Being1inChrist

“Rev 2:11  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.” The second death is where we must die to our own personal false doctrines, our own laws, that are as close to us as parents or siblings. “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” Why is it called the second death? Because there are two men within me – a Gentile and a Jew. Just as there were two men on a cross on either side of Jesus Christ when he died so this is a depiction of the two men within me that must die and this dying to both parts of my old man, makes the “two become one” bringing forth the one new man – a son of God, in the image of Christ. The veil in the temple (temple being our heart) is rent in two and the way to the holy of holies is opened – which was previously being run by the Pharisee (same guy spoken of in Daniel who is seated in the temple claiming himself to be God) who was full of laws, pointing fingers and keeping the way to the holy of holies blocked from all within me who would try to enter into rest. My inner Pharisee has been running my world from the beginning and lording over the Gentile. It’s the guy with all the laws who always knows he’s right – whether in the height of debauchery or the height good works, he is self-righteous through it all. “But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.” The holy of holies is Christ alone but my Pharisee within believes it to be himself. He believes himself to be the righteous, “goodman” of the house and is envious of Christ’s rightful place on the throne. When Christ is seated in the holy of holies, He is humble and forgiving and welcomes all who would come. But when my old man, the Pharisee is seated at the “high place” at the table, he keeps everyone away from being fed and forgiven with his phony laws of self-righteousness. “And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” Stay away he says to all who are hungry and in prison….to the ones within me who’ve been beaten and robbed on the road to Damascus by thieves who would try to steal Christ’s message of love and forgiveness. The Gentile within me goes down easy in comparison….again think of the two men on the cross. One of them (the Gentile) realizes he needs to and deserves to die and that Christ alone is worthy, while the man on the other cross (the Jew/Pharisee) still has the gall to mock Christ for not coming down off the cross and holds to his own innocence. Christ tells the Gentile that that very day he will be with him in paradise – our recognition of our faults, and the sole righteousness of Christ grants us entrance into paradise! That’s it! That’s all that is required of us. Put down our own claim to righteousness, die to all our laws that demand that others be stoned and we be praised, acknowledge Christ alone to be worthy and in control and paradise (Christ) is ours! This is the first death. Of course, if it were easy to do this, it wouldn’t be depicted as a gory crucifixion. It’s not easy and only Christ can convert and meld the two sides of our old man. After He converts our Gentile and cleans him up from his gluttonous consumption of the world’s doctrines which manifested in obvious outward sins of depravity, he switches His attention to the Jew (the guy who was really running the show behind the scenes)…a self-righteous Pharisee who believes himself to be responsible for his own clean-up and now deserves to look upon all Gentiles with disdain because he is keeping the law and they are not. This is what the story of the prodigal son is describing. We are both brothers. After Christ welcomes our younger brother Gentile home who has been defeated and humiliated by the outward world, our older more stubborn brother, the Jewish Pharisee becomes jealous thinking he deserves a party and a slap on the back for sticking close to home. His Father tells him not to be disheartened as all that is his (the Father’s) belongs to him also! What a reward! We don’t need our own righteousness. We reap all of the reward (eternal life in paradise with Christ) for Christ’s righteousness alone! But the older brother Pharisee wants it all. It’s not enough to be IN Christ and IN the kingdom. He wants to BE Christ and run the kingdom. He clings to his own righteousness like filthy rags. He sees the motes in everybody’s eyes but not the beam in his own. He doesn’t see that he didn’t make himself a “good” man anymore than he made himself depraved. Christ relieves us of seeing the motes of others if we are resting in Him as the Creator of all that is and ever will be. To rest is to die to self-righteousness – die to the voice inside that tells us we are wise, know everything and deserve to judge. This is why Paul tells us to “labor to enter into rest” and that he “strives to know nothing save Christ and Him crucified.” It’s a labor to be shown daily, hourly, minute-by-minute all the ways you are still clinging to your own personal laws of “rightness.” These laws are our mother, father, sister, brother, spouse – they are so close to us that we don’t even recognize them as being foreigners in the land yet they don’t belong in the kingdom of God. They must be rejected and walked away from, even hated. We must hate our laws that preserve our flesh, that make us look so good on the outside and make us feel righteous. But where there is law, there is transgression. If you want pain and suffering, hold to a law and experience the constant transgression of that law. There is only one law in the kingdom of God – love your neighbor as yourself – and in this you are loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. The two laws are one. How can you say you love God whom you’ve not seen, but hate your brother in the flesh whom you have seen? (1 John 4:20)

