24. Acknowledge Him as All

Covering Colossians 3:8 through Philemon:

God has one HOW, only one method by which we must enter into His knowledge. – Acknowledge Jesus as all. Yet in order to fully understand God’s Way, God has set against His Way an opposing way, a way that appears “right” to most, but that leaves its victims inside of death.

One way to express that false “way” is the meaning that most ascribe to “mortify the flesh,” a not incorrect way of translating the words Paul uses, yet entirely separate from the larger context of the Flow of Gospel Word. As a result “mortify the flesh” has become the opposite of the Gospel. “Mortify the flesh” has actually become, “acknowledge your flesh as all,” with no thought remaining for Jesus one way or the other. It has become the anti-Ruling Verse 10.

The Anti-Romans 13:14. Put sin in the flesh upon yourself, that you might fail to subdue it, and give no thought to the Lord Jesus Christ one way or the other (anti-Romans 13:14).

Inherent in Nicene “Christianity” is the conviction that “it is God’s will that we fail to obey, that we never succeed in actually getting the flesh under control. God’s will is that we try and cry (and never mind the lie.)” And yes, no matter how psychotic, schizophrenic, and delusional it might be, the firm conviction is that “anyone who says that Jesus is already all is clearly of the evil one.”

The sad thing is that they miss completely the beauty and wonder of God’s desire fulfilled, the Church, and the Flow of Gospel Word that causes her, in the gathering together, to be filled with the knowledge of God.

A Mighty Gospel. Yet it is in placing this evil contradiction, one that rules over our Christian brethren to their hurt, as a backdrop behind the wondrous flow of Gospel Word through Colossians and Philemon, that we see how mighty the Gospel really is.

Our “life” hidden inside of God is not something separate from us, nor is it an abstract or ethereal concept. Our life is everything we are and experience every moment of every day. All of it is hidden inside of God, all of it God shares with us – Now all things are out from God. Even more than that, “Christ who is our life” can only be Christ Jesus living as us. Yet all of this is simply “the basics” of the Gospel. For out from every moment of our life hidden inside of God, sharing Life with the Father, God now enters into our world as Love.

How to Love One Another. The anti-Romans 13:14 is truly the mind we once imagined was “Christian,” that such was “God’s will” for us. Christians have one hope only; Jesus must win their hearts.

Paul now makes the transition from what we “put off” to what we “put on.” And he continues to give us the “How.” – How do we put these things upon ourselves. The “How” is to acknowledge Christ as all there is in us. It is the speaking of faith, which is what turns us towards the Flow of Gospel Word, what God means by “above.” The old way of “trying” turned us only towards self and failure. Yet all the things we “put off” and “put on” have nothing to do with a “sin nature,” but everything to do with how we walk together, how we are to love one another.

Biblical Salvation. Those who define salvation as “someday” place Church as incidental and the Christian purpose as saving the lost. Then, those who place “getting right with God” as essential to salvation, also see the Church as incidental and the Christian purpose as “ascending higher” (above others). They do not see the Church that FILLS the Gospel and the Heart of God. The turn for them is from self to the cross, a turn that is never complete. The turn for us is from Christ inside of me to Christ inside of us together, that Father might come Home. Our “turn” means that we lose nothing, but rather, gain all.

Biblical Salvation is the Church, believers in Jesus walking in committed life together, loving one another, the dwelling place and revelation of God to all creation forever.

From Worry to Devotion. (Chapter 3) 8 Now, however, lay aside all these: anger, outburst of passion, malice, slander, and foul and abusive words out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie or mislead one another, • for you have already completely stripped away the old man with his practices, 10 and have already fully put on and enclothed yourself with the new, which was made completely new into the acknowledgement of the finest details of the image of the One who created you anew. • 11 Inside of this One there is no Greek or Judean, no circumcised or not-circumcised, no barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, but Christ is all inside of all.

This set of verses is the great transition regarding the issue of the Cross and the Flesh, “putting off” the old worrying about self and “putting on” the new devotion to God.

Union Is for Love. The thing about the Gospel is that it begins with Jesus winning our hearts and then it goes immediately to loving one another. And yes, put Christians into life together and they will get angry with each other, speak abusive words, and generally lie. Union with Christ does not replace learning to love one another; rather, it is what allows us to learn such a thing, for loving one another is Salvation Revealed.

Yet here is that wonderful line, “Christ is all inside of all.” When I first wrote the Jesus Secret, I wrote “Christ is all there is in me.” I was aware in that moment that something new, something warm and wonderful had just begun in my life. Jesus created me brand new inside of Himself according to the details of His own image; Jesus made me just like Himself.

