8.2 Like God Outwardly
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Here is where we destroy the rebellion of Adam masquerading as Christian theology and driving the psychosis of our brethren, especially those who embrace “deeper truth.” All the years I walked in deeper truth circles, I was taught and therefore believed that my outward expression, both my natural gifts and my inhibitions and disabilities were “of the flesh” and therefore “not of God.” Because we believed that our “flesh” was contrary to God and we were responsible, we spent our lives attempting to figure out and “deal with” the causes of our natural propensities. Believing that God must be far away from me, I searched in great agony for the “causes” of my apparent “fleshiness” without success.
Hatred of Human Appearance
More than that, we were taught that the “anointing” was a supernatural gift from God that lifts us up above our natural abilities to walk in a “plane” of the supernatural. In other words, our “deeper truth” theology placed us entirely into Adam’s hatred of his outer appearance. “I was naked,” is the most horrific claim uttered by humanity. It means “I looked at myself (the image of God) and hated what I saw. – I am ashamed of what You look like, God.” Then, out of our hatred of being humans, we Christians created an image of Christ Jesus, our pattern, an image, not of a Man as the appearance of the Father, but of a superman.
A Super “Christ”
This image of a super “Christ,” then, became something in the imagination of the Christian mind that bore no relationship either with God as He IS or with humans as we find ourselves to be (it is God who has made us and not we ourselves). To most of our brethren, then, “becoming like Jesus” means becoming like a super “Christ” who exists far above the plane of our low human gifts and abilities, a “Christ” who rejects our even lower human lacks and disabilities.
This image of a super “Christ” is the most powerful force that separates us from Father and even from Christ in our hearts. Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is . . . the spirit of anti-Christ (1 John 4:3).
Jesus Has Come in Our Flesh
Here is the gospel. It is into our flesh, our outer human abilities and our outer human disabilities, that Jesus Christ has come (made perfect in us NOW) to reveal the Father through us. The human is a vessel designed to contain another Person. Empty of God (by ignorance), the human is all sin; filled with God (by the knowledge of God), the human is God revealed. “Being like Jesus” is our relationship with the Father, NOT our outer appearance taking on some non-human form. The “anointing,” separate from the Person of the Father filling our persons full by faith, has become just one more separator from God, just one more futile exercise of “sin.”
Human Differences
I have come to love and appreciate the vast range of human differences. The first response of people in moving into the context of Christian community is to react in horror to other people being and doing and seeing things differently from the “correct” way. Some people left community because they were asked to iron a shirt the “wrong” way. But people are as different from each other as snowflakes or fingerprints, unlimited variations in expression. Human differences are a key part of the glory of Christ.
Receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God (Romans 15:7).
The Human Personality
Because God is infinite, the varying ways in which human personality reveals God are without number. Our human spirit and our physical body contribute to our differing personalities equally with our human soul. The qualities of our spirit body and our physical body come to us primarily from genetic inheritance (yes, our spirit body is as complex and as real as our physical body). The qualities of our soul, however, also develop out from our experiences of life. At the same time, our human personalities are made up of a perfect balance between our abilities and our disabilities, both being vital to our unique individuality.
Human Ability
Think of the things you love to do; then, think of the things you appreciate being able to do (without "loving” their doing). These are your human abilities. And the thing is, you have in no way discovered all of your abilities, that is, all the things you love and are able to do.
Everything you love to do, God loves to do; that’s entirely WHY you love doing them. God has always wanted to do those things through somebody, now He gets to do them through you. As God thinks you out from Himself, part of what He thinks is the joy of expressing a specific nuance of His skill through you.
Love of Doing
God loves to design, to create, to build, to paint, to work with animals, to grow flowers, to sing, to read, to teach, to heal. God is just silly when it comes to loving to do things just because He can. If you want to know how silly God is, watch a moose running. No “sober” person would ever design such a ridiculous thing! God creating is just one arena of His too-much-ness. Do you realize how much God loves beetles? He created more kinds of beetles than any other living species. “To each his own” is often voiced as a judgment of contempt. God just loves doing everything in every different way He can.
Our Place
You were made EXACTLY the way you are, with specific gifts, abilities, loves, and delights BECAUSE God wanted to do exactly that through you. When you find yourself in your place in the resurrection New Jerusalem, you will be overwhelmed at how PERFECTLY the place God has for you fits exactly what you are in your human makeup. You will know what is your dwelling “place”; you will find it by the singing joy of your heart. For the first while, you will say to yourself, over and over, “OH! How I was made for this! OH! How this was made for me!”
Sing, sing, for the joy of being human, the revelation of Father.
Our Disabilities
The human concept and view of “disability” is nothing other than the stupid pretending of Adam, trying to “appear” acceptable to the face of the group. Distinction and variation MEANS that what some individuals have, other individuals do not have. We need each other!
I LOVE to understand how language works. I CANNOT learn another language; I have no ear for it. Another person might learn languages like it’s nothing, without ever thinking once about how they work.
I REJECT being “healed” of Asperger’s for the simple reason that it contains more abilities than disabilities. I expect the healing of God in anything not working rightly in my body, but I do not expect God to alter what He created.
The Shaping Hand of God
What will a blind person know and be capable of doing in the resurrection that you and I with functioning eyeballs will be incapable of expressing? I am convinced that many who are Down Syndrome now, when their IQ shoots from 50 to 2000 in the resurrection, will demonstrate greatness of heart beyond any other human expression. We do not measure anything by outward appearance, that is, according to the flesh. Beneath every human difficulty lies the shaping hand of God forming expressions of Himself you and I simply cannot see.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14
Glory Revealed
God created our individual form with intention and purpose. God is determined to reveal Christ in glory through every aspect of our humanity, the things that are difficult for us even more so than the things we enjoy. When we look for “why I am bad in this way,” we dishonor Christ. When we see Christ in every moment of our lives and in every aspect of our construction and expression, we give Him glory. The wounds of Christ, the marks of His failure and loss, are the brightest jewels of heavenly glory. “Father forgive them,” is the mightiest sword of power.
Hind’s Feet on High Places
I cannot express in a short lesson all I believe the Lord would have you understand on how our human frame, our natural abilities and even more so our disabilities, are entirely set forth (purposed) by God for the revelation and glory of His Son.
I am adding a book to the required reading of this course. You will need it for future course work. Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. Order it from the link on Amazon; read it as soon as it comes. Please understand that part of our individual expression of God revealed is that Jesus speaks to each one of us differently. Jesus speaks to me as I read this book; He may do the same with you.
My Agony – My Glory
In the fall of 2011, I received an email from a reader that altered forever my knowledge of God by its pain. That email sparked the writing of one of my most important books, The Kingdom Rising (my website) and here –The Kingdom Rising (Amazon). Four letters came out of my agony caused by the face found in that email of a “super Christ” hostile against my inabilities. These four letters develop the topic of this session beyond these two lessons. Follow the links; read them.
Christ Versus Superman I – Christ Versus Superman II
God Is Beneath Your Feet – The Mystery of the Holy.
God showed me His glory carrying me as I wrote these pages.