God drives us (The Elect) from Eden to till our own ground. Toiling in our own efforts, under the prideful delusion that we can be apart from Him is the start of our creation process.
“Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”
God puts ministering spirits (thoughts/Cherubims) at the rising of our sun (East), from where knowledge comes from, hence God, to distract us from knowing truth, the tree of life.
“So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”
Ministering spirits are thoughts, words that enter our mind to keep us distracted with anything and everything that keep us from the truth, which in parable is “a flaming sword which turned every way.”
So he drove outH1644 (divorces)(H853) the man;(the hypocrite)H120 and he placedH7931 at the east (east is where light comes from, knowledge) H4480 H6924 of the garden (fenced in)H1588 of Eden (Eden means pleasure – to know God is ultimate pleasure, where we are fenced in from all evil)H5731 (H853) Cherubims (represent our imagination corrupted by tilling our own ground with the ministering spirits that are sent to us to keep us from enjoying God in truth)H3742 and a flamingH3858 sword (Covert light that is a perversion of truth to keep us, guard us, from knowing truth, the tree of life.)H2719 which turned every way, (perverting the truth)H2015 to keep (guard)H8104 (H853) the way (road traversed to know God in truth)H1870 of the treeH6086 of life.H2416“
Then when Christ is revealed in us, the Elect, God sends truthful thoughts, ministering spirits, to guide us to Christ. But, these are only thoughts that lead us to where we begin to know the voice of Christ from the voice of the stranger. The voice of the stranger represents evil, individualistic ministering thoughts. They minister to us what our flesh covets.
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, (ministering spirits/thoughts) Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds (every person is a world); Who being the brightness of his glory (truth from the east), and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high (Christ created it all, in my own world and in the world as a whole. There is no more knowledge than that. No thought of God, angel, can ascend higher than this truth. The thought that Christ is The Creator and I create nothing is to know Christ is The Tree of Life.); Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? (No thought, that I have ever had, will be next to God, as an image of God. Only Christ is the express image of God.) And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him (When Christ is revealed in us every thought worships Christ as its Creator. There is nothing that exists but Christ and His Father). And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever (Christ’s throne, power, is from the ages of the ages and will never end as the one and only power.): a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity (iniquity is self righteousness, Ezk.33:13, eating from your own tree of thought that you can know good from evil. Christ has loved righteousness which means He knows all and everything He is, was and will be comes from The Father. He knows He does not exist separate from The Father and now He is teaching the elect this truth.); therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows (Christ is exalted above every thought that sees itself as a thought separate from God. These are the ministering thoughts that were sent to guard, keep us from the truth). And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands (our earth and minds are a creation of Christ): They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed (new heaven and new earth that has been changed from the terrestrial to the celestial): but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? (I cannot overcome by thoughts that claim independence from God.) Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? (Heb.1)
God sent lying spirits to Ahab through Ahab’s prophets for the purpose of killing him.
“And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left (ministering spirits). And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? (keep Ahab from truth) And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.”
This is yet another parable of what goes on in our minds. These are the thoughts, spirits that are sent to keep us from the tree of life. The tree of life is the cross, the tree on which Christ hung to give life unto the world within the Elect. When we eat the fruit that hangs on the tree, when we confess that we are not Christ, nor are we God, we get eternal life. This is called repentance, this is the fruit that hangs from the tree of life, which is the cross. When we are given to see that Christ is, was and will be the only perfection of God The Father and that He alone bore our sin we are eating from the tree of life. To confess that Christ’s cross removes our sin is to have life. To have life is to know The Father. All selfish or sinful thoughts that pass through our mind/heavens are ministering spirits that we must confess and know that the tree of life/cross cleanses us from sin.
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
“As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is eating from our own tree as a tree that contains good or evil separate from God, as an individual, separate from God.
“And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.”
