INTRODUCTORY MESSAGE

THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-RESISTENCE

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James 4:7-8 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. NIV

In “a deliverance service” I watched people literally scream and shout and clap their hands in an alarming and aggressive manner as they prayed. Why? Because the leader of the meeting had told them two things: first, “that the kingdom of God has suffered violence and those who are of violent spirit must snatch it back by force.” And, that “the devil must be resisted so that he runs away from them.” Obviously, the leader balanced his incitement by saying that the people must first “submit to God.”

The thing is that all the efforts of these poor people were in a sense counterproductive. In fact, it was, and it’s still so because it has always been a wrong interpretation of scripture. If the Holy Spirit helps us to enter into the true meaning of the passage of James above, we will see that it’s really not what it appears to imply. It’s not a call to take up arms, because the kingdom of God is not one of a battle field. The Saints haven’t been called to fight. They have been called to rest!

Ps 110:1 The Lord says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand

until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."

From the above scripture we understand that we are being invited to take our seat on the right hand of the father. On the right hand of the father is the mind of Christ, and by the mind of Christ (which means spiritual understanding) we rule and reign over the beggarly elements of this world. Kings sit down, but soldiers stand to fight! If you are being invited to sit down now, it’s because you’ve been standing all this while. If you’ve been standing, then you’ve been fighting. Don’t fight anymore, sit down!

Abraham was an example of this truth: God had separated him from his “mother’s womb”(which means his concept of life as that which is produced biologically or genetically) so that he, God, would reveal His son to him Abraham by faith( which means the truth of life as the fruit of the generation of the Spirit). But by taking Lot along on his walk of faith, He Abraham had remained attached to his earthly identity, the very concept and values that he had been asked to abandon. And as long as he’d maintained this attachment, he would struggle and fight and never enter into the rest of God.

In fact, as it turned out to be, he did get involved in the nine-kingdom conflict that had seen Lot and his household captivated. And he did fight!

But then, he may have realized afterwards that Lot was not a savable thing anyway. How do we deduce this? From the fact that he gave a tenth of his conquest to the King of Peace who reigned in the land of Righteousness – Melchizedech.

Now, open your spiritual understanding here, because this is where the church missed it. By giving Melchizedec the tenth of his conquest, Abraham was not initiating what is known in the church system as tithing here. Rather he was speaking a language of profound spiritual meaning. In reality Abraham was exchanging his humanity, which is governed by law of sin and death,(because ten is the representation of the law and man’s attempt to please God through religious and moral works) for the Law of the Spirit of life. This is the free gift of God, which is the righteousness that comes by faith! This is called the Kingdom of God. In essence Abraham realized that if he didn’t cut off the umbilical cord that kept him attached to His human existence (this case in the person of Lot. Lot was just an abstract concept made concrete), the struggles and fighting would never end, and he would never know peace and rest, and he would never possess his possession. We, therefore, have been called to lay down our arms and take up the peace of God. We do this by responding to the call of God to leave our erroneous concept of life, and that is the idea that we are humans. We must cut off the silver cord! What does it mean? Consider the following scripture:

Eccl 12:6-7 Remember him — before the silver cord is severed,

or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, 7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

So we see that, actually, James, in our opening passage, is promoting the principle of NON-“RESISTENCE” “What does that mean?” You may ask. Simple! We can understand what it  means from the first part of the passage: it says, “submit yourself to God.” In actual fact, this phrase means one thing only, but it can be expressed in many ways: simply put, it means say what God says of you! But What does God say of me?” may be your second question. Well, He says, “you are a divine being, not a human being. He says, “you came out of Him, so you were not born. He says, you are the externalization of Himself(the part of the invisible God that is visible to human perception) He says, you are “The I am God, the one who was and is and is to come. He says, “you were born of the Spirit, so you are not a product of the desire of fleshly man. He says, “you are not a product of sperm and egg! He says, “quit believing in the concept of life by birth, because life is never born; He says, “your true identity is non corporeal, therefore you are everywhere at the same time, you are not limited by time and space. He say, “ I sent my son to deliver to you only one message and that is, “YOU AND YOUR FATHER ARE ONE!” If anyone thinks this is heretic and blasphemous, let him be the first to pick up a stone and stone me. He say, “you don’t belong to nativity and you are not part of the spectrum of biological existence. You are divine; you are God, but as a man you don’t understand this!! And Until you grasp this spiritual truth, you will die as mere men.

Ps 82:6-7  "I said, 'You are "gods";you are all sons of the Most High.' 7 But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler."

This is the mind that worked in Christ, which Paul says must be in you too. This mindset(you can call it consciousness, is that which produces eternal life. This is the realization that snatches you from the jaws of sickness disease, hell and eternal death – like a bird out of the trap of the hunter. James says, “conform your thought pattern to this truth.(“submit yourself to God!!”)

“But no one has ever told me this truth about me and God in this fashion,” you may say again. Well, if the church hasn’t told you this, what then does it say to you that you have born again out of?” What then did you die to? What then is the newness of life you are supposed to be walking in? What transformation of mind is taking place in you then? What is the new identity that you believe you have  in Christ then? When Jesus was baptized in river Jordan, what message was He conveying? He was leaving his humanity in that river(symbolically of course) and was rising in a newness of His true spiritual being. Is that not the reason why the father thundered from heaven soon afterwards saying, “this is my beloved son, the kind I give birth to, and the kind I find pleasure in?”

