9. I Love out from God

1 John 4:6 through 5:1 is one of the most intense “God” passages found in the Bible, a passage which most reject. This is the part that I read “in secret,” knowing I was reading complete heresy, but too mesmerized to stay away.

We have split this into two parts for our study, “I Love out from God” and “As He is, So Am I.” We are seeing a structure of truth for 1 John. Basically, it is this, walking as Jesus walked takes us into setting forth our souls for the brethren, which takes us into overcoming the accuser and the world. These next two lessons are the “meat” between the “bread” of the two parts of overcoming.

A Way for God. Consider the primary verse from this passage. – Love is always flowing out from God; and everyone who loves out from God has been conceived of God and knows God.

God is inside of us. That’s where everything true begins. Nothing is true unless it begins with God – all the fulness of God – inside of us, this Treasure in earthen vessels. This is a Highway for God; it’s not a highway for us. Nothing is “of God” except it be God Himself through us.

I see now that for us to know God’s issue with us, we must look at 1 John 3:19 to 5:17 as one complete passage.

All Confidence & No Confidence. This whole passage begins with us assuring our hearts inside of God, that we enter into God boldly, free from all disconnection, and it ends with the terrifying realization that there is SIN committed by “Christians” that Jesus cannot remove in this present time, for they won’t let Him.  

You see, God coming through is God coming through; it’s not me “acting like” God. I have all confidence in God; I have zero confidence in myself. The question you must ask yourself is, “How do I come to that same place Daniel is describing, where I have all confidence in God and zero confidence in myself.” How can ALL confidence and NO confidence go together?

God Visible in One Way Only. Then consider the central issue of this whole passage of God through us. – No one has seen God [observed Him to know Him] at any time, ever. If we should actively love one another, God lives inside of and among us, and His love is brought to full completion inside of and among us.

The issue is a God who cannot be seen or known, now seen and known in the ONLY way He can be visible inside of creation, as Christians actively loving one another. You ain’t gonna’ love your brother or sister. Get over it. You are not it. If it’s Love, it’s God.

What We Defeat. The issue is God seen and known THROUGH me as us together. The action is to overcome. We defeat three things for God to be love through us, death, fallen spirits and their false words, and the world, except death has two parts, inward first and outward last.

The flesh is not in this list, that is, our human nature as earthen vessels, and all the foolish things that we do inside our flesh. – Jesus removes whatever might be sin from us. The problem is death on the inside of us. This is not our nature; rather, this is the first meaning of death, that is, a fake made-up identity that places self as the source of God.

The Death Sin. What then is this death sin? Consider John’s introduction to our present passage; this is the second most abused verse in Church history. – I’m from God, okay. So – if you listen to me, then I know you are also from God, but if you don’t listen to me, then you are of the devil.

Even though I have paraphrased this, it is what John says. This is also what Roman Catholicism says as it burns heretics at the stake and what our policy was in the move fellowship towards anyone who “left the covering.” You see, confidence in self is the absence of the fear of God.

God without Hindrance. Reciprocal Love is God seen and known. Reciprocal Love is NOT something you or I have ever done or could do. You and I, pretending to be “love” will always put our hands on our brethren to compel them to our will in one way or another. A true heart will always say, “Brother, Sister, forgive me, I was wrong.” And Jesus removes all offence.

But God gives us named person after named person in the Bible to show us how the death sin actually works. It’s either God through my earthen vessel without hindrance, or something more important to me than God.

Adam to Korah. Adam: God through me? Or contempt? Satan, anoint my CONTEMPT and give me the wisdom to make it effective. Esau: God through me or a bowl of soup? That’s easy; pass the soup. Nadab and Abihu: God? Who’s that? Hey, this fire stuff is cool; let’s try it ourselves.

Korah: I stand in the midst of the Church and correct the one whom God has sent because, hey, God is about ME.

One of the most important moments in my life was when I read “The Soulish Believer” in Watchman Nee’s The Spiritual Man. It was me, and I have never improved!