These are the doctrines/thoughts within me that “say they are Jews and are not.” These are the serpent lies in me that say I am a righteous Jew, when I am not. And when I deny the serpent’s lies that tell me I’m good and deserving of worship – deserve to have my own way rather than accepting God’s Will at all times and being content in the situation I’m in – my satanic nature rares up and casts me into prison for ten days (ten days representing a completion of that particular trial) to try me by my own set of satanic laws, my 10 horns or commandments. Because I’m holding to laws that I believe make me righteous, or the other way around…because I still believe I’m righteous and so deserve (even demand) to have my laws kept, the Lord will send a transgressing spirit to break my laws, and show me that I am still holding to a law unto myself in some area of my life, and have not submitted to His loving authority. He shows me another spouse I’m holding onto (some pet law) that’s still alive and well and, therefore, I am not free from it. “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.” It hurts when we don’t get our way. That’s really all that is being said here. Not getting our way is the simplist way to describe how we hold onto laws of “how things ought to be.” And when these laws are broken, it brings pain. But if you don’t have any laws, there’s no law to break and, therefore, no pain!! This is being faithful unto the death of myself, my pride, my identity and not being hurt by it. Christ says we will be tried. He says we will be cast into prison. The death is hard but the reward after each death is the joy of freedom from another spouse (who wasn’t Christ) that held us captive. Once the Lord gives us a taste of this freedom, it can even be a joy to die to our “rights.” We’ve been set free from the fear that these laws had us bound to – perfect love casts out fear. As we come to trust in Christ as our spouse and in His love for us more and more, we want the writ of divorce from our old spouses (laws) who only tormented us with fear of punishment if their laws are broken (they don’t get their way.) Where there is no law, there is no transgression!

We are learning to die to self and not be hurt. The opposite is to live unto ourselves and be hurt and feel the pain of unforgiveness which brings forth anger and bitterness. Forgiveness is an essential part of learning love. Christ forgives us daily all day long as His ungrateful spouse complaining incessantly about the way He does everything. If we’ve been made to know and believe that Christ is the Author and Creator of all that is, then anything I complain about is a complaint against Him. This is the plight of the old/original creation that He is in the process of remaking. It is the gall and bitterness of the lie we were made to swallow that “you shall be as gods.” It causes the belly (our will) to be bitter and unhappy because we’ve eaten the fruit of the lie that we know better than our Creator how “things ought to be.” We eat from our own tree of the knowledge of what’s good and what’s evil for me – we go throughout the day weaving back and forth like a serpent from good to evil and back again – this is good, that’s evil – I want this, I don’t want that – this will help me – that will hurt me – this will feel good- that will hurt – this will make me happy – that will make me unhappy – I must “choose wisely” constantly throughout my day in order to protect myself. This is bondage. The delusion of being our own god with our own set of laws is terrible bondage.

Everything in us that is not yet converted, written in the Lamb’s book of life, must be killed by the second death. Remember we are dying to our own set of laws we call OUR LAW. “The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” It is OUR law that cannot forgive, because according to our law WE are a JEW, chosen by God, and therefore have the right to judge. We believe that judging according to our law is serving God. We cannot forgive when the law has been broken because we are commanded (by our old man whom we mistake to be THE God) to kill if the law has been broken. So by what we call God’s authority which is really just our old man’s authority, we must kill according to law, because we believe only God has to forgive – we don’t.

