30. The Gathering Together
The Lord Jesus Christ is calling His Bride into that final gathering together unto Him. The passion of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Bride fills our hearts. Her gathering together is our love and joy. We give ourselves with all abandon, with no thought for ourselves, indeed, there is no “self” for us to give thought to. Christ and we are one. Our identity is His Person expressed through our unique persons.
The Lord Jesus Christ is calling His Bride into that final gathering together unto Him. The passion of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Bride fills our hearts. Her gathering together is our love and joy.
We give ourselves with all abandon, with no thought for ourselves, indeed, there is no “self” for us to give thought to. Christ and we are one. Our identity is His Person expressed through our unique persons.
God has no plan – there is no such thing as a “plan” of God.
God purposes; He speaks His purposes – Christ – into emptiness, into darkness, into vanity. God calls His purpose and intention to Himself. As He does so, those living in darkness are drawn into that Word. The Word God speaks takes shape and form inside of them entirely by their own being and faith.
God enters into union with man, His image and likeness.
Inside that most personal of unions, God and man continue speaking together, calling forth the Love that fills the intentions of God from the beginning. God and man together speak Christ. Christ IS a prophetic Word.
Prophecy and prophesying have nothing to do with “predicting” the future.
The prophesying of Christ calls forth the future into God’s intention and love. All “future” is in our hands, in our hearts and in our mouths – that is inside the present words that we speak. And that is true whether we speak Christ or anti-Christ. Yet the speaking of Christ in the hearts of the sons of God prevails over all voices speaking anti-Christ.
I would like to share here some comments I made in another conversation.
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I do not see myself on the cross. Having passed through the cross, I live only inside of God and He fills me full. One of the joys of union with Christ is that we can utterly relax. Everything inside of us is of God, and He carries all that we are. I have never known such joy and peace than what I know now in this precious communion of walking utterly in the living Christ.
I do not die to self. I do not believe in self. There is not and never has been a self. Yet I am always replacing the former thought of “self” by telling myself as I look at everything inside my being and inside my way – Christ is all there is in me; He carries all that I am, especially any “sin” and all of my flesh inside of Himself.
You see, to “put anything to death” in me is to put Christ to death because that’s all there is in me.
We carry suffering because we are filled with all of God. That’s why I say He is an odd Fellow. Most people don’t like Him, that’s why they keep Him far up on high. God is love which means God suffers long. He carries all the suffering of His creation in His heart. How can we be like Him except He weep in us. Suffering is not to “teach us about God” or to “get rid of Adam,” suffering is the nature of God in Person in us.
Union must be 100% or not at all. There can be no 99% Christ and 1% something to get rid of. Our will and God’s will are the same. We do what we want. If we are doing something other than what we want, trying to call it God, we enter the realms of pretending. We are at peace with God; there is no opposition of wills. If Christ really is Savior, then He really must be real in us.
There is no Adam in Christ; there is no Adamic in me. There is no opposition to God in Christ; there is no opposition to God in me.
Living in that reality turns me around. I am not in any way “going towards God.” Now, having turned entirely around, all of my life and experience, my foolishness and lack, all of my hurt and joy, my laughter and praise, all of it is God through me reconciling the world to Himself. I am the intercession of God.
There is nothing of me “not aligned with the finished work of Christ.” Except my former unbelief, my former speaking of myself anything other than Christ.
Old things are passed away, behold ALL things are made brand new and all things are of God (all things in me and in my way.) My flesh is the flesh of Christ.
This is absolute, and I will speak and speak and speak Christ and nothing else. Never will I speak of myself as anything other than Christ or of any part of myself as anything other than Christ Himself. I am in Him, and He is in me; that union is all. Nothing is now or has ever been outside of that union.
In speaking Christ alone, I am speaking contrary to the sight of my eyes and the feeling of my emotions. I am speaking in the face of the serpent. I care nothing for the wailing cries coming from all directions.
All of our journey has been Christ; you have come through a similar path to that which God has taken all of us. I call forth in you, dear reader, the opening of your eyes to see that ALL you have ever been and all of your way is Christ alone. You have never been anywhere else but inside His words, “Here am I, I and the children whom You have given Me.
