5. Faith and My Soul

5. Faith and My Soul

It is an astonishing thing that, no matter how well one expresses the meaning of our Glorious Salvation, as soon as that expression is finished and out there, God then proceeds to show so much more. This need to write new books on “Our Glorious Salvation” will continue forever, new every morning. I also forgot to include many things I already knew in my little book, but we must go on to know the Lord.

Two things that I wrote in Our Glorious Salvation, things I had never thought of in that exact way before, have been percolating in me and have changed, just a bit, my entire understanding of Salvation.

The Path of Salvation. The first thought is that the path of Salvation would have been identical for Adam and Eve as it is for us, had they eaten of the Tree of Life, that the entrance of sin altered nothing. The second is that Salvation is Jesus actively making us to be just like Himself through His personal faith given to us.

Thus the Way by which we are led to Life, the path before us, is a far bigger deal than we have ever considered. That Way initially complete is, literally, a thousand years for anyone. God is very BIG, and His Word is more prolific than any human has ever considered. And at every step along our Path, at every level of growth, that Word as Christ is being formed inside of us. The resurrection of our bodies will only speed up our ever-increasing knowing of Word entering us.

Age-Unfolding Life. Here’s the thing about that Way. Every line in 1 Peter Chapter 1, which we have considered, describes every step of that Path, not just for a thousand years, but for forever. Age-unfolding Life! – In every next step, in every next moment shared with God, we are carried through Faith, our souls are carried through Faith, and we are carried by Grace, a Grace brought to us in every step by our Savior, who forever, makes us just like Himself.

Salvation, may I suggest, is forever. This is the horrific ruination of any form of “rapture,” or “going to” heaven after death, as – an instantaneous transfer from disliking God to all bliss, without any need for real Faith and Grace or any moment by moment life shared with God.

The Human Psyche. In this letter I want to share some of the things God has been teaching me recently concerning our souls made whole. To do that, we are writing this JS2 page on “Faith and My Soul,” out from 1 Peter Chapter 1.
On our page, we are not considering anything of our souls after Life has swallowed up our physical bodies, but rather, the completion of our faith now in the salvation of our souls.

First, I want to look at the distortion of the human psyche out of which we are being carried through Faith. The significant part of that journey out is a struggle in heart and mind, all through our souls, between our perception of what God “ought to be” versus the reality of God-Is.

A Great War. There is a great war between God-Is and “God-ought-to-be” taking place inside the Christian soul. “God-ought-to-be” dislikes “God-Is” and will not have Him. There is found in the Christian soul the concept, the need, the drive, to “seek for God.” The Lord Jesus, who knows exactly how to save, uses this great “need” to gently guide a believer into knowing Him, in spite of the fact that “seeking for God” is, in fact, open rebellion against God-Is.

The truth is that we have always disliked “God-Is” and have always lusted after “God-ought-to-be-better.” “God-ought-to-be” is another term for heavenly superiority, the thing for which so many seek in “the rapture,” and especially right now, that they might rule over their “lesser” brethren.

Upside Down. I want to give a clear distinction between the two ways of “knowing God.” Study this first diagram. God-Above is the opposite of superiority and so not what most are seeking. Much of what is called “heaven” is just superiority. The drive is to become “better” than the weakness God created, through outward performance of selected “commands,” falsely called “holiness.”

Now, let’s look at the same diagram as upside-down Christians see things.


Seems Right. “God, I am evil; thus I am NOT filled with all of Your fulness. Until you make me better, Your word cannot be true.” “If I ‘speak Christ,’ I will become a better person. I did not become ‘better,’ so speaking Christ does not work.”

This way of thinking is rooted in transaction, in human effort, and in spinning one’s own story of self. Placing good and evil together as two equal and opposing things causes all distortion of soul and makes salvation a negotiation, not a present Jesus.


One Who Lives in Life. This consciousness is just utterly different. It is the thinking of one filled with God and clothed with God, with Jesus always making all resolution and connection. The place for “US” is CARRIED. Yet we are carried “through” faith, but carried “by” Grace inside weakness.

To be filled with God is to be filled with Goodness. To be enclothed with God is to be enclothed with Goodness. And God is all here now, continuous.


The Ski Lift. Absorb this picture of the ski lift into your thinking. I intend to expand on it. Notice how secure these riders are in the Grace carrying them, that is, Father sharing life with us through thanksgiving. And notice how wide open is the Faith through which they are carried, that is Jesus, the expectation of God.

Intention and Desire. When David said that our days are inside of God before we ever enter into them, he did not mean the controlling “God” of Nicene theology. God “controls” nothing, for He has given all authority to us. Yet, having authority, we ourselves can accomplish nothing. What God provides is determined and unswerving intention and desire. It is God’s desire that leads us into every next step. Yet inside that desire is full room for every human intention and expression, for God is vast.

In other words, in every next moment, Jesus causes the desires and intentions of our human souls to flow together in perfect harmony with God’s personal intentions, such that we meet together with Father as every next step touches reality.

For God as Well. The upside down Christian, imagining God’s “will” as the control of a superior being, places upon self the great need to find that “will” in every next step, among a vast array of “not-will” choices. Thus self is the focus in every step. That way of living is walking in a minefield with more mines than safe places. That way of thinking causes all hostility against God, with no resolution in it.