“When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?” The Pharisee within us loathes the idea of letting go of our own set of laws by which we get to stand in the place of God and act as a judge. We say “only God can forgive.” And true to Pharisee form, this is actually a true statement but it has been manipulated by the serpent to work to our fleshly advantage, which hates to forgive (and so in essence hates God and Christ.) The truth is if Christ is in us, His power gives us the strength and authority to forgive sins. What this authority really means is we have been granted the humility to understand that we have no rights as a judge or executioner. In this place of humility, forgiveness naturally flows. There is only one authority under heaven and it’s God the Father and His son Jesus Christ who is completely aligned with the Will of God. And His Will is to forgive so if we lack forgiveness, we show ourselves to be in darkness, without the spirit of Christ. Our serpent nature tries so hard to mimic humility “well, I’M not God…who am I to forgive someone else’s sin?” The truth is, in our flesh, we do believe we’re God. This is exposed every time we judge another person. So we claim to understand that we’re not God but our daily thoughts, words and deeds betray that we don’t believe this. The serpent nature loves to act as God in judgment but hates the act of forgiveness, which is love. And God is love. So this is how its cover is blown every time. The serpent nature plays the part outwardly with smooth words but inwardly it’s a ravening wolf. We can even say the words “I forgive you” but God knows our heart. The Pharisee is right that only God can forgive but if Christ is in you, then God is in you and with you and He gives us His power which is His love to truly forgive and it won’t be lip service. It won’t be a phony prayer in the marketplace for all to hear: “Oh Lord please forgive this filthy sinner and thank you that I’m not like him.” Most of us know this story in scripture that I just paraphrased. So, the trying of our faith, being cast into prison by the devil, and the second death all have to do with genuine forgiveness, which is an expression of love. If we can forgive others when they break our phony Jewish laws, we are not hurt by the second death – we’ll feel no anger, bitterness or self-righteousness and we become Christ to each other, able to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins, but Christ gives us His power and indeed the commandment to forgive sins that have been committed against us. What we loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven and what we bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Christ in us gives us THE AUTHORITY OF GOD TO FORGIVE SINS! “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.”

“Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: asmyFather hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”

Once Christ enters us and He begins to transform us into His image, we begin to really understand that we are not our own god, we do not write our own life story, our thoughts, our words, none of it. We are a created being who was first made dust of the earth with a serpent nature that is antagonistic towards God. Christ made us what we were, are today and will be. We play no active role in this creation process. Our role is to be a witness in our creative process to the greatness of God and Christ. As we begin to grasp this, our flesh will inevitably cry out in bitterness “Why have you made me thus??? Why have you caused me to err from your ways??? Why do you judge me and hold me accountable for what I had no part in creating??? That’s right. Our serpent nature then turns its judgment on God Himself. It’s YOU who did this to me it says. “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why has thou made me thus?” We must forgive Christ for making us what He made us and know it repented Him, grieved Him at His heart that He made us on our earth. “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” We hold unforgiveness towards Christ for making us what He made us. That unforgiveness manifests as unforgiveness towards each other. If we understand that all things are made by and for Christ, then any unforgiveness we harbor towards another is in its truest form, unforgiveness towards Christ Himself, as the Author and Creator. The Lord puts us through some very hard things in this life of flesh. God put his own Son on the cross for us. Even Christ experienced the agony of feeling rejected by God (My God, My God why have you forsaken me?) Yet it grieved Him for making us what He made us but it is in this state we learn love. We, the creature, were made by Christ, subject to vanity unwillingly by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope.

For there to be a transgression, there must be a law and where there is no law, there is no transgression. Law and transgression were created by God and then juxtaposed against His grace so we could learn what love really is and is not. “Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:”; “for where no law is, there is no transgression.” Forgiveness is not needed when there is no transgression. Once we have learned forgiveness towards each other, laid down all our supposed “rights”, love has been perfected and there is no need for more transgression, no need for “sin to abound.” God is teaching us about Himself (God is love.) He is teaching us love by creating situations where love is transgressed (He puts us through the experiences of being both the transgressor and the transgressed against) but unlike law which says eye for an eye, God forgives and commands we do the same. It is the highest and only law in the kingdom of God. It is in this fiery cauldron of affliction that we learn love.

