11.1 God Beneath
© 2019 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
In this chapter, we want to look at your ministry to your brothers and sisters in Christ, in connecting them fully with the Jesus alive in their hearts. In fact, this short text is part of your preparation for ministry. And when we say, “preparation for ministry,” we are not speaking of God “proving you.” God proved you once, found you guilty and executed you – end of story. Rather, God is now proving Himself through you, that is, Jesus faithful and true.
Nonetheless, even though you never look at your own performance ever again, Jesus still wants to share His glory with you, that is, Jesus still wants to show Father through you, together with you.
And We Also. Here is the strongest expression of your ministry to your brethren found in the New Testament. – By this we have known love, because He set forth his soul, His story of self, for us, for our sakes; and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).
Now, most translations present “tithemi psuche” as “laying down our lives.” That is not wrong; it’s just not complete. Alas, we do not have the space to develop the inner meaning of this wondrous concept, yet we have called it elsewhere, “sharing Hheart with God.” Rather, we must discover here a practical application of such love now coming through you.
God IS. God is love. Without God there is not love. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13 that you can do every single action of love your entire life and it’s all a waste of time without Love Himself, that is, without Father. To Love is to “God,” that is, Father alone, utterly with you, could ever be Love through you.
In order for you to be of any use at all to your brothers and sisters in Christ, you must be entirely and utterly WITH Father. And you cannot be with Father through your own human performance, what you do or do not do; you are with Father only through the CONFIDENCE of your faith that God IS – that God IS with you, sharing all things with you.
Going Under. You have a bit of a problem, however, in wanting to be with Father, for Father is God All-Carrying; Father walks beneath. If you want to be with Father, you must go under where Father is, carrying all who belong to Jesus close against His Heart.
You cannot “do” that, of course, nor would you want to try. Jesus is the revelation of Father, and He is your life. Jesus Himself, His own confidence inside of you, walks with Father carrying all, and you ARE inside of Him. Believe it. Know it. Walk in all confidence that Father is with you and you with Father in all. Draw Father into your own person with you, especially when you are feeling awful, especially when you have just failed.
For Father’s Sake. More than that, you cannot love your brothers and sisters for their sake. You cannot love them for your sake. You cannot even love them for Jesus’ sake. The only motivation of our lives, the Hheart that carries us forward one faltering step at a time, is for Father’s sake.
We know the deepest desire in the Heart of our Father is to be known by all, to share in His creation as part of His creation. We know that He can be known only through us together. We know that Father is every depth of Carrying and every fountain of Life. And we know that to share Hheart with Father is simply beyond all human conception of value or glory, of wonder or joy. It is Love.
Your Only Task. You are not convincing other Christians of “correct ideas”; Jesus already lives inside their hearts. You are not fixing their problems; Jesus is already living them through all the seasons of their path.
You are not “above them,” for they are as Jesus to you. You are not connecting them with yourself, nor getting them to “trust” you, for what are you, except a brother or sister walking as one together. Your only task is to connect them together with the Jesus of their hearts and then to fade unnoticed into the background.
The Lord Jesus, however, would share His glory with you, and would show Himself through you in very specific ways.
Four Qualities of Christ. Let’s list four qualities of Christ through you by which you join with Father beneath of your brothers and sisters, by which you set forth your soul for their sakes. Then we will expand on each.
1. Submit to each one in gratefulness for the Love of God outpoured from them to you.
2. Show your brother or sister that every Word is Jesus alive in their hearts.
3. Show where every Word God speaks fits into its place inside of Christ as that word.
4. Show Father to each one by little acts of kindness and gentle words of encouragement.
Your First Task. The order of these four things is of great importance, for if the first is not the rule of your laid-down life, then none of the rest are Father through you. You do not approach your brothers or sisters in Christ as the one “loving them.” You are not above them. You are not wearing masks or playing games. Apart from Father, nothing you do or say can be love, even if you wanted it to be – which you don’t. Of yourself, you do NOT even want to love.
No – Father is beneath of this brother or sister in front of you, if you want to be with Father, you must go under. The first task is you going under.
Be Humbled. The love of God has already been poured out and shed abroad inside of our hearts through Spirit Holy, the One having been given to us (Romans 5:5).