But I must declare Him. I can do no other. There is nothing but Christ in all of me. There has never been anything but Christ in all of me. My problem was entirely that I did not know Him.
Union is unknown. It is known only by a miracle of God. Yet we speak that union in the face of all opposition. And as we speak Christ in the face of the serpent, the serpent word comes from all directions, including “deeper truth” messages and Bible verses. “God didn’t really mean, “all,” He didn’t really mean speak, “dead indeed” or “alive indeed.” He didn’t really mean “Christ is our life; we have no other life.”
Christ is prophecy. That does not mean “prediction,” prediction requires a prior “plan.” There is no plan of God, only intention and purpose. Out of God’s purpose, He speaks Christ, then Christ takes form and shape in all the creation. We do the same. We call those things that be not as they are. We speak Christ.
When we speak the words, “God is getting rid of something Adamic in me,” then we are casting our future. A million years from now, except God wake us up, we will be “getting rid of something Adamic in me.” When we speak Christ alone, we are casting our present and our future as Christ alone.
Here is an interesting phrase. “We have been made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast until the end.” “Have been” is present perfect. That means our present speaking of Christ without wavering, without allowing anything not Christ into our view of ourselves, makes Christ our beginning and all the way through all the former pathways of our life. But failing to speak Christ, losing our bold assertion that we are not “being interceded for” but that we are fully that Christ through whom God is interceding for others, Himself, in Person, in us, by losing that confidence (or never finding it), then the “have been partakers of Christ” fades away and we lose any concern for it.
My union with Christ is 100%, I in Him and He in me. If He is interceding for others, that interceding for others is the only life I am. I come to know it by speaking Christ against all other voices, especially against the sight of my eyes.
The serpent word fills everything, speaking “Did God really say that?” against the word of Christ our only life. That’s why I don’t read much of anyone else. Everywhere you read it’s Christ-plus. It all sounds good because they are talking about “Christ,” but not out of 100% union.
I am absolutely and utterly committed to 100% union of Christ with me all the way through. There is no limit on that union, no place where there is anything of the Lord Jesus that is not also me, nor is there any place where there is anything of me that is not also the Lord Jesus.
When we accept the one death of Christ, the death that WAS, but is now alive forevermore, we know that union. Any compromise on that one death throws us back into something that we can never accomplish or see accomplished.
The thing that God must “roll death upon” as Rich Novek says, is that seeing of ourselves as anything other than Christ, all of which, in the end, is nothing more than pretending over delusions – psychosis.
It is not anything of us that death must cause to cease (that happened entirely when Jesus spoke on the cross, it happened entirely the moment Jesus rose from His feet the third time in Gethsemane), but rather false imaginations of anything concerning ourselves that we would see as separate from Christ Himself in Person filling all that we are with all that He is.
And thus we walk in utter peace and rest. Inside an undercurrent of unimaginable joy, punctuated by occasional expressions of the love-suffering God who shares Heart with us, expressions of sorrow that we no longer call our “own” but His, and bear them with joy, knowing that dear precious ones are being set free into Him by those very sufferings.
Of truth, this continual fruit of suffering I am seeing more and more. People are being set free when they read of the joy of Christ their only life through what I have written. And all of what I write comes out of grief and loss, even at present. When I write something that brings great response, it always comes out of some brief pain I just went through. That pain I bear with all inexpressible joy.
The reward in the hearts of others is just too much. God is always too much. Yet He fills us full with all of Himself. That is the only way we know Him.
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This is the concluding chapter of Gathering to Life. Everything I write is a calling forth of Christ in fullness in His people. In this book is found a specific calling to the Bride and to her gathering together.
The Kingdom of God is innumerable local small communities of the heart, local assemblies of believers, all relating to one another both within each assembly and between assemblies in the complete freedom of love, that is, in all high regard and respect for each individual person and each local assembly.
I hear people talking about the Kingdom of God as some form of “government.” The problem is, they have the governments of this world in their minds. All that human government presents is not just a false image, but a totally upside down picture of God’s “government.” God does not “govern” as some outside force, He becomes, He lives, He carries.
God always sets people free. Always. In every situation, at every turn of the road, God sets us free of Himself, yet at the same time, carries us in all that we are inside of Love.