“Rev 20:5  But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (The rest of the dead in me that have not been recreated are still “dead” and have no life. They cannot live until they are brought from the dead and seen that they were dead, the second death and taught the truth that not only must they die to themselves but they must die for their brother. Every daily lesson (described as a thousand years) brings us more and more into the kingdom of God, which is love. Remember that a thousand means teaching. “A day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day to the Lord.”

“eh’lef” is the beginning of the Hebrew alphabet.

H505

אֶלֶף

‘eleph

eh’-lef

Properly the same as H504; hence (an ox’s head being the first letter of the alphabet, and this eventually used as a numeral) a thousand: – thousand.

H504

אֶלֶף

‘eleph

eh’-lef

From H502; a family; also (from the sense of yoking or taming) an ox or cow: – family, kine, oxen.

H502

אָלַף

‘âlaph

aw-lof’

A primitive root, to associate with; hence to learn (and causatively to teach): – learn, teach, utter. Total KJV occurrences: 4)

Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. (Blessed are those who are going through the process of being re-created into new heavens and new earth, on whom the second death has no power. These are those within me that are reigning with Christ and are priests to those things within me who have not yet been resurrected. They are the doctrines of love and forgiveness reigning with Christ, interceding, being priests of God and Christ for those who still have to go through the second death in me, and be shown that they are dead (believing the lie of self-righteousness.) In the first death, if I see myself as forgiven for my sins, and give Christ all praise and honor as the authority behind all that is, then I will not be hurt by dying for a transgression against my flesh. If I have been given to recognize that it was only a transgression orchestrated by God to make me recognize and lay down another one of my phony Jewish self-righteous laws, then Christ gives me relief from the pain of dying to my phony “rightness.” I have been part of the first resurrection. I truly have taken part of being resurrected. “Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” It doesn’t hurt Christ to forgive us. Christ is telling us, as the woman, go and sin no more by freely forgiving as we have been forgiven. Not forgiving others is an adulterous act towards Christ. Christ is our rightful spouse. When we do not forgive others, we are showing that we are still carrying on an affair with our old man (the Pharisee) who rejects Christ’s forgiveness because he thinks he doesn’t need it. The first resurrection is where we come to actually know the depths of depravity of the serpent nature we were born with and feel the relief of Christ’s forgiveness. This is our first death. We have been given the painful experience of being the transgressor against Christ. We are then commanded to forgive others for their sin against us, a second death that won’t hurt if we remember the lessons from the first death. Forgiving others is how we return to Christ our appreciation for what He has done for us as Our Creator. We can’t give anything back to Him that He hasn’t given to us first. We love Him because He first loved us. We love Him by forgiving as we have been forgiven. We love him by denying our old man, rejecting our constant pull to be our own god, and instead recognize His Sovereignty in everything. The second death, the act of forgiving a transgression against us, shouldn’t hurt or make us feel self-righteous when we know that the transgression was wrought by Christ for our benefit to show us where we are still in bondage to the old man, fighting for our own righteousness. Death to self (the second death) eventually comes as a relief because it means an even closer bond to our true husband, Christ.

The second death is in “aorist” tense which means it is ongoing with no past or future but it just is. It is continually happening while we walk in this flesh. The conversion of our dual nature, Gentile and Jew, is a daily, ongoing battle. We flip around, back and forth from Gentile back to Jew and vice versa. Our recreation is not linear. “He that overcomes shall not BE HURT of the second death.” “Be hurt” is in aorist tense, which means I’m not being hurt to forgive in that area of my world. We are learning to genuinely forgive without the secret bitterness and resentment of the Pharisee’s false humility. I can forgive and it doesn’t take a grappling within myself to forgive. It becomes a privilege to forgive because it means I have the power of the kingdom of God. A painless second death, requires the painful lesson from the first death. It is painful to see your true self in the flesh (a raging hypocrite, your man of sin) in the light of Christ’s brilliance. It is easy to forgive when you really know what you’ve been forgiven.

