8. Sharing Christ with God

8. Sharing Christ with God - for Notes

8. Sharing Christ with God - PP

Abraham had very little knowledge of God. He had neither any part of the Bible nor any teacher.

Inside his own world, Abraham was a natural leader and diplomat. But Abraham knew nothing about what would come after him, neither could he see the heavens as Adam could, nor did he do anything great outwardly.

Inside of Abraham’s limited scope, God placed him as the beginning of all His redemption through Abraham’s Son, Christ Jesus. And God ordered Abraham’s life to fit the Covenant He would enter into with us through Jesus.

Placing Genesis 22. We are attempting to place Genesis 22, the story of Abraham offering Isaac, the child of Promise, back to God on the very spot where Jesus would be crucified. One could argue that this is the most important chapter in the Old Testament for us now, upon whom the completion of the age has come.

Now we can see that God was saying to Abraham, “Let’s be fathers together; let’s be redeemers together.” “Your son is My Son and My Son is your son.

“Let’s share Christ together; let’s share heart together.” And Abraham believed that God was telling him the truth.

An Imprinted Word. Genesis 22 is not Abraham being “tested” or Abraham being redeemed. Genesis 22 is about God sharing His own Heart travail with a man, and through this man, whom alone he told us to call “father,” with us.

Few sermons I have ever heard in my life have impacted me more than Sam Fife’s word on Genesis 22, and I have carried the penetrating imprint of that word for 42 years.

I have not realized the connection before, but it is clear to me now that the phrase “sharing heart with God,” must certainly have come out from that deep imprint.

The Most Staggering Statement. Nonetheless, we see the wonder of this chapter way beyond anything that Sam Fife knew (though in the same direction); we see it out from our Father, as God now intends.

Christ lives inside of your heart through faith. This is simply the most staggering statement ever uttered by the human tongue. We have never known what it means. It means sharing Hheart with God.

The similarities of the picture of Abraham with Isaac and of God with Jesus are staggering. Yet the sharing of heart, God with a man, goes way beyond anything visible or known. From this view, then, let’s look at Genesis 22.

Seeing the Arising of Life. The chapter begins with the words “God tested Abraham.” Inside of the Lord Jesus, we now know that what God was doing was proving Himself to Abraham, that they shared Hheart together. 

The writer of Hebrews makes a big deal about Abraham’s instruction to his servant, “And we will come back to you.” – Having reasoned that God was able even to raise him out from the dead, from whence also he figuratively received him (Hebrews 11:19).

Abraham encouraged his own heart that the word God had spoken to him meant that he could not lose his son.

A Pattern of Jesus. Then, when Isaac asked his dad about the absence of a lamb for sacrifice, here is Abraham’s actual response.

“My son, God will see/show/appear Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” – Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

In every way, we see the pattern of the Lord Jesus offered by God Himself.

Bring Forth Life. Here is the primary line Sam Fife drew from this story, you have heard me say it more than once. “Union with God is not a dance through a field of flowers, but a travail for the bringing forth of life” (my paraphrase).

And he taught us that God would require us to offer back to Him the Christ life we had received from God.

Yet the move interpreted this as “Die to your flesh.” This always puzzled me, because it was not a “sinful” nature that was offered, but Christ, the express image of God’s person. Because we did not walk in the confidence of our present union with Christ, we could have no idea what God meant.

Placing God with You. But you and I do know because we have used our precious union with Christ to contend with God that He would fulfill His own deep desire in our lives.

Every particle of what I have taught you concerning placing God with your every stumbling step and calling it HE sharing your travail with you FOR OTHER’S SAKE, has been the fulfillment of this very line in your life. We never “repeat” Jesus’ action. Rather, God shares Christ with us, that we might carry our brethren in our own hearts, in the same way Jesus carries us.

It comes from this word God planted into me 42 years ago.

Because You Have Done This Thing. You can understand what I mean when I say that I have felt “pregnant” with the word God planted in me for many years, and that delivering this word to you is more important to me than life itself.

God said to Abraham, “Because you have done this thing.”

Let me impart to you the incredible meaning of the GREAT faith through which you connect with God as you practice sharing Hheart with Him. When I have taught you to be just like the Lord Jesus Christ in His split-open soul, as we see in Psalm 22, I have taught you to be as Abraham, offering the Promise back to God.

The Faith of Abraham Fulfilled. I did not know! – I did not know. Of all words God spoke into me through Sam Fife, the two that meant the most and went the deepest were his words on Jacob wrestling with God and Abraham offering Isaac.

I had not realized the extent to which God has made these things part of the fabric of our lives until writing this piece.

Here is the faith of Abraham fulfilled in you. “Father, this awful thing I just went through, this feeling of failure and loss, this is YOU, sharing my life with me in all things, and we together turn our shared difficulty into blessing for the sake of others.”

Feeling Whole. You have just received the next chapter of my life story, “Why Did We Leave?” This is one of the most important and consequential things I have ever written. My life cannot ever be the same.

After I finished writing it, I was thrown into great travail. Then an unclean spirit that seems to have held its own through all my present deliverance vanished from me. I have not felt whole like I do now, not since second grade.

Now, I share God-with-me for one purpose only, that you also might know, all through your own self, God-with-you. Let’s pull in some more from Abraham before I explain.

The Oath and the Heirs. By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—blessing I will bless you… In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice (Genesis 22:16-18 – reduced).