God will never show Himself through us except inside of full respect and regard for our person as equal of heart with God.
We relate with one another and all others in that same regard.
To see or to treat or to talk about any individual person on this planet except AS the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is to live outside the Kingdom.
Our identity is Christ alone. I see so many precious believers in Jesus who do not speak only Christ as their life and identity; rather they also speak out of the philosophies of violence and disrespect by which men fight and kill one another, out of the delusion of the so-called “country” by which men beat upon their chests.
Speak only Christ. Speak of nothing that is not Christ your only life. Speak of no other person as an individual except as you would speak of Christ Himself. When we speak against pretending, we always speak in general, we never speak of any individual person. Christ alone knows what He is doing in the heart of each, and He never asks us what we think.
Now, through a number of chapters in this book, I have spoken of “government” in the local assembly as being something flexible, something that fits present need, something that comes organically out of personal giftings and heart.
There are no offices in the church. Anyone who sees him or herself or is seen by others as “the elder,” or “the pastor,” or “the bishop,” or “the apostle,” is functioning in opposition to Christ Himself.
The ministry of the apostolic is Christ our life calling forth Christ in others, and holding the door wide open as they come rushing in. The ministry of shepherding is Christ our life lifting up the weak, protecting the vulnerable, caring with all joy for each individual member of Christ. The ministry of the prophetic is Christ our life speaking Christ our life. These are services that appear only for each individual moment as Christ Himself giving to Christ Himself. No one is any of these things as an office in themselves.
I have seen this reality in the move of God, the fellowship I was a part of for many years. Those who are recognized as “elders” are almost destroyed by that false “office.” That is, they are so entrenched in pretending to be some outward thing that they can hardly know Christ their only life free and unfettered. Many who are “elders” now will not recover in this life. The same is true of “pastors” and “apostles.” When you allow men and women to move thus in the body of Christ, you are condemning them to a life of pretending that will sit as a wedge between themselves and any union with Christ.
No “apostle,” no “pastor” can allow union with Christ to be taught in his or her assemblies. Why? Because then each little member would be Christ above the “apostle.” And the one known as “apostle” or “pastor” would be seen as a brother or sister living in psychosis. Thus every top-down group must teach that union is false; to teach union is to lose everything.
Jesus said, “If you save your psuche, you will lose it. But if you lose your psuche, you will find it.”
That is easily understood in this way. “Those who live in psychosis, in pretending behind some made-up identity, they will lose that psychosis, yes, but without finding anything real to replace it. But those who give up ALL human pretending now and just be real as they find themselves to be, will discover their true self, Me, as their only life.”
All human psychosis is explained entirely by two simple and clear metaphors, dressing up with fig leaves and hiding behind tree trunks. Making ourselves look like something by outward appearance and hiding those things about ourselves of which we are ashamed – the two essential parts of Adamic rebellion, the law and the curse.
All who are seen as “pastors,” all who are known as “apostles” are by definition psychotic. The New Testament sometimes calls it “the flesh.”
That is not the ministry of Christ, a ministry flowing out of each little member of His body, from one to the other in love, in the deepest respect for one another, and with no obligation or human expectation.
If you haven’t watched Rango, watch it now, and then re-read the chapter on “Rango or Finding Your True Self.”
Christ, the highest Person in the universe, is my very and only life. He in Person fills my heart. He is my only identity. Everything I find inside myself or inside my way I define and know entirely as an aspect of Him and I see all of it only out from His eyes.
The Lord Jesus moves through me as the apostolic care that He is for His church, holding the door open to many, calling forth His bride into His joy. The Lord Jesus moves through me as the prophetic voice of Christ speaking Christ into you as I speak Him into myself. The Lord Jesus moves through me as the evangelical call to all mankind and especially to Christians to forsake all the pretending of Adam and to know Christ their life alone.
The Lord Jesus moves through me as the pastoral care for each individual member, flesh of His flesh, most precious to me, that you would escape all the “did God indeed say” of the serpent and that you would know the full freedom of singing your gift into the Body of Christ in full unison with the Lord Jesus singing inside of you. The Lord Jesus moves through me as the teacher, showing you how everything in the Bible and in creation speaks and speaks and speaks of Christ your only life.