At first the man sees men “as trees, walking.” Men are described as trees all over scripture. God uses trees to represent men because in God’s perspective men are as inanimate as a tree. Just as in the natural a tree cannot pick itself up and move. God uses this natural reality to show us the absurdity of men’s thoughts that they are independent beings moving above of their own volition, charting their own paths with thoughts they claim as their own. Then Christ puts His hands upon the man’s eyes and MADE HIM LOOK UP, above himself, giving him a higher perspective into the truth of the kingdom of God, and then it says he was restored and “saw every man clearly.” To see clearly is to know that everything about myself is a creation of God. We do not blink or have a heartbeat without him. We are as inanimate as a tree without Him. We live, move and have our being in Him. It is not until we confess we are blind can we be “restored” to see everyone in Christ’s power. When we are given to see ourselves for what we are, created beings with no power of our own, then we are granted to see ourselves and God clearly. This truth is depicted in Daniel 4 in the story of Nebuchadnezzar, who is likened to a great tree who is cut down by God because of his pride. In the end Nebuchadnezzer is restored to understanding and utters these words “…and at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up my eyes unto heaven and my understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honored Him that lives forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His Kingdom is from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His Will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, what doest thou?”
Now, speaking as a man, if Adam, after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil had confessed his sin and repented instead of putting the blame on the woman (who represents his flesh) and then God for making her (his flesh), he would have been given life. He would have eaten fruit from the tree of life. But what came out of his mouth was blame towards the individual for making him do what he did and blame towards God for making the woman. “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” What he saw after eating the fruit was a knowledge that God had made a mistake in making the woman. It wasn’t his fault, it was the woman’s and God’s. Thus begins the journey of the first creation, fitted for destruction, which will lead to the second creation, that leads to eternal life. God creates us to be prideful and hard-hearted and to see ourselves as independent from Him on purpose so that He can show us mercy and make us into eternal spiritual beings who will ultimately understand Him and the depths of His mercy, patience, and love. This can’t happen without first creating us rebellious. All of it, the first rebellious creation to the last man, a spiritual being with eternal life, is authored by Christ. We are made to be witnesses to our own creation. We witness the egregious ways we have been made to rebel against the Lord and we witness His mercy on us as He patiently endures this all the way through to our perfection. Seeing our first beastly sin nature that He created is essential to becoming a mature spiritual being in Christ without spot and blemish. The cross heals us from sin and gives us life. The cross opens our heavens to look up and see ourselves clearly, as creations of God in Whom we live and move and have our being. The cross represents the necessary death of the first creation, our own death to self and any identity separate from God. This is where the law comes in. The law is made to show us our sin and to make our sin abound even worse.
“Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Again, speaking as a man, if God had never given the law not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there would have never been the sin of individualism from God. Man would have never known he was a creation. But to know God The Father we must know that we are not Him. We must know that what we are at any given minute is a creation of God and not a creation of myself. I do not create good or evil. I did not create myself evil and I do not create myself good. Before He begins to create me into a vessel of honor I must first see myself, separate from God, as a vessel of dishonor.
“Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called…”
The law brings sin out and grace covers that sin even more. The law brings sin out because the law says you shall not covet. To covet is to want anything more than you have in any given minute. The law is not just contained in the ten commandments but is intertwined with any thought where we covet more. I bought a chicken sandwich the other day and thanked God for the meal. Then I began to eat it and it was, to my taste, dry and not the savory sandwich that I thought it should be. God made the chicken from an egg. Hatched it. Raised it until it was slaughtered by someone whom He had also raised and then brought the chicken to the establishment where I had bought it. He had a person cook it – a person He had created and then had them put it together in a sandwich to give to me. Now, in between all this there are thousands of details that are left out on the processing, packaging, distribution, etc. etc. that God did to get the sandwich to my hands and then I had the audacity to complain that it was not what I, as an individual, a created being without a whit of creative power, wanted. I had thanked God for the sandwich but my words and thoughts betrayed the prayer by complaint. I was not thankful but was unthankful and my prayer was not in truth. So, the law is brought in to point out to us what God endures throughout our creative process as He brings us to an awareness that we are not Him. But, as the scripture says, “where sin abounds, grace did much more abound.” God, in His mercy, does not smash us for every sin but sees us as He created us, as creations not CREATORS. And as our awareness grows more and more of our sin which abounds, we see and are a witness to His grace and His great mercy which does so much more abound. Again, the cross is where we are healed in our continual confession of what we are and what we are not.