Conversion is not a one and done but a lifetime of practice in forgiveness. And it is easy to forget my own transgressions and what I am forgiven for by Christ on a daily basis, let alone the egregious sins against God and man of all the years before the holy spirit began to convert me. After months and years go by and the pain of shame (pain of the first death) has faded I begin to act as though I’ve always been this way and have never done evil. So my inner Pharisee rises again (deadly head wound is healed) and I once again begin to take pride in my own creation forgetting that it’s Christ Who has and is creating me. I once again believe that I am a good man outside of Christ (forgetting there’s none good but God). Like Peter who was rebuked by Paul in Galatians 2:11-14. I forget the humiliation of my first death and become high-minded. It hurts to forgive when I think I’m righteous. It hurts to be shamed and not retaliate when I believe I’m righteous. But it can only hurt if I have not been converted in that area of my life. I have often wondered and asked Christ, “Why did you make me this way?” Religion believes in freewill and says that Christ did not make us this way but we made ourselves this way by our own freewill choices. Not true. Religion will say we are born in a state of “equipoise,” not being bent on good or evil, neutral, and as we grow up we corrupt ourselves to be good or bad people. Not true. Scripture says we are created in sin and in sin are we conceived, Ps.51:5. Scripture says we come from the womb as adders biting and spewing poison, Romans 3:10-20. So the second death hurts because we are evil and blind in our understanding of who and what we are from birth. If I knew what I was in the flesh, (the same as everybody else in the flesh) it would be easy to forgive but until I am given the knowledge of who and what I am then the second death will continue to hurt. This process of forgiveness is the process Christ uses to create a being that is as its Creator, Who sends the sunlight on the evil as well as the good, Who graciously gives to those who hate Him and to those who don’t give Him a second thought. He gives to everyone their life and breath and being and does not ask anything in return from them. To the Elect He gives the understanding of Who He is and graces us with His ability to love and forgive others as He forgave us.

“Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”