What about if I don’t arm my mind with and don’t walk in the understanding of this reality? You may ask gain. Well, only one thing can be said of you, and that is, “you are not born again yet! You still live according to the flesh, It means you still believe in a life based on the breath that comes from your nostrils. Isaiah says, “stop believing in the existence of a form of life based on the breath that comes out of your nostrils:

(Isaiah 2:22 stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he? NIV)

That form of existence is called “Man!” If you are man, then you are not the son of God! God doesn’t generate men! He produces beings after His kind, God!!

If you still believe in nativity, then you live under the law of sin and death, not under the law of the Spirit of life. Then there is still condemnation unto you, because you still live after he flesh, not after the Spirit! The elements of life will induce guilt in you and you continue trying to improve yourself to please God. This way you’ll find yourself leaving in hell.

Rom 8:1-2 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,   2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. NIV

Then you will be afraid of death! Then you will struggle to survive! Then you will manipulate people at work and in church to obtain what you feel you lack. Then you will do works of religion to appease God. Then you will give offerings and sacrifices to God to quite your tempestuous conscience. Then you will pick up arms and fight for Christ and for yourself. But, you see, none of these activities of you hands extends to God! They are all works of man. They come from the darkened ignorant mind of man! They are the activities of the mind! God doesn’t know them, He doesn’t take note of them.

But if you conform yourself to the judgment of God of you, (judgment means they way God sees all men)then you don’t pick up arms. You put your sword back into its sheaf. You don’t cut anyone’s ear in the garden of Gethsemane, because you think they are an enemy. In, fact you cease to see any enemies around, because there just aren’t any.

There aren’t weapons anywhere, because there isn’t any other life force or activity anywhere besides you! Nothing besides you has any power or active life principle to constitute any threat to your existence. There simply isn’t any power or might anywhere but you. You are the ALL POWERFUL and the ALL MIGHTY. Watch out! This is not the superlative of a comparison. If it were, it would mean that you were superior of a leaser power. No! it simply means that God is the only active life and power source. If He is, then you are too, because of the virtue of your singleness and oneness with and your inseparableness from HIM. You are fused into HIM. You are the very dwelling place of everything God is; everything God has; everything God knows and everything God does! YOU ARE God!!! No stones throwing about it! Just be still in you mind and you will know that you are…..!

Now, let’s draw a conclusion: now if you are the only power and might and active life force there ever is, then nothing else can move or act or be animated in anyway if you don’t delegate force or activity to it. A pencil-drawing remains on a pieces of paper, unable to speak of move unless you give it life(animation), then it moves and communicates. It even says swear words if you allow it to. So you see that you, God, are the only substance, the only life generating, maintaining and sustaining source there ever is. The only substance of all things is you! “Now, faith is the substance….

Heb. 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

If we allow the flesh(which is the erroneous beliefs of life by birth) to rule our minds, we live by the law of sin and death. It means our wrong beliefs give animation to the inanimate elements or forms of nature to start operating. This come about when we operate with the activities of the human mind, rather than by the inspiration of the eternal Spirit that we are. This is called hell!! Hell is not a geo-spiritual place waiting to roast us up in fire in the future.

As long as we live in hell (which means spiritual ignorance), all creation will fall out of line. We will see sickness, we will see wars, we will earth and sea quakes. we will experience cyclones violent winds. we will see violence, we will see all the ills associated with man in our human existence, because life becomes a bottomless pit, which is never satisfied with anything! So we fight and invent all sorts of schemes to manipulate to obtain what we feel we lack. But when the sons of God receive illumination about their true identity, then gradually all things begin to realign themselves. This is called the manifestation of the sons of God. Creation is redeemed by the entrants of truth in the minds of men. Healing comes and peace reigns in our mind and our being. The body is subject to your thoughts and state of mind. Then as the fighting stops, so does every form of survival manipulative tendencies.

Rom 8:22-25 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

From this point everything and everyone appears beautiful to us again. We start loving ourselves and then start loving others as well. The life of God lying dormant in us is reactivated once more and the fountain of life starts gushing out of us. You don’t oppose anyone, you don’t resist anyone, you don’t criticize anyone, because all things are holy and beautiful and good. You can only help people to realize this goodness.

The only resistance there ever is, therefore,  are the voices of the desert. The men of the desert are not flesh and blood; they are the many contradictory voices that are in your human sub- consciousness. These are the foxes; these are the wolves; these are the false prophets; these are the distraction of human and religious and moralistic activities; this is the old man; this is the anti-Christ who stands and defiles this temple of the Most High, which you are; this is the devil. Resist him!! In you attempt to walk in conformity to God, your true identity, these voice will show up every now and then to tell you that it’s not working so quit. These voices are in the church. They are in the family. They are in your work place. They are in your culture and ethnic beliefs. They are in the beliefs in the attachments to global, continental, national, ethnic and cultural identity. You are not an earthy creature! You are not an earthly citizen! You are a citizen of a dimension that transcends humanity. Quit walking in a mistaken identity! You are a citizen of heaven. Submit yourself to this truth, resist the contradictory voices. Don’t be double-minded. A servant can’t serve two masters. Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh! What to do? Ask!!!

Matt 7:7-8 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Blessings.  Jonas