Saul to Saphira. Saul: God is through ME, and if He dares to come through you, I will hunt you down and kill you. Absalom: I will have God through ME if I have to hunt my own dad down and kill him.

Judas (back to Adam): I will betray God to death rather than allow my precious CONTEMPT to be touched. Ananias and Saphira: Let’s pretend to the church that it’s God through us and keep all this stuff that we like so much.

Notice that Peter pointed out, just before they fell DEAD, that the stuff doesn’t matter, keep the stuff, but pretending is LYING about God.

Saved from Death. Death sin is the absence of the fear of God.

One of the most TERRIFYING moments of my life was when I found the evidence that Buddy Cobb had not spoken the truth concerning what Sam Fife had taught. I took my evidence to Sister Charity, and she silenced me immediately. “Do not speak against the Lord’s anointed.” I heard her. I heard her, and God saved me from DEATH.

Do you see what internal death is? Internal death is that fake identity that will never actually say, “Yes, Lord.” And I have shown you across the pattern of my entire life story exactly how God SAVED ME from DEATH.

God, Save Me! About half of all the times I heard the Voice of God, it was God saving me from Death. – [Jesus], in the days of His flesh, offered, with loud crying and tears, both heart-felt prayers and an olive branch of peace towards the One able to save Him continuously out from death and was always heard because of His careful reverence.

If Jesus feared God!!! If Jesus asked God with tears to save Him from death, from all the expressions of death in the above list, then how much more should we ask God?

“God, save me from death!”

Of God. If our heart should know blame and fault, [we know] that God as our heart is greater, and He knows all. Beloved, if our heart does not know blame or fault, we have the confidence to enter into God boldly.

Do you see how it is that Christians who want to “get rid” of their flesh, really want to get rid of God. God comes only through earthen vessels who place ALL confidence in God and in His Word made flesh as them, and NO confidence in themselves, that God might be love through them. – That the excellency of the power might be of God and not of us.

You see, Death pretends Love, only to KILL.

Life versus Death. The contrast between the Tree of Life and the tree of death is both staggering and terrible. God has placed us into the Tree of Life and that Life says to us, “Stay inside of Me and I inside of you.” When we accept that we are soulish believers – AND WE ARE, then we are content to be inside of Jesus, that the Love coming through us might be out from God.

The first thing the Spirit of God does right after giving the meaning of the Apocalypse – Christ in His Church – to John is to place LIFE versus DEATH before all. This is the only passage into God through us.

The Cross in the Right Place

The Cross in the Right Place. Creating this diagram has given me full understanding and has answered so many questions. Every word that once condemned us inside of death now keeps us safe inside of Jesus. Salvation from death, then, is to place ourselves with God who carries, for the sake of others.

Finding Our Topic. The great contrast between Life and Death is found in every part of John’s letters. In fact, it is brought less into this present passage than any other. Yet it is big in “I Ask for All Word Fulfilled” and staggeringly consequential in the next lesson, “As He Is, so Am I.” In the present passage it is found twice, “the spirit of lying and dishonesty,” and “the one who does not love.”

Let’s draw our first box on the page out from what this lesson has already covered. Yet this passage is “Love out from God,” and so we want it to fit. We will call the first box, “God Saves Me,” with the enflowing of faith coming after.

The Remainder of the Page. We will have three more boxes on the Jesus Secret page. Our topic is extraordinarily positive, even though it is set against the death sin, and so I want the next two boxes to reflect God freely moving through us. The next box will be “God Is Love through Me,” followed by “God Made Visible.” The final box will be a Jesus Secret box. You see, this whole topic causes us to run into Jesus, who alone keeps us safe.

I now understand the opposite of Christ Jesus our only life. That opposite is not found in the fearful and the foolish. It is found in the willful false identity for power over others.