I am learnig what it means to be at liberty in Christ. What are we being liberated from? From the veil that is upon our heart, that is covering the fact that the glory of the law, that pointed out my sin, is being done away with. It was very glorious for sin to be pointed out.
“But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:”
This verse tells us that it was glorious for sin to be revealed in us. The law written on tables of stone was glorious because it brought LIGHT to what we are in the flesh, as it did to Adam eating the fruit. We do not know what we are in the flesh until it is pointed out by the law. But what was so glorious that we cannot look upon it, is faded away by the greater glory of Christ, Who promises to make us into a new creation, free from the sin of individualism and thus making us eternal beings in Him. The law is glorious in that it works as a mirror to show us what we are in the flesh, in the first creation. It’s glorious because it was needful to reveal our man of sin, who thinks he is an individual god knowing good and evil. But then Christ far exceeds the glory of the law, which revealed our sin, because He overcomes what we are in the flesh. Christ took the glory of the law which required death, upon Himself. He is the fulfillment of the second covenant in that He frees us from the condemnation of the glory of the law. We are given new hope because we are changed from seeing sin as a separation from God to seeing it was needful at that time to show us that we cannot be righteous in and of ourselves. It sucks all hope of attaining righteousness by laws out of us and puts all hope in Christ. The Spirit of Christ is the power that changes us, not the law of the flesh. Our change comes from the power of God through the spirit of Christ. He is now creating us into new beings with a spirit of holiness. He doesn’t leave us in sin as sinful beings. He came to erradicate sin, not leave us wallowing in darkness, just shrugging our shoulders at sin because we’re helpless to control it. But darkness cannot enter the kingdom of God. We are helpless in our darkness, this is true, and without Christ we would also be hopeless. But Christ has come to change us into beings of true holiness. We are the woman caught in the act of adultery who Christ tells to “go and sin no more.” If we are Elect, He will see to it that we go and sin no more, starting in this life here in the flesh. It is glorious to be brought to a place of utter repulsion at what you are in the flesh but so much more glorious to see the second covenant that promises to change us into the image of Christ.
“Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;”
The second covenant tells us that what you were made in the flesh from your first creation is being remade by Christ in your second creation. Our first creation was by God, therefore our second creation must be by God. It is not of man, by law, to remake man, the change comes from a heart that has been remade by Christ. The change comes from a heart that knows only God can be The Creator not man. The first covenant was given for us to see and acknowledge what we are in the flesh without the spirit of God.
“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.”
We do not know we are dead until the law shows us we are dead – dead from knowing God. If we do not know God then we are spiritually dead. When the law is brought to our attention then sin is seen and comes alive. It spreads like leaven and covers our whole being, in every thought, word and deed. It, as the scripture above says, “wrought (fashions in me) in me all manner (all kinds) of concupiscence (longing for what the law says is sinful).” But until the glory of the law shows us this we are in a state of ignorance and blindness, thinking we are right with God based on our own good works, thinking we are a god. We don’t know we are in sin, made and fashioned in sin. At first, when we are shown what we are, we don’t want to look at it and cover it, like Moses did. By covering it we don’t deal with it through the Spirit of Christ. We should run to Him for deliverance from it. Instead we attempt to make ourselves righteous and make void the cross of Christ. The deceitfulness of sin tells me that I can fix the problem of sin by my own power. This is what the Pharisees did and all people do in the flesh. I remember when sin was first pointed out to me I said in my mind, “well if that’s all I have to do then I’ll do it and make myself right with God.” I put a veil over the glory of the law and said I could fix it myself. I did not see how glorious the law was and diminished it to a work of man and not the power of God. I essentially thought, “Adam messed up but I’ll fix it” not seeing that Adam could have no more stopped himself from sinning as I could stop myself. That’s the point. We cannot remake what God has made in either case – a sinner or a saint. I did not make myself a sinner and I cannot make myself a saint. I am going from the glory of seeing myself as a sinner by the first covenant to the glory of being made a saint by the second covenant.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
And this second covenant, as the first covenant cannot be broken. God has sworn that He will complete what He has ordained. We are then given the faith of Christ to believe that what the law of the flesh has shown me cannot dissannul the promise of eternal life that is in Christ, promised before I was ever shown what I was in the flesh.