Just to position these words – it is this line that the writer of Hebrews uses in Chapter 6. God, intending with full determination to demonstrate to the heirs of promise His unchangeable purpose, He interposed it by an oath, so that through two unchangeable deeds [spoken word and sworn oath], in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might possess STRONG encouragement…

Being a Blessing. This is God’s pattern, first; He speaks His Word, then He proves that Word inside the travail of our own hearts.

Here again is the first speaking of this word in Genesis 12. – You shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

God is referencing directly that river of life flowing out from our hearts filled with the tree of life, bringing blessing and life to all inside His creation. And it happens as we live just like the Lord Jesus Christ, joining Father with others inside our human soul.

No More Curse. We cursed God by cursing Abraham. We cursed Abraham by cursing Jesus. And we cursed Jesus by cursing ourselves.

For twenty-two years I have carried doubt against myself in leaving Blair Valley. This cursing of myself, though buried and unseen, caused me to know curse still, despite the revelation of Christ. What actually happened, then?

As I completed my account of God-with-me through all my years in the move of God fellowship, I saw all of it as good and filled with God. And in seeing my life thus, I offered it back to Father, as He sharing all with me as part of me, as He proving Himself in honor towards me, and I offered it for the sake of all whom I knew in that fellowship.

“How?” I did not know that God was fulfilling the word He had planted in me over forty years ago, this faith of Abraham. Christ lives inside of your heart through faith. – Sharing Christ with God; sharing Hheart with God. This is the meaning of Genesis 22.

Through all the years I was in that fellowship, however, I grieved over the fact that no practical “how” was ever given to us. The only “how” offered was “die, brother, die,” something NO ONE knew how to do or what it meant.

God has not done the same with us. God has shown us how real and simple it is to be just like the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Power of Life. God has shown Himself to us, as Jesus our Lamb, part of our lives, offering Himself with and through us, that others might be free to live in joy and life.

Our leaving Blair Valley was an essential part of a life filled with God proving Himself to me, in me, and through me. How do I know that? I know it by faith, by calling it to be so, by placing the Lord Jesus Christ upon our every step. And so it becomes. – This is the power of LIFE.

We walk as Abraham walked up that mountain, with one step, giving thanks in our present sorrow and lack, and with the next step, expecting God to arise in us as LIFE.

Step after Step. Give thanks in present weakness; expect God in power; give thanks in present weakness; expect God in power. Step after step after step. This is the simplest “how” that I teach, a “how” that takes us all the way through.

Abraham was sharing Christ with God, and so do we.

I want to finish this lesson on the meaning of the blessing coming through Abraham and his seed, you and me. Paul made it starkly clear that the believer in Jesus IS this seed promised to Abraham, the ones who inherit the blessing.

Becoming Blessing. My life seems to be filled with all sorts of patterns. Let me share one.

For seven years I sat under Joel Osteen’s teaching, from the summer of 2006, when the Jesus Secret began until the summer of 2013, when God sealed in me this exercise of sharing heart with God, of being His mercy seat.

Then, for seven years I lived inside of teaching you to be this same mercy seat, sharing Hheart with God, until the summer of 2020, when God completed in me the transformation of my years into the blessing and joy and goodness of God.

The Source of All Curse. It took God five years of my sitting under Joel Osteen’s ministry to stop my cursing of myself, and then another two years to make it complete.

Every form of cursing self IS anti-Christ. And it becomes even more real when we realize we have been cursing Abraham, and that is why death still rules.

We have been the only source of our own curse. The evil one has the power to speak accusation, but he has no power to impart curse. Man is the master, and as we have cursed ourselves, so we have cursed God and others.

Overcoming Anti-Christ. And so Nicene Christianity re-defined “repentance.” It no longer meant to turn to Christ as our only life, but rather, to weep against ourselves, to perpetually curse ourselves.

This is the spirit of anti-Christ that has ruled God’s people. It is the continual denial that Jesus is the Christ, that He alone is our source, our in-between, and our completion.

There are certainly more things in my years since leaving Blair Valley and Canada for me to bring into this same resolution as I write the upcoming chapters. But the key issue of my life has come, now, into the utter and overwhelming blessing of God, and I am complete.

Blessing Flows Out. I do not find it strange at all, then, that this whole thinking of our being the blessing of God to others, both to our fellow Christians and to all creation, has been coming to us.

Blessing is an emanation of faith and science together. It is placing Blood/Life upon, causing all things to be good. It is the touch of our hands, the encouragement of our words, and the kindness of our actions. It is rivers of living water flowing out from us to all.

And it comes through every stumbling step, not “in spite of” our failures, but inside of and through our human souls, just like the Lord Jesus.

We ARE just like Jesus. You see, as we have seen Jesus as He IS, so God has shown us how simple and true it is that we ARE just like Him. And being like Jesus, as God has shown Himself our Lamb thus far, is simply the most wonderfully good, wonderfully human way to live.

I now know why God had me pause in the writing of A Highway for God. When we do return to it, it will be this flow of blessing through us, our superpower, the gentle touch of our hands.

If you are of Christ, then you are Abraham’s SPERM (singular) and heirs according to Promise.

Reading for Next Time. Our final look at Abraham’s life will be “A Bride for Isaac.” We are always looking at our union with Christ, out from which we birth the life of God into our world through travail.

For next time, read all of Genesis 24. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt to read it twice, in two different translations.

Then they called Rebekah and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” And she said, “I will go.”