Prayer - An Agreement Between Bride and Bridegroom

It was vital for Jesus to reestablish prayer in the realm of faith. He had made it absolutely clear that vain repetition of words would avail nothing. Prayer had to be brought out of the realm of self-effort to the realm of the Spirit. Thus He said to the astonished disciples: “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

The use of the word “whatever” means that prayer is no longer to be judged according to the tree of knowledge to good and evil, including its subtle branch: “Is my prayer for others?” It is God who is at work in you to both will and do in accordance with His good pleasure, Paul bluntly wrote. Understood in this context of freedom prayer was to be reinstated as a spontaneous outflow of the Spirit in the believer - whether in intelligible words or not.

And finally, believe that you have received it is another way of saying that the thing is done by God, and that there is nothing you can do to aid Him in the outworking of the manifestation - simply because He is the One who is God. Vain repetition of words or any effort towards assisting God would add nothing to the already finished result. Only believe!

One last thing: When Jesus educates the disciples on marriage and divorce in Mark 10 He says that the two, husband and wife, are one flesh. This is a shadow of our true and only marriage with Christ. Since husband and wife are one flesh, Christ and those who are joined to Him are one spirit/Spirit. Thus, if properly understood, Jesus’ words on prayer in Mark 11:24 make full circle back to Him, meaning that prayer is an agreement between bride and bridegroom.

The Talents

The parable of the talents in a way takes up the thread from the parable of the prodigal son where the Father says to the son: “All mine is yours.” The parable of the prodigal son illustrates how the returned son is awakened to faith and takes possession of his possessions and leaves any religious baggage at the threshold, whereas the second son remains on the outside, and even receives a reprimand from his father concerning his unbelief. The invitation is extended to both sons to enter all the Father is, but only one of them accepted the gift.

God is not an austere master. Whenever He invites us to come up higher the faith to do so is provided, but we are responsible to receive and take advantage of God’s own faith which He confers lavishly upon us. This is also true about every faith commission into which He takes us. The faith to accomplish the task is provided, and we learn to invest this faith so that what in the beginning seemed like little and wavering faith is added upon so that it becomes perfect faith; five talents become ten talents.

There is also boldness involved in using the talents that graciously are endowed upon us. The one who buried his talent stepped back in fear and his talent was taken away from him. What we learn is that God, the creator of the universe, rewards boldness. We do not, however, find this boldness as something inherent human, but we partake from the Son’s boldness. We are seated with Him in heavenly places, and since we now are accepted into the triune fellowship the boldness of Jesus is ours.

What we easily overlook when we read these parables is that we are all those persons in the parables. It is by the Lord’s doing that we are transformed into being the daring one with five talents - by Christ in us. All these transformations transpire in our consciousnesses as we are taken from glory to glory in faith, increasingly recognizing Christ as our life. These things are, however, not automatic. We are definitely involved in these transformations by our leaps of faith.

In the parable of the talents we learn that there are many who are against the king, and at the end of the parable the following decree is issued: “Slay all those who are against me.” Who are those who are against the reign of the Lord if it is not all those faulty beliefs that we somehow are something more than empty vessels?

Our point of departure is usually that we think that we somehow have faith apart from the One who is one person with us. In any faith adventure one of God’s objectives is to strip us of any ideas that we have faith apart from Him – that we can do it apart from Him. Frustrations, circumstances etc will slay us until what is left is the Lord as us. This sure is a refining process that presses us into He who is our life – not as a separate person inside of us, but as one person with us.

Faith is both natural and unnatural depending on our angle of perception. It is definitely unnatural to walk on water, and investing our talents is indeed walking on water. But, in God that veil that separates the natural and the unnatural is rent in two. Faith asks us to step into the unknown, that is, stepping behind the veil, because it is now possible to do so. Faith is our response to revelation, and it is faith because the object of our faith is a Person who is faithful and who cannot lie. Faith is further aligning ourselves with the “it is done” consciousness of the Father.

Boldness is commitment since faith also requires that we speak our words of faith in accordance with the pattern that is shown us by revelation. We believe, hence we speak. Our faith commitment is easily discerned by what we speak.