When you look at your brother or sister in Christ, you see only One, you see Father, poured out as love inside their hearts through His Spirit, love that is directed towards you. Regardless of what they feel, say, think, or do, even if those thoughts or actions seem to be against you, God speaks the truth – His love is already poured out in their hearts. Know, with all confidence in God, that your brother or sister loves you beyond what you can know, that they lay down their lives for you, that they think more highly of you than of themselves. – And be humbled in the face of such love.
Jesus IS Word. It is only when you are overawed, and even brought to tears, at the knowledge of such love poured out toward you through your brother or sister, regardless of what you might see or experience outwardly, that you are then able to show them the ONE THING they must know. They must KNOW that Jesus IS every Word God speaks, that He alone is and does what God means, that He lives inside their hearts, and that He is their only life.
We find that when we go out with Father into the Church as His Ark of the Covenant, Father bypasses all those piled up in the Altar of Incense in front of the preachers, bound inside of the fake “dealings of God.” He bypasses all the argument and all the pretending and goes straight to the Table of Showbread to show them again the Jesus of their hearts.
The Jesus of Their Hearts. It is the serpent who says, “Did God indeed say?” It is unthankful and pretending humans who say, “All that the Lord says, we will do.” But the heart of anyone who knows the Father through Jesus says only, “Let it be to me according to every Word that You ARE.”
Christ Jesus lives inside of our hearts through faith – It is fully made visible that we ARE a letter of Christ, having already been written with the Spirit of the living God inside the tablets of our hearts of flesh. – Show them the Jesus of their hearts, that He IS, already, the fulfillment of every Word God speaks, that He IS their only life.
Full Assurance. Do not “fight against” the false “Christ” in their minds with argument. That’s why Jesus said not to pull out the tares before the harvest. You see, if you turn to a fruitless attempt to “pull out” the image of the “high-above-you Christ” from their thinking, in their minds you are ripping out the Jesus they know and love. To them the two are the same.
Jesus carries them; He already lives as them; He alone is Savior and Salvation; and He is very good at His job. What they need from you is the assurance that the Jesus of their hearts, the One they know and love, is already the fulfillment in them of every Word God speaks. Only in that full assurance, then, are you able to do task # 3.
Christ All First. Show where every Word God speaks fits into its place inside of Christ as that Word. Once your brother or sister accepts that the Jesus living in Person in their hearts is already the fulfillment as them of every Word God speaks, then you can begin to show them the wondrous joy of every verse in the Bible rushing into its place inside of Him inside of them.
Here is God’s way. – And then lawlessness [including every word in the wrong place] will be unveiled which the Lord Jesus will eliminate with the breath of His mouth and will render inoperative by His presence made visible and known (2 Thessalonians 2:8). We say it this way – Christ must be ALL first, before anything not Christ could ever vanish away. And – if we do not know Jesus in our weakness, we cannot know Him in His power.
They Are Free of You. Jesus also said the same thing in this way. – “And If I am lifted up out of the earth, I will draw all to Myself.” Nothing of the false mental image of “Christ,” and nothing of human unthankfulness and abuse can vanish from anyone’s life except Christ Jesus be all that they are, first. Then, as Christ Jesus is all, the breadth and length and height and depth of all the knowledge of God comes rushing in, but only inside the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ.
At this point, the Lord Jesus can and will use your fellowship together with your brothers and sisters to show them the ever deeper meaning of His every Word inside of them, but He does not need to. He is fully free to show Himself to them in ways wholly unconnected to you. They are free of you.
The Demonstrations of God. Father not only walks beneath, carrying all, but Father also sets all free of Himself, and Father bears inside His own being all the cost of that freedom. Father would share His same Hheart with you. It is only as your brothers and sisters are utterly free of you that you can now show them Father as He is.
And what are the mighty demonstrations of the God of creation? What are the greatest proofs of the majesty and glory of the Father? They are the two greatest expressions of miraculous POWER you could ever see.
– Little acts of kindness and gentle words of encouragement. –
Father’s Heart Revealed. When most look for “God,” they look for greatness; that’s why they never find Him. Greatness, by God’s definition, is found only in the little things, only in taking the lowest place.
Here is one of the most profound pictures of God All-Carrying found in the Bible. – And be kind with one another, tender-hearted, forgiving and giving favor freely to each other, in exactly the same way that God inside of Christ gives favor freely to you (Ephesians 4:32).
Show them God. Speak words of encouragement, of Christ inside of them. Do the little things of kindness and thoughtfulness.
Be God’s expression in creation; live as you are Father’s Heart revealed.