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
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