It is all Him. He moves through me as my only life and touches you in the present moment in whatever kind thing in that moment He wishes you to know of Himself.
That is all ministry in the church is; there is nothing else.
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All the way through what I teach is found an ongoing, intimate, personal relationship with God as a Person, a Person whom I experience daily. I speak of God in all that He says with the highest respect. I care nothing for human ideas. I want only to know Him, to know His heart filling mine in the present moment. And nothing else. Thus she found in my song the same singing of her own heart.
Everything I find in the Bible, then, speaks to me only of that most intimate of knowing, Person inside of person.
As Christ Himself, I sing, I call forth the apostolic into its place. You are as able to do that as I am. There is nothing preventing you, dear reader, from moving in the ministry of the apostolic. Speak Christ, call Him forth in others; you can do that as easily as I can. In calling forth Christ in others, you are moving in the giftings of the apostolic. The least little member in the body of Christ is as apostolic as the “greatest.”
As the apostolic of Christ my only life, I call forth the Bride into her place, into that knowing of God that IS eternal life. As the pastoral of Christ my only life, I yearn over you with tender compassion, with great desire to see you free in the song Jesus is singing inside of you, free to dance with joy as you find yourself to be utterly and all inside of Him.
This is Christ; this is the ministry of Christ in you and in me.
I have shared my vision of a community of Christ in an outwardly isolated valley in northern British Columbia – Blair Valley. But the singing of my heart is for the community of Christ, not for any particular place. If God causes my heart to sing there, then I will sing of Him there. While God and I together wait for that reality, I will sing of Him now and here, wherever my now and here might be. My heart is for many communities of Christ all across this planet.
I care nothing for big “ministry” agendas. I will not be driven by anyone’s whip, even if the thongs of their whip are Bible verses.
And I am perfectly willing for God to do nothing with my vision for Blair Valley in this age. I hold to nothing of and for myself. He is my life, and He is everywhere present and now. My two letters about Blair Valley are no “predictions,” but only the singing of my heart.
Jesus sings in me.
But this book and all that I write are a calling forth of Christ in His people. The ministry of Christ in this present moment is the gathering together on the one hand, and the vindication of His Father in all that He speaks on the other.
And I will give to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. Revelation 11:3-4
This verse is speaking of Christ, the One who fills our hearts with His glory, our very and only life, the life of each little member of His body. This is the normal Christian life. By this authority, in this place, you and I stand and walk upon this planet.
Christ is the calling forth of Christ. To prophesy is to call forth Christ, to call forth the gathering together unto Christ our very and only life.
This is all-power, all-authority, all invincible victory.
We have the power in our mouth and in our hearts to bring the age of human folly to an end and to bring the intentions of God from the beginning, many sons to glory, into full outward expression upon this earth. His name is Jesus, and He fills our mouths and our hearts.
Never speak Christ plus a little bit else. Speak Christ AGAINST All else.
I speak Christ against the United States of America and all the false religious cult that it is. I speak Christ against that wicked and false thing that some call “Israel.” These are pretensions by which men imagine falseness against other men, exalting themselves at the expense of others. Flee from these things; flee from all the psychosis of this world.
I speak Christ; I call Him forth from the heart of every little one who loves to hear Him sing in the singing of their own purpose, in the desire and longing of their own hearts.
I sing. He sings through me. And our song changes everything on this planet, everything in all creation. I sing forth the sons of God upon this earth. I sing forth the binding of all evil, the casting down of all pretense and human exaltation, of all disrespect of others. I sing forth the release of all hearts into joy. I sing forth the new heavens and the new earth flowing out of my belly. I sing forth Christ, I prophecy Christ, and my prophecy must be, for all that is real flows out of that song, the very singing of our shared heart, God and me.
Through me flow the rivers of God from His throne, our shared heart, into all the concourses of the universe. I am the olive tree; I am the lampstand standing before the God of the earth enthroned upon my heart. And you as well. And each little one who sings with Jesus the only life they are, the only One they know.
Sing Christ, speak Christ, and watch the glory flow out upon this planet, right out of your belly.