God Saves Me. God is my Treasure in my earthen vessel; all Love through me comes only out from God. I have all confidence in God; I have NO confidence in myself. I keep myself utterly inside of Jesus, the One who carries me. As I walk with my brothers and sisters, I ask God always to save me from death, to save me from any insertion of contempt into my interaction with them, to save me from any spin of a fake self-story of ‘I - not Christ.’ God saves me from death every moment. I ask God to save me from any attempt to ‘perform God’ as a show, to pretend that I am somebody in myself. God saves me; God always saves me.

The Enflowing of Faith. I am out from God; I know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of dishonesty. Truth places God Himself through me; dishonesty attempts to be the performance of God.

I love my brothers and sisters reciprocally because I love out from God. I love out from God because I am conceived of God and I know God. God loves me; therefore I am committed to love my brethren reciprocally, to hold them in the highest respect. This Love is not “me,” but God Himself through me, for I remain an earthen vessel.

The love of God is visible as the love I share with my brothers and sisters. God’s love is complete among us together. When others see our love for one another, they are seeing God. I speak the same word Jesus speaks. I dwell inside of God; God dwells inside of me. God as love dwells inside of me, and I dwell inside of God-Love.

Jesus Real. Knowing Jesus as my “thimble,” as the One who always protects me with His “thick skin” and His ability to maneuver with joy through all the things that seem very confusing to me, is a knowing of Jesus more wondrous than ever before. He is real. And Jesus Real makes God my Father Real as well. This flow will increase forever. There will never come a time when God no longer becomes more REAL to us.

And we KNOW Jesus Real as every Word God speaks, written now upon our hearts by the Spirit, the One who causes us to KNOW. We know Jesus as our best Friend.

We Remain Human. As I read through my completed life story doing the final proof, an intensity compels me to keep reading. It is clear to me now the Hand of God in guiding every single moment for His overwhelming purpose – a path prepared for others.

Suddenly, reading Watchman Nee’s chapter on “The Soulish Believer,” when I was 20, is more significant than I had realized. You see, as I read, I was feeling embarrassed because I am the same “soulish believer” today as I was then. And God shared life with me then, just as much as He shares life with me now.

Acknowledging God. The difference between then and now is the most important thing in the Bible – Jesus called it “age-unfolding LIFE.” The difference is that I KNOW that being a foolish human and a soulish believer is how God made me, and I am utterly safe inside of Jesus, and that I KNOW that God my Father shares every moment and step of my life utterly together with me, in all delight.

And yet I do continue to have a critical role to play in the LIFE. I acknowledge that ALL things come out from God my Father inside my heart, being Himself through me. I acknowledge Love coming through me out from God inside of me. I acknowledge God.

God Is Love Through Me. In myself, I am no good at loving my brothers and sisters. Just like Jesus did, I often feel contempt. Jesus says to me, every moment, “Stay inside of Me.” Yet I interact daily with my brothers and sisters wherein the issue of God-made-visible, that is, “Love one another,” always frames my day. It is not I who loves, but God. As I rest myself utterly inside of Jesus, so I acknowledge that God, my Father, is always all-Love coming through me. This is a costly Love, for I must place myself with Father beneath of others, lifting them up into joy. Yet my delight is sharing life with God, and my Father’s delight is being Love through me.

An Invisible God. John is very clear about an invisible God. And God will never become visible in some outward way, except as the Church. The conclusion is also clear, that Christians loving one another is the only visibility and known-ness of God.

Yet humans cannot love; that is, there is a human level of love, but it is limited and self-centered. Humans cannot love one another as Jesus loves us. “I Love out from God” is an acknowledgment, a declaration, that God is my source, first, and that any Love coming through me must be God Himself.

Christians Cannot. Gather a group of Christians into community and there will be acts of love and giving, there will be kindness and care, but in the end, it will all seem empty and incomplete. Yet for most, the actions and words contrary to love in the same gathering will be all that they remember.

Christians cannot successfully love one another as Jesus loves us. – And – God cannot be known apart from Christians loving one another. This is the same dilemma of authority and power that we explored in Symmorphy VI: Mankind. We have all authority to love, but no power to love.

