5.3 Self-Imagination as "God"

I finally understand with clarity something that has deeply troubled me for many years, a dishonesty I could not comprehend, and that is the meaning of that which contradicts. Through the prior two lessons, I was reaching for the present understanding, and so they have become the path here.

What I must know is how the Gospel of Life has been so REPLACED in Christian thinking with another “gospel,” an anti-Gospel, that uses Bible verses to crowd out Bible verses. I must understand clearly what another gospel is and how it works, a “gospel” with which I am intimately familiar, having had it banging around in my head for many years. In this lesson and the next, by God’s enabling grace, I intend to be definitive.

Human Imagination. Life and death, salvation and lostness (damnation), are found entirely inside each individual human bubble of self. And two things only can exist inside any human soul, that is, any personal story and knowing of self.

The thing that ought to exist, and for which we are created, is the knowledge of God, called “age-unfolding Life” by Jesus, but called “Jesus Sent into us” by God. Only one thing ever replaces the knowledge of God – human imagination. Death, lostness, and damnation are created in human imagination in order to drive out the knowledge of God. Human imagination does engender terrible consequences, but not in the un-Biblical spin that sin and death are substance. Rather, the cause of consequence is the refusal to be the path of the knowledge of God into creation, that is, the refusal of LIFE.

God-All. Now, that last bit will raise strong questions inside the mind of any reader. I intend to give answer to those questions.

We begin with reality. All things of creation exist only inside of God, and all things in creation are found first inside of God’s thoughts, thoughts that are not created, but God Himself. All created things are brought forth, carried, and sustained every moment, then, by the power-filled Words of Jesus, Words that are living and energeoing, Words that are Spirit and Life.

So here is one individual human, a story of words inside of a spirit self-awareness. This one human exists inside of God, is found first in God’s thoughts, and lives only by the good-speaking of Jesus every moment. How does imagination block all this glorious reality?

Enter Unthankfulness. The first cause of all evil and death is unthankfulness, that is, one individual human disliking his or her present design and circumstances, that is, disliking God through Jesus. Unthankfulness is not the entrance of sin and death; rather, unthankfulness is the opening of the door to the entrance of contempt. Contempt is unthankfulness reaching for something “better.” “I ought to be better than what I am; my circumstances ought to be better than what they are.”

Unthankfulness by itself, however, does not create contempt; therefore a human all alone would never act out from contempt, but would just fail to enjoy God, something that cannot be.

Enter Other People. A human all by himself cannot reveal God to creation because God Revealed is humans loving one another. By bringing Eve out from Adam’s side and presenting her to him, God was putting into place His entrance into the knowledge of all. Other people pose a big problem to self. – “This other person is not like me; this other person does not do things my way.” This problem is intended by God, for it is this very “lack” that serves to “prime the pump,” that Love out from God might flow through the human to become “love one another,” God Revealed.

But consider the thinking of unthankfulness, “Things ought to be better for me,” inside the press of other people. “Better for me has to mean me first above them.”

“Self as God.” “Me first above them” is the entrance of contempt. Contempt then creates the entirety of an imaginative false self, self for self, self above others, the ego, “Me, myself, and I.” You can’t go “up” except by pushing someone else “down.”

And yes, this picture of a pre-school kid sitting on top of his pile of toys crying, “Johnny stole my truck,” is the entire essence of rebellion against God. It’s Cain killing Abel. That is the entire essence of “self as God,” but it’s operations are sinister and cruel. But the question remains, how can this petty and childish “self as God” continue inside the presence of God and the reality of being spoken every moment by Jesus’ power-filled Word?

Enter the Serpent. The serpent was an unfallen angel, anointed of God and a servant to Adam, the master. Yet in one brief moment, these two, BEFORE any shadow had entered God’s creation, glanced at each other and recognized in each other – unthankfulness, “I ought to have it better.”

Death did not enter until these two had signed the contract together, but we must know the agreement that was made before the contract was signed. The serpent offered to Adam his abilities as an anointed spirit in the heavenly realms, and Adam took control of the serpent as his servant. The serpent’s task, then, was to anoint Adam to imagine self by refusing God.