It seems the Lord is moving me from just writing in the joy of my song to traveling and speaking in that same joy. I am exhilarated in the expectation of God and scared to death at the same time. I am not frightened of speaking Christ to precious brethren, many or few. I am frightened of being “somebody.” You know, I just don’t want to be somebody. Please forgive me and the tears of my weakness. Please, I cannot be somebody.
I can sing the song of Jesus singing in my heart, but I cannot meet the expectations of anyone. I go out as a lamb in the face of the serpent. I go out knowing that I must always turn my back on Eve.
The Lord has put me together with a brother from the Dallas, Texas area, Rich Novek, who shares the same word of union with Christ, His power revealed in our weakness, that the Lord has given me. It seems we each have something the other lacks. And both of us speak Christ simply and freely from the heart.
My wife, Maureen, and I, with two of our children, spent about 24 hours together last weekend with Rich and his wife, Linda, in their home, along with another dear sister, Joan Reilly, whom the Lord has put together with the Noveks in a bond of life and love and the sharing of Christ.
I have been connected with Rich through Chris Welch and through Facebook connections for a few years now. Over the last few months, I have worked with Rich in the editing and publishing of his first book, one of others to come, now available on Amazon, Rich “IN” Christ. You can find more of Rich’s sharing of Christ here: www.richinchristnow.com
But as we visited together in the sharing of Christ, we spoke concerning the shape and focus of any outward ministry by which the Lord might serve His precious people through us. I want somehow to share that heart with you.
I spoke out of the vision of Christ for His people that entered into the secret places of my heart when I was 20 and 21 years old. Here are the Bible words.
And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days. Revelation 12:4-6
First, these words are no death words to be forced by human intellects upon things they cannot know. These words are Spirit Words, the living life of Christ, spoken into the hearts of sons of God who honor the Lord Jesus, all that God speaks, as their very life.
The word “feed” is translated “nourish” in the KJV. “And they shall nourish her there.” This is one of three times in Revelation when “they” has no antecedent. It doesn’t say who “they” are.
But as a 20-year-old boy, I heard these words spoken by the Lord Jesus as life into my heart. And in that hearing, I wanted to be, if somehow God could make me so, one of those who would have the life and nourishment to give to the precious Bride of Christ the very sustenance she would need in the hour of her trial.
It was only a simple desire in the heart of a boy, longing to know the living God, hardly daring to believe that God would cause such a thing to be, yet wanting it to be so, somehow. Now, looking inside myself these 36 years later, I find that tiny seed has grown into all that fills me full as the only desire and purpose of my present days.
There is, scattered across this entire planet, a precious woman of God, beloved of the Lord Jesus Christ. Over her, all the passion of His bowels is outpoured. He cares for her, and He cares for her as our very and only life, filling our hearts full.
The first thing I said is that we go out with no expectations. I was not “giving instructions”; I was speaking to myself the desire of my heart, sharing my heart with them as the same heart of Christ. By “no expectations,” I mean no expectations for ourselves that we be or accomplish anything. God can use us or not as He wishes. Yet we always expect God always arising, bringing life and joy to others whether we “see” Him do so or not.
Then I said that we go out with our hearts filled with the thought of this precious woman of God, facing, now, the hour of her trial. Our only desire is to see her lifted up into the knowing of the God who fills her full, the knowing she must have as the wings of the eagle, Christ her only life.
But in going forth in His heart singing over His Bride, we speak with authority, the tender authority of Christ. Though we carry no expectations for ourselves, we expect God to raise her to a far higher level of knowing Him than anything she has ever tasted before. A knowing of God that continues, increasing from that sudden high plateau on into the heights of His glory.
She is, you and I are, about to enter the hour of trial that is even now descending upon the whole earth. Darkness becomes visible only as it is losing its hold and on its way out. Everyone around us imagines that the “lights are going out.” Oh no! The lights are turning on. That’s why everything hiding in the darkness is seen as it really is.
You and I are that light.
Then Rich and Linda also spoke into the sending forth of the Lord in us that God’s precious people so very much need the word of victory and freedom and the precious life of complete union with Christ inside of our human weakness that Rich and I carry.
To know God and to know Jesus-Sent.
Speak Christ. Sing the gathering together unto Him. You will set creation free. You will change everything.