“And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.”
“For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.”
We are saved. We are the children of God. Christ has secured us and God, Who doesn’t change and cannot lie, has given us His promise that nothing can change what He has made or has started.
“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.“
The glory of the law of the flesh was not given to separate us from God but to act as a goad to drive us to Christ, our mediator, “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Christ is our mediator and has secured us without fault. Nothing can stop God from making us what He has promised He will make us, “Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” It is glorious to be shown you are a sinner and not the righteous person you think you are. It is glorious to be shown your man of sin.
“Let no man deceive you by any means: for except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposes and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God shewing himself that he is God.”
It is bitter water to drink to be shown what you are and what you are not. It is wormwood. This is the purpose of the law.
“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”
It is as a great lamp, a great light to see ourselves in the light of the truth. But, as Saul, we kick against this truth. It is a mercy from God to show us what we are in the flesh because it then shows us His unending mercy. He is very merciful to us and even though He should, He does not destroy us. The more you are shown of what you are inside your flesh the more mercy you are given.
“He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity. And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD: Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. “
Knowing what we are without Him drives us to know Him. Knowing, deep within, deeper than head knowledge, who and what I am and that there is nothing redeemable in me brings me to the cross where I am sacrificed with Christ and become one with my Creator. I cannot be one with Him when I am still one with myself. I cannot be made a new man unless I am shown my old man. I cannot be a beast around the throne giving glory to God as long as I don’t see myself as a beast, as the great red dragon. The more we are given to see what and who we are by our first creation the more we are given to see the power of the cross. The glory in the cross of Christ taking my sin upon Himself outweighs the glory of my sin and I am changed into a new man day by day.
It is not possible for a person to honestly look upon himself and judge himself in truth. There is not a man on earth who has or can, in total truth, be honest about who and what he is. Only God can try the heart and reins of a man. It is an honor from God to give us to see ourselves in truth. It is glory, a dignity, to be able to see yourself for what you are at your core. When Christ brings me to remember the sins of my life I am repulsed and filled with such shame that I cannot think about it long or it will take all hope from me. It sinks me into a loathing of myself and total disgust at what I am as a natural beast. “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.” If you are an Elect then you know exactly what I mean. You have been brought down to the pit and have seen, in truth, what you are as a beast. No man, NO MAN, will enter the kingdom of God without first tasting of the bitterness of what he is at his core. Because unless you see that there is NOTHING good in you, NOTHING, you cannot follow Christ to where He went, to the cross. “… follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be…”; “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God” We must be shown who and what we are so that we can be divested, stripped of all hope in ourselves. If we hang on to one strand of hope in ourselves we will have to be shown we have no hope through another trial or remembrance of a past wrong. All strength must be seen as originating and coming from outside of self before we can take one step towards holiness. In the words of Christ, we must die.
“And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
To fall into our ground and die means we give up all hope of having anything based on our good works. To truly understand that we are nothing, less than nothing separate from The Creator. To love your life is to lose your life. To hate your life is to gain life in Christ. Look at the scripture quoted above and slowly read the words. How is Christ predicting He will be glorified? BY DEATH. His death will glorify God. Why? Why did Christ have to die to glorify His Father? Why death? And why such a horrible death? Christ’s death glorified the law and testified on our behalf that we, by the law, deserved to die. The law is glorifying. It glorified The Father in testifying that what the law said about us is true. Again, if you have been given to see what you are at your core then you will easily agree that you deserve to die. You would be the first to find yourself guilty and the first to throw a stone at yourself, if you have been given to see yourself in the light of Christ and the law. Christ’s death took what you have been shown about yourself and placed it upon Him. He took the punishment so that we don’t have to. To be totally forgotten for all of eternity in the place of the unknown, hell, is where we deserve to be but Christ has delivered us from the grave to live forever, to be known by God forever. It is the greatest evil to think and glory in your own works, good or evil. To take the credit for anything is to claim Godhood. So, God in His infinite wisdom made us natural beasts to do things that would make us blush with shame. He gives the law and with it exposes our sin. Sin is the thought that you can live one second independent from God. So, God gives us the law to expose us and show us that we are not what we think we are. The law has requirements and the requirement of the law is separation from God, death. Christ takes that separation upon Himself for us so that we can have communion with God in truth. What is communion with God in truth? To know that He and He alone is The All in all of me, I do nothing of myself. This is how we die and bring forth much fruit. And this is going where Christ went, to the cross.