Christ Is All. The Cross is already finished, long time ago. Christ is all there is inside of me. It is almost twenty years since I first wrote “Christ is all in me,” and almost eighteen years since I entered into knowing Christ my only life. I have held to that confession of faith through all, regardless, yet I am still learning what it means.

Think of this, now. – I acknowledge the finest details of Jesus who has made me just like Himself (image) inside Himself. I acknowledge that every detail is what I am. – The Greek word means “according to,” yet it includes every precise detail in full. We “put off” what has no meaning, and we put on what has all meaning. Yet both must be through faith, that is, the story that we speak.

From Jesus to the Father. Ruling Verse 10: Paul is expanding on the great RULE of the Gospel that had come to him through Romans 13:14, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, the only command that counts. Nothing old remains (see 2 Corinthians 5:17-18); Jesus has already made us just like Himself inside of Him.

Speak Christ: God does not teach us to fail; therefore “put on the new man” cannot be by human effort, but only through faith, through the speaking of our self-story what is already True. Speaking Christ fixes our eyes on Jesus and not on self.

The Form for God through Jesus: Church, life together as believers in Jesus, is the dwelling place of God and the end purpose of all Salvation. The things we “put off” are things that hinder Love in our relationships as members of one another. Our purpose is always to know the Father as Love.

Some of the Fine Details. • 12 Therefore, as the chosen of God, devoted and beloved, put on, enclothe yourself with, sink into the inward parts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and longsuffering, • 13 bearing with one another and giving favor to each other, if anyone should have a complaint towards another. In exactly the same way that the Lord has forgiven and given favor to you, so also you forgive and give favor.

Now Paul lists just a few of those “fine details” that are the Jesus whom we put upon ourselves. “Was made completely new” inside of Jesus is past tense, already done. We do not “put on” works of human effort that always fail; we put on God who never fails. Yet think of these five words, the essence of God in the room. – Compassion, Kindness, Humility, Gentleness, Longsuffering.

Sharing Hheart with Jesus. I knew a taste of these things among brethren in move community, even though that taste was shadowed by our theology. When I think of the meaning of each of these, I bring to mind the faces of specific individuals towards me and towards others.

To KNOW these five qualities in daily life together is to KNOW God. There is no other God. Yet they are all just part of putting the Lord Jesus Christ upon ourselves, for He imparts these to us as Himself. Think of the five aspects of the Hheart we share with Jesus, Compassion as the ambition to rule, kindness as the definition of our lives, humility as the self we are in God, gentleness as the reciprocity we share, and longsuffering as the Mercy Seat, the place where all belong.

The Form and Outline of God. “Giving favor to each other” is how we move as one, like a flock of birds, the form and outline of God. God as Love can be seen no other way than as our yielding to one another.

Ruling Verse 10 & Covenant: Jesus has already made us just like Himself inside Himself, down to the finest details of who He is. As we put His image upon ourselves through faith, we are putting all the qualities of Jesus’ own Heart upon ourselves. Compassion is our rule, kindness our definition, humility our self inside of God, gentleness our care for one another, and longsuffering, the Mercy Seat, where all belong.

Ruling Verse 8: But the deepest expression and quality of Jesus is that we love one another in just the same way that He loves us. “Giving favor” is how we move as one, like a flock of birds, the form and outline of God.

Love and Peace. • 14 Now, upon all these as well, put on love, which is the binding together of perfection and the completion of the end purpose. • 15 And let the peace of Christ act as the umpire inside of your hearts, into which also you were called inside of one body. And be thankful.

These two qualities, Love and Peace, are for one purpose, that the Church is the House and Dwelling Place of God. Thus they relate directly to our new “Ruling Verse 12” from Ephesians 2, the intimacy of God’s family and household. The completion of the end purpose is Father at Home inside of creation, filled together with all the fulness of God, and the bond that makes that Home perfectly is Love. PEACE among us, regulating our every interaction, and the giving of thanks, makes us the Body and Form of the Father.

Where God Is Found. Those who seek “to ascend” beyond human relationships seek “to go” where God is not found. Those who place themselves “beneath” of others find God in the Highest there as well.

Ruling Verse 10: To put the Lord Jesus Christ upon ourselves is to put Love upon ourselves, Love that is only the Father.

Kingdom: The completion of the end purpose is Father at Home inside of creation, filled together with all the fulness of God, and the bond that makes that Home perfectly is Love. PEACE among us, regulating our every interaction, and the giving of thanks, makes us the Body and Form of the Father.

The Form for God through Jesus: These two qualities, Love and Peace, are for one purpose, that the Church is the House and Dwelling Place of God (see Ephesians 2:19-22).