Serpent Abilities. The serpent did not give Adam self-imagination. Adam seized the ability of the serpent in order to create himself as his own imaginative center.

Consider the diagram. This is meant to be the same as the diagram of the seven spirits of anti-Christ, that is, contempt, looking through an evil “God” to see self as better than others. What abilities of the serpent attracted Adam? We are reaching for an understanding of evil, that is, what humans want. Notice also that this human has his backed turned against the knowledge of God, placing a barrier of darkness in-between.



Needs and Wants. The first thing Adam needed from the serpent was his clever way of getting rid of Jesus – by changing the subject of conversation, that is, by changing the meaning of Word, a quick “flip of the wrist” and Jesus has vanished from sight. The second thing Adam needed was a replacement for “God” in his seeing, that he might justify his contempt for Eve by calling it “God’s will.”

Adam also wanted the serpent to anoint his antics so that others would be jealous of him, of his superiority. But that one didn’t work out so well, partly because the devil is a liar and partly because all these others are wanting the same thing. Children crying at each other, “My toys are better than your toys.” (But becoming much more filthy with adolescence.)

Jealousy! Cain killed Abel over a childish temper tantrum, “My offerings are better than your offerings.” Or – “My show of being like god is better than your show of being like god.”

Look closely at the communication to me that I shared in the last lesson. What is the center point? – Jealousy! Here is what the man was really saying, “I despise you, Daniel, and therefore God, who is like me, despises you, because you are not jealous of me, that my performance is better than yours.” Notice that the first thing he did was to get rid of Jesus, without drawing attention to getting rid of Jesus. But then the final straw, the thing that drew his harshest words, was when he saw me placing myself with Father beneath of God’s people.

Contempt takes peace from the earth by killing faith.

REFUSAL. The false imagination of “I not-Christ” is nothing more than a meaningless and deceitful “I am better than you.” How, then, can such a false story of self be maintained in the presence of overwhelming Life and Glory?

A human, in order to maintain a fake “self” in the presence of God must turn his back on the good-speaking of Jesus every moment. In order to do that successfully, he must be anointed with a strength beyond his own, that is, by the aid of demons. That is exactly what Paul said in Ephesians 2, that a human is a son of refusal by the energeoing of demons. But how do I exist as a human if I refuse to acknowledge the good-speaking of Jesus sustaining me every moment?

Self as Source. With the assistance of demons, a human effectively blocks God-through-Christ out of his knowing. Then, also with the assistance of demons, a human spins his own story of self, that “I” create myself, I am my own source, I begin with me.

Now, to enable this creation of a fake self refusing God, the serpent had offered himself to Adam as the image of a “God” who knows good and evil. “Whatever your deceitful heart lusts for, “God” is just like you.” What did Adam want? He wanted Eve under his control. And when that didn’t work out so well, he BLAMED both Eve and God for all his troubles.

Enter Sin and Death. There is no such thing as a “sin nature,” that is, sin as substance, any more than there could be any “I am my own source. – I am my own God.” Neither can death or evil be an original substance, source, or cause. This is imagination taking place inside of Jesus speaking all.

Sin is REFUSING to acknowledge Jesus as Cause. And if the knowledge of God is not coming through any human, then death is the only river going out. Sin and death, along with a shattered creation and a God filled with pain, exist ONLY because humans refuse to acknowledge the good-speaking of Jesus sustaining them every moment. That’s it.

Until Life Comes. We have the picture clear now, that all human rebellion is nothing more than a refusal to acknowledge Christ Jesus as Source and Completion, out from a desire to cry against others, “My godlike crap is bigger than your godlike crap.” (To use Paul’s term.) – That is, complete madness. Now we want to know how it is that this madness enters into Christianity, using Bible verses and gospel truths to create another gospel, an alongside gospel, designed specifically to entrap born-again and spirit-filled sons of God into being the very opposition against God keeping Him from coming Home.

Until LIFE, that is, the knowledge of God, comes through Christians into this world, then the appearance of death, that is, God blocked from human knowing, must continue.