Being delivered to the tormentors is being delivered back to the pain, anger, frustration, and ultimate humiliation of being reminded that I do not contain my own righteousness. My man of sin must be dethroned again as he gnashes his teeth in rage. When I don’t forgive, I must be reminded of what I’ve been forgiven for. I lose sleep, I’m angry and bitter and everything around me becomes a trial. The “anon with joy” I received for my own forgiveness is scorched with the bitter heat of unforgiveness towards someone else. The second death IS HURTING ME because I have left my first love of the forgiveness I received. I even hold unforgiveness towards God for making me the way He did and for so many of the events of my life – death of people I love, things that have been done to me when I thought God was supposed to protect me from evil. I hold unforgiveness towards Him for creating me to do and experience things I believe “as a loving God” He shouldn’t have. There are a million different reasons I hold bitterness towards God for making life the way He made it. Why? Why does it have to be this way and the only reason I get is The Potter has the right to create one vessel unto honor (new man) and another unto dishonor (old man). Does the pot have the right to ask why have you made me this way? “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?” We are first created in ignorance of the majesty of God and created as natural beasts with no understanding of who their Maker is, was and will be. So we see Him as an uncompassionate austere ruler Who kills and destroys at random and no one can stop Him. He tells us not to do one thing then He has us do it. “O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.” A few weeks ago I was walking to the shop to feed the animals and I saw one of my dogs in the cattle pen. I have yelled at him many times to stay out of the cattle pen because in my world of laws I see him peeing all over everything and believe the cows won’t eat the hay he’s peed on, and it’s an egregious offense to me that the Lord has him doing this. My old man is literally enraged by this transgression against his laws. My old man actually expects God to follow HIS laws, not the other way around, and has the audacity to get really angry with God when He doesn’t submit! Anyway, it had been snowing the week before and then iced over so the ground was very slick. As I was walking and saw the dog I said bitterly, “Well there’s nothing I can do about it Lord. You’re the One controlling him” and as the words left my mouth I slipped and went down hard. I landed on my right shoulder and it hurt so bad that I was rolling around in the ice screaming “why did you do that Lord, WHY!?” What was my sin that caused such a severe punishment? Even now weeks later I cannot pick my arm up over my head and I can’t sleep because of the pain. Last night when I went to bed I was in so much pain that I got up in anger and asked “What is the purpose of all this LORD?” Unforgiveness. Unforgiveness causes pain and I hold unforgiveness towards Christ for doing some of the things that He has done in my life. My frustration towards the dog (a dog being a parable of flesh) and God’s seeming unwillingness to do anything about it is a parable of my old man’s frustration towards God for handing him over to the flesh for so many years resulting in some incredibly painful and humiliating experiences. My new man knows that the humiliation and destruction of the old man (the vessel of dishonor) is a blessing and that my entire life is a testament to God’s goodness, but my old man (the Pharisee) is still bitter. I walked that path where I fell a thousand times or more and never fell one time and yet I never gave Christ the glory for that! But the one time I fall I immediately yell at Him for causing the fall. It’s the story of Job. He walks around every day scared that God is going to drop the hammer so he does all these religious things that in his mind keep him in good graces. Then when the evil comes he yells at God for being unjust. If God were a man, Job says, he would argue with Him and demand to be shown my sin. I am, like Job, still holding to my righteousness and still seeing God as a man, a reactionary force operating on tit-for-tat laws. I still have parts of me that believe in my “innocence and righteousness.” I once was in ignorance of the power and sovereignty of God and would have attributed my fall to the ice, the weather, not paying attention, or just a chance happening separate from all forces. But I know now this is all vanity. There is no power but of God. I also once thought we had freewill and good or bad things happened according to my choices, which again if this were true would make me a god of my life and make God subject to my will. It would make God a mere observer of everything and helpless and IN SUBMISSION to my desires. When in reality it is a complete mirror opposite. WE are the mere observers and WE are made completely subject to HIS AUTHORITY. Either Christ has created everything and by Him they CONSIST good and evil or He didn’t. “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” This is why we groan and grumble towards Him, because we know He created it all. The fear of The Lord Jesus Christ is real when you know that He controls it all. The old man has an ungodly fear – fear of retribution and retaliation. Whereas the new man growing inside of me has Godly fear – a loving, grateful respect for Christ and His Authority because I have learned that God IS GOOD. There are times I whistle my way through the day and it seems that even the birds and animals are whistling with me (new man). And there are days that seem so dark even though the sun is shining (old man). I am Jacob and Esau duking it out in the womb. God is giving me to love Him with all my heart and soul yet still I get so mad at Him at times. But when I am faithless He remains faithful to me. As a Father pities a child so He pities us and cares for us. That care comes in many ways and in many trials that He uses to lovingly recreate us. He carefully and lovingly watches over the destruction of my old world (which grieved Him to make) but praise God I know He is also lovingly overseeing the new world that He is creating in me. In all of it, His love abounds.