A Manual for Christ Community. • 16 Let the word of Christ dwell at home inside of you richly, inside of all wisdom. Teach and place each other’s minds inside of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; sing inside of the grace inside your hearts connecting with God. • 17 And everything which you might do in word or in deed, do all of it inside of the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks and speaking good grace, connecting with God the Father through Him.

Paul is giving us a manual for Christ Community. “You” is plural, many together as one, each local fellowship. Notice that these are the things we do in fellowship together. Consider a fellowship busy “listing their sins,” – NOT in the list, in fact, destructive against this grace. Rather, giving thanks, connecting with God, is what we do together.

The Life of the Kingdom. Kingdom: Our fellowship together as the Church is the first part of Kingdom, the pattern out from which then flows the design of all things. Our fellowship together is filled with abundance of Word and with worship in the Spirit.

Life: It is the Spirit that gives Life. – The Words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are Life (John 6:63). Paul is giving us a manual for Christ Community and is describing the LIFE at the center of the Church, the essence of the Life of God in our midst.

Kingdom: The “name” of the Lord Jesus is a metaphor for our being just like Him inside of Him. Out from that name, we first give thanks inside of and for the sake of all, sharing Life with the Father. Then, all that we say and do comes out from Jesus within as the Kingdom, the Father made visible.

Being Convinced. (Chapter 4) 12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always contending for your sake in prayers, • so that you may stand perfected and completed and fully assured, convinced, and completed inside of all the desire of God.

Paul always presents a Gospel of full Completion now, full assurance of faith, standing upon FIRM. – God always leads us. Being CONVINCED is Ruling Verse 7.

Ruling Verse 7 & 1: Full assurance of all Completion now, already made justly innocent, already fully glorified, right from the start, fills Paul’s Gospel. This, then, is our earnest and continual prayer for each, that we would stand upon FIRM, that we would continue convinced that God always leads us, and that He leads us in the celebration of Victory.

The Fellowship of the Church. (Philemon 1) 4 I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, 5 for I have heard of your love and the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the devoted ones. • 6 I pray that the fellowship and sharing of your faith might energeo inside of the acknowledgment of every good thing that is inside of us, inside of Christ. 7 For I have great joy and encouragement because of your love, because the hearts of the devoted ones have been refreshed through you, my brother.

Our understanding of Philemon 1:6 increased considerably while writing The Jesus Secret II. Now we hope for an even greater increase as we place these lines into the larger Flow of Gospel Word. Paul is continuing fully inside the fellowship of the Church.

Shared Confidence. Philemon 1:6 is the simplest form of God’s how, to acknowledge the good things of Christ inside of us. It is a key companion to Ruling Verse 7, our walk of confidence. Yet Paul is saying that this HOW, Resurrection Life, is best known inside our gathering together, that it is something we are to know and to be together, that confidence is most effective when it is shared.

I know the Truth of this. In my community experience, the presence of God and our desire to know Him was always front and center, the talk of every day, the focus of our lives. Eighteen years of such living placed an indelible mark inside my soul, that God-with-us is always our first thought. Such Community without the shadow is Glory.

Acknowledge Good Things. Conversation without the shadow then means that we acknowledge the good things of Christ in one another. And Paul defined those “good things” in Colossians 3:10, the finest details of the image of Christ Jesus. Colossians 3:12-20 is then an expansion on just some of the innumerable details that are Christ Jesus, the new man we are inside of Him. These are what we see and call forth in one another. For to acknowledge is to prophesy Christ, it is to call forth that which is not outwardly visible.

That is the meaning, then, of koinonia energeoing. We sow to the Spirit, we reap Christ in one another. We call forth the Father, we live inside of Love. This is the meaning of Christian faith. It is power in the Church.

Acknowledge Jesus as All. Definition: To acknowledge is to prophesy Christ; it is to call forth that which is not outwardly visible. This is the meaning of koinonia energeoing, the working of the fellowship of faith in our gathering together, the meaning of Life in our midst.

Speak Christ: To acknowledge Jesus as ALL is to speak to and of one another, that we see Jesus alone in one another’s hearts and faces. We do not “list sins,” for we live in no sufficiency in self, but all sufficiency in Jesus. We acknowledge all the details that are Jesus inside of us. We sow to the Spirit, we reap Christ in one another (see Galatians 6:1 & 8).

The Form for God through Jesus: The Energeoing inside our fellowship together is God in our midst, God in power and as our shared Life together. We call forth the Father; we live inside of Love, the Father at Home in our midst.