“He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.”
To serve Christ is to follow Christ to the cross, bear your own cross and die to self. If we love our life then we will lose our life. If we hate our life in this world we will keep it unto eternal life. But what does that really mean to hate our life? It means we find nothing in this life independent from Christ as its Creator and we love The Creator above all things. We claim nothing as ours. To love family, friends, houses, property, your PRIDE: in your identity, your appearance, your opinions, your way of thinking, talking, dressing, living, eating, anything that we are not willing to lose, above Christ, is to love yourself more than Him Who created you. This is what Christ was getting across to Peter when He asked him three times if Peter loved Him more than these. He then goes on to explain to Peter:
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.”
We don’t give ourselves up willingly. The flesh, our man of sin, our identity, our sense of godhood was created to be obsessed with survival. Christ has to enter us and get us to a mature place spiritually (hence we are “old”) and then He causes us to “stretch forth our hands and have another gird and carry us where we would not.” It is Christ Who is doing all the work. We simply witness what we were and what we’re being changed into all the while knowing the changes being made must be wrought by Christ because we know our flesh could never, would never submit. We have been shown what we are without Him and if left in that state, we are hopeless and helpless in our delusion of godhood, sin. To know Christ is to know true freedom from the lust of the flesh to be its own glory, to be free from thinking I am, that I am, to be free from the slavery of spending our entire lives living for what is dying and will go away forever. To serve Christ is to be honored by The Father. To live unto God is to be free from the attachment of this world, to be free from the attachment of MY world with all of its wants and desires. To be free from my world is to live unto God and Christ as everything. This is troubling for the flesh because it causes the flesh to be crucified. But, as Christ, if we are an Elect, a follower of Christ, then it is our hour. It is why we have been brought to this hour, to be crucified, die to self, and live unto God.
“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.”
If we are given the privilege to know God, then we are given the privilege to be glorified by God as Christ was – glorified to know what we are in the flesh and be glorified by God to be recreated into what Christ is. We go from the glory of the law to the glory of grace.
“Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
The Father is glorified when we are brought to know what we are in the flesh and then He is glorified in graciously recreating us. He does not leave us dead in sin but raises us above sin and we become overcomers of the flesh and its sinful desires to be its own god. The prince of our world is cast out and we are drawn to Christ on the cross. We are drawn to lay down what we have known as our life and live unto God. The prince of our world is cast out who drove us to and fro looking for his own life separate and independant from God. The prince of our world is cast out, thrown out by our death on the cross. His cares, his wants, his desires are all crucified in the hour of his death, whenever that hour may be. He dies and is thankfully forgotten, buried in the place of the unknown because we never want to know him again. He was a prince who ruled our world as an iron fisted dictator who got fat on living for self. He acted religious and kind, or he acted like a good person without religion, but in either case he spoke as a dragon with the horns of a lamb. Behind the veil, the flesh, was a serpent, a dragon who only cared for himself and no one else. But when he is crucified on the cross his cares are forgotten, his desires are thrown away and all that remains is the desire to serve God with all my heart, soul and mind and my neighbor as myself. This is a process that takes time and patience. Dismantling the temple of the man of sin, brick by brick, happens day by day. God will be glorified by the death of the old man and then glorified by the life of the new man. Christ is drawing us to God by our being lifted up on the cross and by our being lifted up from the grave, day by day. He is drawing ALL in me, in my world, to Him, to know The Father. The voice, this truth comes for us to know.
“The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die.”
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