If I desire freedom from something it is because The Father has willed I have the desire to be free. But, freedom sometimes takes awhile and what God has desired no one can stop. It will come and when it comes it will be true freedom, true repentance, not worldly repentance but Godly where we don’t turn back to the vomit we were freed from. This is where I get frustrated with the process because I want freedom now but the time has not yet been ordained. As we know, there is a time for everything as Solomon says. I long for the day when I can wake up and start my day free from fears, unforgiveness, and anxiety where I can just be free from all tangles of the flesh. Herein lies the patience of the saints. It’s a tiresome battle at times as Christ daily works in us to free us from the tangles of our old world and all its lies. It’s not easy to be shown where we are still in bondage to the world in us, where we desire to be seen by the world out there, where we still want attention from anyone other than Christ, where we desire to be out from under the authority of Christ, or we desire more or different than what He has given us in any given day. Freedom will come when He has put down all other authorities within me. All must be put under the feet of Christ. Then I will be content and happy with what I have at any given moment. And I don’t mean just things or wealth: Health, attention, weather, time, my mood, my spouse’s mood, the way the animals are acting, the way the tractor runs, how I look in the mirror, my clothes, my appearance, what I eat, etc. etc. etc. Being content with every minute of every day, the way the Lord has written it and is presenting it to me is freedom from a world that lusts every second for control and something more than it has or different than it has. It is freedom from the tangle of laws of my old world that judges constantly every scenario to be good or bad and demands that its laws be kept, or else. To know Christ as The Author and Finisher of my day is freedom from a world where I am my own god and I map out what I want and desire at the expense of everything and everyone around me. Freedom from anger at God for having me fall and hurt my shoulder and know that there was a good in it for me that I may not realize now but some day will. I guess it’s just now coming to me that through this fall I am being taught to rest in whatever weakness my flesh has. If I can not be bitter in my pain and accept that whatever limitations I now have are a blessing that I didn’t have before I had the limitation. Because before the fall I trusted in my strength, now I am learning to be content in the strength of Christ. It is strength I never knew, to trust in Christ in weakness. To know that whatever state I am in is because The Father has willed it for me to be made more into the image of Christ. That included my fall and my new weaknesses. NOW….I am coming to understand what Apostle Paul meant by, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” Strength in weakness! It’s foolishness to the flesh. Strength in dying?? Not being hurt by death? Let alone a SECOND death?? Strength lies in being weak which correlates to forgiveness. When our flesh has been so weakened that it’s no longer fighting and clawing to be seen, heard and obeyed, you experience the strength of resting in Christ. It is considered weak to forgive and not take revenge but Christ has shown us the example of being weak and becoming strong. “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God.” Not lifting a hand in retaliation is strength. Not lifting a word in retaliation is strength. It is the opposite of everything I have ever known. To have no desire to retaliate for sin against me is not being hurt of the second death. The Gentile in me recognizes his need for forgiveness. The rest of the dead in me who have not been resurrected will not live again until this principal has been learned, which is called the 1000 year reign. Learning, teaching means a thousand. “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.” There was a movie about three sons who lived with their Father in Montana called “Legends of the Fall.” One of the boys ended up being a politician, one gets killed in a war and the other plays the seemingly tougher of the three who in the end becomes a lone mountain man. In the final scene of the movie he dies fighting a grizzly bear and the narrator says these words, “he died a good death.” The obvious meaning being that it was good that he died fighting. This is world-speak and it comes across so appealing to the flesh but it is completely false in the world of the Spirit. Christ is the only One Who has ever died a good death because He did not fight for His “right” to be His own god, but rather gave up His legitimate rights (we don’t have legitimate rights) as the only true Son of God, and obeyed His Father implicitly and without bitterness to the laying down of His life for His creation. Looking at Christ is seeing God. That is what love really looks and acts like. Each time we die for each other we die a “good death,” the second death where we die to our own wants and desires for each other and it does not hurt us is a good death. Each time we are granted to give up more of our so-called “own” life and desires and submit willingly to the plan of God in every minute of the day we die a “good death.” This plays out every day and sometimes multiple times a day because multiple times a day we must resist our own wants and desires for someone else. It’s not the flesh’s version of a heroic death where I am exalted. The second death is the exact opposite. I die and my flesh screams you’re a fool, a punk, a lackey who does not stick up for himself. When I was a child I was told to fight and never let anyone pick on me and that is exactly what I did. I have been fighting everyone and anything to prove I will not bow to anyone and my body and face prove it with scars and broken bones. Not anymore. My man of sin who exalted his throne above the throne of God in some religion of self preservation and macho pride has been getting his head bruised by my new man who is being remade into the image of Christ. I don’t need to protect myself, Christ is my shield and buckler. Christ is my strength, not my fists. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” I used to speak of God but my God was myself even though I used the name of Jesus Christ. I had a worldly god who taught me to be good to my family, friends and neighbors unless they crossed me. Then I divorced them, unfriended them or beat them up the way my worldly god taught me. Being kind meant I was kind to you when you were kind to me and I was not kind to you if you were not kind to me. Christ taught forgiveness no matter what and Christ taught “with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” If we are unforgiving then we get unforgiveness. If we are harsh then we get harshness. Die to self, get eternal life. That is strength in weakness. Christ said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Working iniquity is living by laws you believe make you righteous, murdering people spiritually whom you deem to be unrighteous, thus denying God and Christ, Who are the only true judge and power in heaven and earth. Many doctrines in me have claimed Christ yet they lusted to be right above everyone else. They lusted to revenge themselves against anyone who transgressed against me, who didn’t think, act or look like them – never comprehending their own vanity and that all is, was and will be made by God, including themselves and all those I was deeming unrighteous “out there.” My old world was flooded by a sea of lies where I was taught how to act in my world that was void of true understanding. It was a world of endless false gods. I was taught to judge myself better than all others in a thousand different ways. I took revenge on all who did not respect or worship me with words and even violence. Words ARE violence. Even thoughts are equivalent to violence according to scripture. Christ knows our thoughts. He knew the thoughts of the Pharisees which is why he said to them “But now you seek to kill me…” well before they ever picked up a stone or delivered him to Pilate. The devil within us is the voice of lying evil that tells us to raise ourselves up above all others and Christ tells us that “He was a MURDERER from the beginning…” Do you ever read about the devil murdering anyone? So how did Christ call him a murderer? Because in the kingdom of God, lies, of which the devil is described as being the father of, bring death. You cannot abide in a lie and live. If you believe you are righteous in the eyes of God because of your works, and therefore you deserve life, you abide in a lie and you do not have eternal life. But this is where we all start out as Elect. My old world inside me was built by Christ, complete with its sea of lies for the purpose of ultimately teaching me the truth in love. First we are made ignorant to what we really are in the flesh, then we are molded into a religious Jew who thinks he has attained his own righteousness, and then Christ sets about destroying our old Jewish temple (where we worshipped self) lie-by-lie it is all torn down and replaced with Himself, who is all Truth. What was made in me was a self righteous, in-your-face conglomeration of doctrines learned in fifty plus years of dirty floodwaters. My world existed in cowboy codes that taught me to “fight” against evil when scripture says “resist not evil” and to believe myself to be a “good” person when Christ Himself tells us there is none good but God. Christ didn’t even declare Himself to be good but abdicated this quality to His Father alone. All my high and mighty doctrines fell apart when confronted with the true Jesus Christ, Who was the ONLY true man Who ever walked this earth. He alone died a good death and He did it for all His people who He is molding into a new creation. The Father is drawing us to follow Him and turn our backs on our old world inside ourselves and die “a good death.” Die to self and live for your Brother/Sister. Put everyone before yourself and you die a good death. It is the grace of God shown in the life of a true believer when we die to ourselves and live for someone else. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It’s easier to die for those who’ve shown you kindness, but for those who “spitefully use you” it’s a whole other story. It’s easier to forgive a friend but to forgive your enemy from your heart is a “good death.” This is being truly subject to the Will of God. You’ve shown grace to someone who doesn’t deserve grace, the same thing you received from Christ when you were yet still His enemy. “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” Eating Christ’s flesh is consuming His doctrine of “…ye should do as I have done to you.” Drinking His blood is sacrificing yourself for another, spilling your blood (laying down your will) for someone else.” But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” If we are being led of Christ, if Christ is in us, then we are living in Him and He is living in us. Many sides of me have confessed the name of Jesus Christ but all of them were told, “I never knew you” because they all believed in their own righteousness. Die to self means dying to all the lies of the devil within me whispering that I am god, I rule my earth, and that I have attained righteousness by a work of my own. If the second death does not hurt, if Christ will give me to lay myself down without gall or bitterness, then I’ve died “A good” death.