Easy, Right

After having posted yesterday’s entry “Crossing the Red Sea” I asked John Collings to read it and share his immediate thoughts on what I had written. This is his reply which blessed me tremendously:

Our point of perception certainly matters in this grasping of the faith that isn’t our own and that starting point matters until He carries us beyond our perception and without “Revelation it will Remain so.” Ultimately, our faith, our desires and even our actions are not our own.  They are His and purposed through us.  From where I sit, it isn’t a matter of me asking what I will, because it is His will in me; so how can it go wrong.  It only goes wrong or does not manifest, if it is me apart from Him which is only an illusion.

The difference between Mary, Zacharias, Jesus and me is our perception of the truth.  God takes care of any misconceptions from his vessels by giving us the perfect way to understand; through pondering, through becoming mute, through a time in our own personal dessert of revelation.  Still what we see until we see with His eyes is our limited grasp of what He is up to around and through us.  We see through the glass darkly, he certainly sees clearly.  It is His plan and His doing.  Of course His Desire will come to pass.  So when we understand who we truly are, then how can our desires help but work out.  They are His planted in us for the purpose of bearing His fruit.

Easy, Right.

Crossing the Red Sea

Jesus boldly and without any reservations said: “Whatsoever you pray for in your prayers, believe you have received it and it is yours.” This promise has flabbergasted me more than once. How could He say such a thing? He is in fact issuing a blank check to those who would follow Him.

As of now this is my best explanation: He knew that we one day would leave the wilderness and begin to flow in the consciousness of the I AM and thus take in faith that it is me speaking, but at the same time it is Him. And when we know it is Him as us all judgment is removed from the request and it will thus flow effortlessly into manifestation by Him who has spoken by us and done it in the same now.

Yesterday I was marveling at how spirit is too deep for us and without revelation it will remain so. While pondering these things I was reminded about myself praying in tongues. It comes out in a language I do not comprehend with reason. And if the words are not interpreted they will remain beyond my reach. This became an image to me on how spirit it too deep for our intellect or reason to grasp.

The language of spirit is faith exactly because faith goes against every conclusion the intellect makes based on appearances. Faith operates with facts that are hidden in the invisible - spirit facts. Faith speaks spirit knowledge – what is known on the spirit level where we are joined one spirit with God. But, even though spirit knows, emotions will waver to and fro until a settling or knowing comes from He who runs the show.

We know, thus we speak, and faith is knowing without knowing since faith cannot be verified by reason or appearances. Faith skips reason, and that is what makes faith both so simple and so difficult. Difficult because we state or confess something that is contrary to what we always have relied on when we are to make judgments; the natural and how it presents itself to our natural senses.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, Paul said. The spirit is always willing to express the deeper truths of God whereas the flesh is mesmerized by what it perceives in the natural, and thus we are confronted with these tension fields that are created by this tug-of-war between sense-knowledge and spirit-knowledge.

These inner confrontations might lead to progressively new leaps of faith. It struck me the other day that these leaps of faith find their equivalent in the crossing of the Red Sea. Will the walls of appearances come crushing over us while we walk on the dry faith ground? Safe through on the other side every belief, idea or notion that oppose faith, that is, the truth, will be drowned in the water that closes the gap behind us, and will be remembered no more. “The former things are passed away.” Walking below the sea level, below the sea of appearances, that is, walking on the sea bed illustrates how faith is walking in accordance with the spirit level that is hidden under the water of appearances.

The sea bed is rock solid substance, and it is not affected by the changing conditions on the surface. I like to think that faith is its own proof. Faith is substance – faith is facts – God is – faith is now – it is done.

It is written that Mary pondered these things in her heart, that is, in her spirit and that saved her from much agony, as far as I can see. The other extreme is visualized by Zacharias, John the Baptist's father, who didn't believe the answer when it was presented to him by an angel even though he and his wife had prayed for a son for many years. It doesn't say so in the scriptures, but he must have pondered these things in his intellect.  His unbelief didn't reverse the promise, because Elizabeth’s faith became the channel through which the promise manifested.

Zacharias temporarily losing his voice is merely another way of saying: “Be quiet and know that I am God; I have a way of which ye do not know.”