Must Be Together. God has the power to love, but no authority, for He has given all authority to us, and God will never violate us. I have the authority to love you, but before Love can be real, God and I have to be together in all things.

That togetherness begins with God and me personally, but it cannot stay there. For God to be visible, that is, for Christians actually to love one another, we together must apply God with us together. We together, in face to face and daily reality, must call our every interaction together as God among us, as all-Love regardless. Our shared faith makes God visible.

God Made Visible. God can never be seen or known except through Christians loving one another as Jesus loves us. At the same time, Christians are incapable of such love of themselves. As I gather together daily with my fellow believers, we together acknowledge God as Love among us. God is our source every moment, both individually and together. We live inside of God, and God lives inside of our togetherness. I Love out from God. We Love one another out from God. As all creation sees our love for one another, the completion of Jesus, so all creation sees and knows God. We remain human, and God gets to be Himself in all delight.

Stay Inside of Me. Up until I wrote this lesson, I had no idea what “the sin that leads to death” or “the second death” might mean. Now I understand those things clearly.

All Christians are inside of Jesus from the start. Except in one way, “departing from Jesus” constitutes imagination only. I can truly say that Buddy Cobb was always inside of Jesus, though he did not understand it, and never in the death sin, for he never abused others. I also know of several times when he gently, but firmly removed those who did abuse.

Yet we never want our foolish and fickle imagination ever to talk us into thinking that we are separate from Jesus.

The Jesus Secret. My Dear One, you are inside of Me. Stay always inside of Me in your own thinking. Do not ever think that I am not part of your life, sharing everything with you and connecting you always with God. God is meek and lowly of Heart; He lifts others up. I am the One who enables you to humble yourself beneath your brother and sister so that God is Love through you. I am the Heart you share with God; keep Me always in your mind.

It’s All Personal. On December 23, 1975, in my great despair, I heard two words inside my spirit, inside my heart. They were quiet, but clear and distinct. – “My son.” In that moment I knew NOTHING about the One who spoke, or about myself, or about our connection together. I was locked into a severe imagination, that is, gehenna.

Nonetheless, those words PLANTED a reality inside of me that was never questioned or in doubt, although only now can I tell you what it meant. God MEANT, “It’s all personal between you and Me, My son.” This is the only God we know.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson covers 1 John 4:17-5:1, a total of six verses. Read this several times. The page is titled, “As He Is, So Am I,” one of the most disregarded and disbelieved verses in the Bible. Yet this verse comes out from Love, that is, out from God having saved us from death. It comes out from God winning His Desire to become visible through us.

Inside of this love that has been brought to full completion fused together with us, we together might have boldness to speak [Christ our life] inside the [to]day of judgment, that just exactly as He is, so also are we in this present world-cosmos.

Let’s Pray Together. There is a rhythm to warfare. There are times of all-out attack with all confidence, and then there are times of retrenchment and rebuilding. Regardless of whatever God is doing through us, we must always take the time to KNOW our union with Jesus.

“Lord Jesus, not only do You share every part of my life with me, always connecting me with the Father, but You are always the bigger part of our companionship. Lord Jesus, You are always protecting me and guiding me through the confusion of this world. Yet You also know when I am pretending or treating my brother poorly.

“Lord Jesus, I always wanted to be a ‘better’ person, to be ‘superior’ in the way I imagine some to be. Yet You have never made me so. You say to me, ‘Be content with what you are inside of Me and what I am as you.’ Lord Jesus, I give You all my pretending and all the ways I fool myself when I treat my brothers and sisters with disrespect. You are the only One who takes all that away from me. Thank You, Lord Jesus.”

“Lord Jesus, You are Father’s Heart and You are my heart. I want to be with You as You humble Yourself for Father’s sake. I want to know You as You are Love out from Father through me. Lord Jesus, I want to be Your full Completion; I want to set forth my soul that my brethren might know You.”