10.2 Victory as Life

We are not defining Victory, per se, but rather, we want to know what Victory works in us and in creation, the outcome in the fabric of our beings that shapes the unfolding ages.

What is Victory? – Victory is Life swallowing up death. Life and death are then defined in their simplest terms. – Knowing the Father swallows up knowing not-God.

But this Life is more than just knowing the Father; it is a knowing of the Father that itself comes out from not knowing God. Victory is Life-out-from-death turning and swallowing up death for the sake of others. Adam knew God, but he placed no value on that treasure. Because we come out from all the horrors of knowing not-God, knowing the Father is more valuable to us than a thousand present life spans.

The Glory of God. What kind of beings, then, do we become out from our personal fellowship with a God who shares our lives with us? There is something incredibly unique about a human who has come out from death, step by stumbling step, into the intimate and personal fellowship with a God who shares all life with them. Such humans are worth more to God than His own life, for He gave His Son to win them for Himself.

It’s not just knowing the Father; it’s knowing the Father out from not knowing. It is by placing the Lord Jesus upon every part of our life that we know such a “coming out,” making every moment of our life precious beyond measure, a story that is the glory of God forever.

Knowing vs Awareness. What you call your life is what it becomes for you forever, whether life unto life or death unto death.

What is this fellowship shared with the Father that has turned and swallowed up death for the sake of specific others. What does it make us to be? There are two Greek words translated “to know” in the New Testament. One of those words, gnosis, does mean “to know.” But the other, oidos, means “to be aware,” a lesser quality. To know is essence; to be aware is understanding. I know God, but I am aware of death, even though I do not know it. It’s meaning or relevance is lost to me. Or – someone might “know about” God, but see good versus evil as far more real.

The Wonder of Salvation. Many have substituted knowing “about God” in place of a personal fellowship with the Father sharing all with us. Placing God into the “knowing about” or “being aware” side of our human souls allows knowing good and evil to remain at our center. In contrast, placing knowing God at our center pushes death into our periphery, something we “know about,” but do not know. Adam knew God, but he was unaware of death! Death was not death to him.

Forever we will know our Father as out from death, for our every stumbling step has become Christ. This is the importance of bringing every moment of our lives into the story of Christ. This is the wonder of our Salvation.

The Assumption of Faith. I awoke one morning feeling horrifically awful. Connecting Father as sharing my awfulness with me was not easy. But I don’t express my faith except as for others. This time, however, I was aware of a sister enduring great difficulty. So I brought this sister into my focus and I persevered through all the pressure against my fellowship with God, connecting God with me personally for her sake. After two or three hours, the pressure against vanished, and I knew the sweetness of Father with me. Yet I also knew, by the assumption of faith, that the sister had also received a deeper knowing of the Father in that same moment.

Life – swallowing up death.

The Passageway. I was always impressed as a young man by two men who prevailed with God as intercessors, Rees Howells, and CV Bevington. Yes, it was truly God with whom they connected, but they were approaching Him out from the restrictions of Nicene theology. We don’t know those meaningless restrictions. Our fellowship with the Father is current, continuous, and certain.

Let me define God. God is One who is coming through into the knowing of others. Let me define man. Man is one through whom God comes into the knowing of others. Without the passageway of our faith, God cannot enter our world.

Always Personal. God is always God, and He always gives Life in all abundance. Yet He has given all authority to us, to the Lord Jesus who is our only life. By giving our lives to the Father for His sake, that He might be free to enter our world as Himself, then, look out, for God is rushing through to bless with all the abundance of Life.

Yet God is always personal, and thus His passage through us is specific to individual persons. In fact, we consider groups only in two ways, first, our local fellowship and second, the entire Church of Christ as one body together. Except for these two views of the Church, our focus for Father’s sake is towards individuals inside the personal difficulty and need of each.

Included by Father. We are NOT “trying to get God to do something” for others. Rather, we are joined with the Father personally as equals of heart and intent, in the rushing forth of abundance of Life to bless specific others with the same fellowship with Father. Yes, Father is free to be Himself inside of creation, but Father being Himself always includes you and me as part of Himself. – This is the God we KNOW!

Inside this knowing of God, let’s now “think about” the three parts of Adam’s rebellion.
1. Hating the way God made us. – Say what?
2. Imagining superiority over others. – Huh?
3. Abusing others for self-gain. – Never, never shall it be. Horror unimaginable.

A Personal Savior. You see, here inside of a life of shared fellowship with Father through Jesus, we do not know what was so “important” to Adam. We do not know it at all. And there is NO answer given to the causes of death, for we do not regard them.