The reason why I dare to call faith a channel through which the manifestation flows is because I one night got an inner image of faith as exactly that. Without faith it is impossible to please God, we learn. Faith is the channel through which that which is done is manifested either in our consciousnesses or in the natural whether it is salvation, our union stand, a physical healing or the birth of a child. Jesus said: “According to your faith be it unto you.” Faith is the channel through which we receive and it is by faith we speak things into existence.

The new idea is conceived in the womb of God and when the time is ripe the desire will press upon us for expression and the birth channel is our faith. If the new idea is weighted in our intellect we will conceive it as impossible, but faith is consciousness and not thoughts and hence circumvents the intellect. Faith is the Christ consciousness that dawns upon us. We receive it and begin to use it. That Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith is another way of saying this.

Friction

This life isn’t really about me anymore. I am God’s and He walks as me in this life as He pleases to reach those He has placed around me. Before I can fully see this it is vital that I know under all circumstances and in any situation that I am the son in whom He is well pleased. I do not understand all the paths He takes me along. What I notice, however, is how He by my soul reenacts His own death, resurrection and ascension so that others may have life.

Around every corner in this walk I face a temptation. The temptation to believe that there is something wrong with me, that I have fallen, that I ought not think, feel or react like I do. The law always tries to make me go back to self-effort. Its subtleness can only be exposed by the practice of our senses, and it lurks around every corner trying to catch us in its net. Trying to be good is so alluring, but there is only One who is good.

Jesus was a man of sorrows, it says in the prophet. And that is a sure thing in this new life; to walk in faith believing at all times that Christ is living my life in every current moment and that I am righteous no matter outer appearances can only be established in me through various sufferings. Jesus learned the obedience of faith by what He suffered and I am by no means exempted from that.

To pick up my cross and deny myself is simply to acknowledge that I am a temple for the living immutable God, and that He works in me and as me in often mysterious ways. Jesus said: “I of myself can do nothing” and by that giving a most potent example of what it means to deny ourselves. Losing our lives is giving up any idea about self-improvement. How can a dead person go about making his appearance look more endearing?

To accept ourselves with all our weaknesses and oddities is in our inner seeing often like a huge mountain we have to ascend. But, Jesus said we could speak to mountains like that and they would be thrown into the sea. The friction created in our souls when we move into the reality of perfection against all outer apparent evidences to the contrary often causes us great pains, but the heat generated will be an outgoing flame that will be life for others.

When self-loathing, condemnation and confusion knock on the door, Jesus is even more eagerly knocking on the door to our consciousnesses. The first three insist that we are to suppress and oppose ourselves and they more than suggest that we are independent selves operating and managing ourselves apart from God. Jesus, however, leads us to the still waters of self-acceptance rekindling our faith to the fact that He is living our lives in perfection.

What Is Love?

What is love? Can it be defined within the sphere of emotions, or is love something that rests on a more secure foundation than good feelings? And what does it mean that God is love? Do I have love or am I love? Can I muster up love when circumstances demand love, or is love beyond self-effort?  Can I for instance recognize love by faith?

The answer to almost all of our questions is found in God’s declaration: “I will!”, or hearing Him say “Let us make man in our image.” That is love. It is the Fire-Self becoming light when it “chose” to become for others. This means that love is something far greater than emotions, but it doesn’t exclude emotions like the parable of the prodigal son demonstrates.

If love is an is-thing than I do not have love, but I am love because God is joined one Spirit with me, and, not least, because it is He who works in me to will and do after His good pleasure. It is He who says as me: I will! Since I cannot judge love based on emotions, love must be recognized in faith as seeing God in everything working forth His eternal purposes in all things. In the instant I say that I also understand that love is beyond appearances. Love simply defies judgment on human terms.

I hear all those calls to love almost everywhere I turn, but I have become deaf to those calls. I have learned the hard way that I cannot muster up a grain of love by self effort. This thing most of us call love, is human “love”, and it tastes like honey in our mouth, but it will turn sour in our stomachs.

