gal. 6:14).  So BELIEVER 2, that we all might have a white funeral.  The cross is so positive that it isn’t even funny.  Especially when we realize that we need to die.  The cross is the perfect instrument to take away the part that needs to die, to expose the eternal reality of that which is going to live forever.  There is no other instrument that can do this.  This is a marvelous work.  Praise the Lord.  To embrace the cross is to be released into who we are intended to be.  This is where the captipillar becomes the butterfly.  The catipillar sees the end of his life, now God sees a butterfly.  Oh Lord, let us have Your vision.  Hallelujah.  To be all corporately released in the power of the Spirit together as One New Man.