We do NOT know God by “defeating sin.” We know God, and, to our astonishment, we discover that we have no knowledge of sin. Life does not come by defeating sin. Life is first, and then sin is no more. And this Life is specifically knowing a Personal Jesus inside of us, our Savior. We are saved by His LIFE. Thus knowing Jesus Sent into us increases in us exponentially forever.

Authority, not Power. I want to go, now, into the deepest meaning of being just like the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is John 10:17-18 in the King James Version. – Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

This translation is off, to the Greek and to God. Here is the Jesus Secret version of the same. – The Father loves Me because I set forth my soul, that I might actively receive it back again. No one removes it from Me, but I set it forth of Myself. I have the authority to set it forth, and I have the authority to receive it back again. This full completion I received from My Father. – Authority, not “power.”

What Did I Do? When I allowed the Father to share my awfulness with me for the sake of the sister in need, what did I do? I said to the Father, “Father, I give You my soul, that You might share my agony with me. And we together make my victory to be for the sake of this dear sister, that she also might be released into all the blessing that flows out from her knowing of You. Yet Father, even though I give my soul, my human consciousness, my story and my knowing of myself, to You, for Your use, yet I also receive my soul back from you as myself now and forever.”

Being like Jesus MEANS a continuous reciprocity with the Father, His power through the authority of our faith.

Set Forth Souls. “Set forth,” then, has the same meaning as “devoted.” It means offering my human soul to the Father for His purposes, that He shares all with me and that He is released into the knowing of others because I have included Him and them together inside my human soul. AND – receiving my soul back again is the meaning of resurrection Life. In this way we walk in the substance of resurrection, in full and fully, before the final change of outward appearance.

It is our living souls, then, by receiving from God all that Resurrection Life is and means, that cause the Victory of Life swallowing up death in this world.

Reciprocity Is Life. Now, the miracles that happened as Jesus gave Himself to the Father were the normal doings of the Spirit flowing out, the customary results of Father set free inside this world, just a little bit. Miracles are a result of being like Jesus, one of many, but they are not part of the substance of being like Jesus. I have also just described the throne of God, for this is what Victory has wrought. – And I saw thrones, and THEY sat upon them, and judgment was given to THEM.

The essence of knowing Jesus Sent into us, as Word, as the Eucharist, and as Redemption, becomes a continuous reciprocity of essence between us and God. This reciprocity is LIFE.

Sharing All. Yet that is only part of the picture for us and for the Father, for in living with God inside of us in this way, we then turn and enjoy fellowship with one another as sharers of that Life. It is the sharing together out from Jesus Sent into each one of us that is Father now visible inside of creation. This is the LIFE that is Victory, and this is the LIFE that we know, intimately, as the entire fabric of our souls.

Knowing Jesus as Victory inside of us is turning us into a very different sort of persons than we ever imagined. God withholds nothing of Himself in this joint reciprocity with us and we withhold nothing of ourselves, but share all with Him – and with one another. – Give!

My Living Soul. I am a living soul. I have a spirit through which I relate with all things in the heavens, though as an earthly being. And I have a physical side to my body through which I relate with all things of the earth, yet as a heavenly being. But me? – I am a living soul. I think, I feel, I choose. And I am very, very personal inside, a personalness that includes everything I am, do, and possess.

Victory MEANS that I share this living, thinking, feeling, choosing personalness utterly with the Father through Jesus as my only life. And out from this shared personalness with God my Father, I enjoy a wondrous reciprocity of Love with all who know the Father in the same way.

This is what Victory has wrought inside of me.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “Victory as Faith.” It is the certainty inside of us of our absolute connection with God through all that Jesus is and means that releases rivers of Spirit. We are also looking at what Victory has wrought in the Church, in the experience of our life together. I would suggest that you read Lesson 2.1 of this text, “Principles of Completion” prior to the next session. We want to go forward in this study fully aware of how it began.

For all who have been conceived out from God overcome the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who then is the one who overcomes the world, if not the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, You are the substance and meaning of our lives, knowing You knowing us, sharing every moment together. You fill us with Yourself, Father, as overflowing grace, and You make us to be just like the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God.

“Father, just as we know You, so we are Your pathway into Your creation. You are Love through us. Father, we turn with You, and we draw our Christian brethren into this same knowing of You, that they might live, that death might be swallowed up by life. God, our Father, be all that You speak through us for their sakes. We know that You answer us with JOY.”