Separation. Let me close out our discussion of Augustine. Augustine loved Jesus and was anointed of God inside the Church. While we seek to know what he did not know, we do not then consider him with anything less than full respect and honor. The times and seasons are in God’s hands, and it is God who has held the unveiling of Jesus Christ to the present day.

It is no small task, now at the end of this age of God’s Patience, to separate between the fine root hairs of the tares from the fine root hairs of the wheat. What Augustine wrote contains both. Yet Augustine himself is one whom we KEEP. I like the fact that Paul placed the confidence of our walk into our life together as the Church. Acknowledging Christ is something we do together.

Ruling Verse 7: Jesus is all, already. Jesus is real and He dwells in our hearts. We set our eyes only upon Him; we see no sin or separation from God. Out from seeing Jesus, in our own hearts, and in one another’s hearts and faces, we speak and we walk.

Seeing Jesus alone is our Confidence, that He has already made us to be just like Himself. Inside this confidence that God always leads us, we walk as Jesus walks, in Resurrection Life now, in God through us for others.

This is the third HOW of God, how we live the normal Christian life. We acknowledge Jesus as all inside ourselves and inside one another. And in acknowledging Jesus as all, we see and acknowledge EVERY Good thing that He is, especially our Love for one another, especially sharing Hheart with God.

Jesus Inside Forever. Colossians-Philemon is “the Jesus Secret I,” the mystery of Christ inside each one of us, but then becoming “the Jesus Secret II,” the mystery of Christ inside the gathering of Church.

The entire practice of the Christian life is quite simple – Keep your eyes on Jesus, see nothing and no one else. Jesus alone makes us to be just like Himself. Acknowledge Him as all. That is the simplicity. Yet this Jesus whom alone we see inside ourselves and in one another, is not a small Person. And the details of His image, each one of which we put upon ourselves and upon one another through faith and inside of all shared Joy, must increase forever.

I am a living testimony, and you as well, that Jesus is real, and that He saves and has saved us to the uttermost.

Paul’s Overall. I have just completed placing all the Gospel Verses into the PowerPoint lessons for the rest of Paul: Ephesians, Philippians, Timothy and Titus. This exercise has given me an important view of Paul’s overall that includes Colossians. Just as Paul wrote Romans because he knew he needed to expand on things he stated in Galatians, so Paul wrote Ephesians and Philippians because he knew he needed to expand on things he stated in Colossians.

Then we see that in the four “Christ Our Life” letters, Paul is tackling the same topic as he did in the overall of the two letters to the Corinthians. In Corinthians, the central topic was the Form for Jesus, and in the Christ Our Life letters, the central topic is the Form for God through Jesus. (I’m adding this so I can see what I am thinking.)

The Right Question. The central point, then, is Ephesians 2:22, being built together as a dwelling place for God. We then see that all of Colossians-Philemon is moving to that central point.

At the same time, this incredible background theme of God inside of us reconciling the world to Himself, the life of Jesus revealed inside our dying flesh, continues all the way through. In Colossians, it is “filling up the sufferings of Christ in my flesh for the sake of the Church.” In Ephesians, we have the incredible line – “into one flesh the two will be.” And then Philippians is an expansion of “into one flesh,” this incredible secret inside a glorious secret – we share with Jesus in all.

The important question, though, is WHY? Why does God want a created Form in which to dwell? This is the right question whose answer must come in the Pro-Thesis.

Reading for Next Time. We are now ready for Ephesians. My hope is to write the Gospel Flow for Ephesians (in five lessons) without any reference to the false. We also see now that Paul went directly from knowing the mystery of Christ inside of us to our fellowship together as the Church, the dwelling place of God. Ephesians is about the dwelling place of God through Jesus. And Chapter 1 is a powerful rendition, one of several, of the Pro-Thesis, the stated and set-forth Purpose of God. There is a direct connection between the Pro-Thesis and the Ekenosis, and we must know them together. That connection is being filled with all the fulness of God.

I am titling Ephesians Chapter 1 as “Pleasure and Pro-Thesis,” I have also called it “The Jesus Secret II.” You might read/listen to Ephesians in the JSV this next week.

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, the life You have given us to live is so simple and clear, that we see Jesus alone and that we acknowledge Him as all. Yet we also know that You sent Jesus into us that we might know You, that we might share life together with You, Father, and with one another, that You might be at Home with us.

“Father, we would put this same acknowledgment of Jesus as all upon our brothers and sisters all across the earth, that all would know Your simple and Glorious Salvation as well. God, our Father, we prophesy Christ, we see His Goodness in all who belong to You, and we call Him forth as the Glory of His Church. We sow to the Spirit, and we reap all our brethren dwelling in unity, Life forevermore.”