However, Divine love wells up from our innermost being as a refreshing river that manifests its purposes of love spontaneously as us in everything. Love is thus resting in faith that we can do nothing of ourselves, and that it is He who does the works, and not to mention; I do only what I see my Father is doing.

You See, But See Not

Jesus at several instances said: You see, but see not. You hear, but hear not. Once facing the Pharisees and Scribes he exclaimed: “I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father” (John 8:38).

My testimony in this context is: I see and hear on the sense level seeing/hearing my life, my emotions, my reactions and actions and at the I same time I see and hear within my spirit, and what I see and hear on this level is what I see and hear on the sense level. By faith I see what my Father is doing, but this seeing isn't outer sense-seeing. But, with my natural senses I see how He comes out of me. This is what I believe Jesus was referring to when He spoke to the Pharisees and the Scribes.

James said that if the source is clean the fountain will be likewise. Spirit is too deep for us which means that without revelation we will continue to walk in the delusion that what we see with our natural senses is all there is, and hence we will judge accordingly. In other words; we see, but see not and hear, but hear not. Some authors speak about the extended senses, which is nothing else than faith seeing and hearing, that is, a recognition of that the facts of being are found in the invisible. Faith deals with these facts. It sees what is beyond the scope of our natural senses.

God’s invitation is always: “Come up on higher!” This invitation leads to, for us, new faith choices which if responded to take us further into uncharted territory. We learn to hear and hear, and to see and see. Why is this important? Because, God desires to lead His sons to maturity knowing who they are. A safe son’s testimony is: “I speak that which I have seen with my Father” no matter outer appearances. A safe son knows that he is kept by the Father and that the Father does the works.

Jesus knew Who His Source was and He knew that if the Source was pure the fountain would be clean. The Pharisees saw, but didn’t see and thus based their judgment on performance and what they saw with their natural senses not knowing that if their source, their father, was unclean their doings would be of the same quality. Jesus in one instance said about the Pharisees: “You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.”

Jesus’ “who by taking thought can add one cubit unto their stature” makes perfectly sense when we know that all things starts in the invisible and that our Father is the responsible One in this spirit/Spirit union, and, further, that we are the temples through which He has found a point of expression.

Come Now, Let Us Reason Together

As the Spirit expands our inner consciousness we enter new levels of insights as we agree with the truths which are His privilege to reveal to us as our inner teacher. One of those transitions that take place in our awareness is when we move from the idea that we have to keep ourselves to acknowledging that the Spirit is our keeper and has been so from the instant Jesus cleansed our temple. My great problem when beginning to see this was that I had some very distinct opinions on how He should keep me and in which areas He should keep me. Evidently this has led to some confusion on my part when things haven’t materialized or turned out as I had envisioned them. It is quite typic that when we think we are in charge that condemnation and other not so very edifying emotions find cracks in our armour and disturb our equilibrium. I am, however, confident all these emotions and sensations are all necessary in God’s rearing scheme as He continues to settle us in the reality of Christ living as us.

Another implication of me following a thought pattern where I imagine that I dictate how the Spirit is to enact His will in me is disappointment in Him, and, not least, an idea is formed in my mind which insists that I somehow have deviated from His will – that I am an impossible case, that is, not possible to control. However, there comes a day when the Lord says: “Come now, let us reason together.” When that day arrives it is a day of great release, because His message is simply: “I keep you, but I do not keep you in accordance with your expectations on how I am to keep you.” That’s all He says, but the profundity of His words when recognized promptly leads to an awareness of total safety and a new and expanded sense of liberty to just be.

My closest friend and I had a discussion going a couple of days ago. I openly told my friend about some of my weaknesses and how I had not yet experienced deliverance from any of them. Well, my friend told me, dead people do not need deliverance. That became another “Come now, let us reason together” moment.

So, I do not understand everything that transpires in my life.  But what I have come to know without a shadow of doubt is that His thoughts are far higher than mine, and that purity, holiness, righteousness and ad infinitum aren’t based on outer reality but just are because those are the characteristics of He who has taken me over in totality. In other words, everything we encounter is meant so that we in increasing measure by the Spirit can be taken from outer appearances to seeing God only as a fixed inner reality.