19.1 Purpose Rules
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
God’s purpose, His Pro-Thesis, rules all things.
The words were hurled at me recently, “There is no accuser, no accuser, no accuser.” The speaker was attempting to assert his freedom in Christ, but not out of knowing God. God says there is an accuser who accuses Christians.
And so, rather than impose mental fantasy upon reality, which is what most people attempt to do in order to make sense of everything that makes no sense, we MUST seek for something else – God’s intention for all things. To see Christ in all things is to see the Purpose of God. God has great purpose for all things, including the accuser.
Why, God?
We are looking at the elements of the fall of the church into Roman darkness, a fall from which she has NOT recovered. We are looking at the 2000 years of the in-part church age, a time of all things new by substance, but old by appearance. A huge part of the drive that has always gripped my heart is the need to know why. Why, God, does Your revelation come only out from 6,000 years of awful human misery?
Remember that I have banished all thought of “what if.” There is no such thing as “what if,” no “alternate possibilities”; there is only what is. And I INSIST on knowing God only inside of what is; I insist on seeing Christ IN every moment of my life.
Fantasy versus Reality
Few are more capable of creating fantastic worlds of imagination and spending hours and hours enjoying the stories of daydreams than I am. Yet I am also a successful designer and builder and leader of large crews of men to accomplish hugely complex projects. I KNOW the difference between fantasy and reality, but I discover, after many years, that many whom I once imagined to be “level-headed” do NOT know that difference.
The accuser does not disappear because we imagine he does not exist. And I cannot live in Christ by fantasy. I must know what is, and I must know God’s purpose for what is.
No Easy Thing
Now, the only conclusion I can draw from God enduring 6000 years of human wickedness and from Christ living His church through awful darkness for the last 2000 years is this. God becoming seen and known is NO EASY thing. God becoming seen and known is almost impossible, even for God.
God can be seen and known only through man, His image, and man is more cantankerous, self-willed, and scheming than all other created species in heaven and earth put together. Man empty of the knowledge of God is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Man filled with God is God revealed.
Still Looking
Amazingly, atoning for all sin and taking the entire creation into death upon the cross did not solve God’s problem. He is still looking for a handful of people who will so believe that God dwells in them, that is, a God who is meek and lowly of heart and who places Himself beneath of all, that God can be Himself through them in utter union with them. He is still offering the fruit of the tree of life to someone, anyone, who might be interested.
In Lesson 16.3 The Rule of Flesh, I said this: God cannot win the desire of His heart… unless you and I choose with all the willingness of our hearts to climb the tree of life and to eat of the fruit we find there.
Our Only Enemy
A sister responded to my comments on bullies by saying that she was her own worst bully all through her life; she was the one who beat herself up.
I typically stay away from any thought that our problem is in ourselves because of the tendency to slide into the split-soul concept of the crucifix. But when we see it in terms of you and me foolishly staying away from the tree of life because we doubt God, then, yes, I am the only enemy I have ever had.
Yet all we ever have to do is repent, that is, turn around. And suddenly we are free to eat of life to our full and forever. Since the cross, there is no reason not to eat of the tree of life.
A New Story
More than that, this sister, in an honest expression of herself (something God brings all of us to), shared with me the incredible MESS her life once was, a mess she shared no small part in creating.
This is why the tree of life is so ENTIRELY wonderful. We don’t have to figure out all the tangled threads of our messed up lives in order to be “fixed.” All we do is put the Lord Jesus Christ, utterly whole and complete, upon ourselves in all ways, as the only self-story we are. As we do that, with great joy we discover that Christ has always been our life and that all the “tangle” vanishes away.
Symmorphy
Let’s lay out again God’s purpose for all things. God is determined to be seen and known, touched and handled, freely, by all created beings. He will accomplish that by one means alone, full symmorphy with man, you and me, walking together as the one body of Christ.
And God wins symmorphy with man by one process, by Word entering through faith to be planted in weakness, that Word might bring forth all the life of God that is in it. God becomes seen and known only as Word proves Himself faithful and true in all that God speaks. God bends EVERYTHING (including all that we are) toward the Word proven true.
Proving Jesus True
As sons of God, we embrace with all maturity every element of what is, even what is in outward appearance, no matter how difficult or contradictory, knowing that God and us together are bending all things towards God’s one purpose. Proving Jesus faithful and true.
And proving Jesus faithful and true out of the midst of weakness and in the face of all contradiction serves two expressions of God’s one purpose. First, that all accusation against God might be proven to be without foundation. And second, that God might be known entirely as He is through you and me.
Our Hearts Given
Because we keep the Pro-thesis of God ever at the center of our own hearts, we see all things only through His eyes. Thus we look at these elements of the darkness out from great purpose.
We do not seek to understand these things in order to condemn anyone, but rather to be a part of Jesus as He proves Himself faithful and true towards our brethren caught under their useless unwillingness to eat of life.
As we know the reasons for the darkness, we see more clearly the glory of our resurrection inside of Jesus out of that empty grave. And our hearts are given to our task – setting creation free.