However, the True way of thinking like Jesus means that every next step is THROUGH Faith for God just as it is for us. God shares the ride in that ski lift with us. God doesn’t “know” quite what that next step will be; He just knows that Jesus will make it to be harmony between Him and us. God’s Pro-Knowing is Personal, not controlling.

A “Saved” Soul. Our purpose in writing “Faith and My Soul” is to express how being carried through faith, as through fire, results in the full healing of our thinking, emotions, and desires. This is actually the continuous work of Jesus forever, to join the Father’s soul with our souls in perfect harmony in every next step we take together. A “saved” soul is our thinking, our emotions, and our desires living and expressing themselves in full harmony with God’s thinking, God’s emotions, and God’s desires, in every next step of life forever – age-unfolding Life.

I think that I will make our page a single large box, with sub-headings. Here are the first two sub-headings. This is mostly an “explanation” box rather than speaking Christ.

The Path of Salvation. Salvation is Jesus actively making us to be just like Himself through His personal faith given to us. First, Jesus speaks His Word into us, made personal as us, then Christ is formed in us, in our souls, by that Word. Finally, we bring forth the life of that Word in our relationships with others. We are carried in this path by Grace, God sharing life with us, and through faith, the expectation of Jesus in every next step. This way, this path of Salvation, is forever.

Through Faith. Faith is the acknowledgement of God that He is with us in all and that He always answers us. Faith is knowing that in every next step we take, the Lord Jesus is placing that step together with the Father. We share this faith with God, the expectation that Jesus is always faithful and True. To believe into Jesus is to share harmony of soul with God. Faith sees the vistas of the next moment through love.

Jesus Will Appear. I will love [the one who loves Me] and will appear in person and make Myself visible to him (John 14:21).

Let’s set up a scenario as the actual fulfillment of Jesus’ words, that they are, in fact, True. Consider 100 million believers in Jesus in every corner of the earth. Let us then picture the Lord Jesus appearing to every single one of them in the way He said, yet in an outward form that remains slightly separate from them. Did Jesus clone Himself 100 million times? – Or is this smoke and mirrors? Is there just one tiny Jesus, and does each of these 100 million see only a reflection of Him?

What does the Bible say? – It actually SAYS both, yet by Jesus as He is.

How He Appears. First, Jesus inside my heart transfers His substance to me, making me to be just like Himself, an exact image or representation of Him, yet differing by my outward form. Second, as I take on His image, then His glory is reflected from my face. These are both clear Gospel Truths. And both happen in every instance 100 million times. Yet He is not separate from us in any way.

Therefore, when I see your face, I am, in FACT and of TRUTH, seeing the very face of Jesus, for you are His replica of Himself, and His image shines from your face. BUT – when we see as “one another,” then His glory is unveiled.

The One Thing that Blinds. And what is the ONE THING that prevents this visibility of Jesus, this unveiling-Apocalypse, this normal Christian life?
Contempt.
The word “contempt” with its roots and synonyms is a fascinating study. Contempt has two levels of action, to contemn and to despise. To contemn, in its root, means “with cutting away.” And to despise, which then follows as the stronger word, means “to see as beneath” that is, as vile.

Contempt is all about – how one SEES! I “cut” Jesus away from you; I see you as one separate from Him. And I see myself as superior to you; you are beneath me. Contempt then uses the law of sin and death to control others.

The Apocalypse. The cataracts on our eyes, the veil that prevents us from seeing Jesus as He is right now, is contempt for one another and for Christians on this earth. The removal of contempt from our souls is the Apocalypse.

But contempt cannot be removed except something else fills us first. That something else is our acknowledgment of the good things of Christ in one another as we share life together. However, my experience with people, my dislike of their ways, the many times others have deeply disappointed me, means that for me to acknowledge the good things of Christ in someone who has hurt me is a step through FIRE. I have to REALLY believe in God in order to make that next step, that God-Is. 

To See Jesus in All. As Jesus said, “You will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes to me inside the name of the Lord.’” I will see Jesus only through the Fire. We now have two more sub-headings for our page, “The Distortion of Contempt,” and “Through the Fire.”

Yet the great struggle of our souls is our dislike of God-Is. It is Fire for me to love those I prefer to despise. And it is as Fire to me to consider calling my many ongoing mistakes to be the goodness and favor of God and to see my mundane and half-baked daily life to be God-with-me-into-my-world. Is it Fire to God as well? Yet O/our harmony together is to see Jesus in all, but especially in one another.

The Distortion of Contempt. Unthankfulness for the way God made us became contempt in our hearts for God, but expressed as contempt for our fellow Christians. We ate the Bible as a word of control and by it lost all sight of Jesus as the active Savior inside of each. Rather, we turned “Jesus” into an image of superiority even as we told others they were not like Him at all. We even turned union with Christ into “blasphemy.” Thus contempt for other Christians became the veil upon our eyes eliminating Jesus as Salvation from our seeing.

Through the Fire. It is Jesus’ presence with us that alone makes the contempt we thought was “normal” to become visible to us as our enemy. The Fire for us begins with seeing our own hearts as good and filled with Jesus. Then we turn and see our brethren and we see Jesus now living as them. But we see this Jesus only through the Fire.

Yet the great struggle of our souls is our dislike of God-Is. It is Fire for me to love those I prefer to despise. And it is as Fire to me to consider calling my many ongoing mistakes to be the goodness and favor of God and to see my mundane and half-baked daily life to be God-with-me-into-my-world. The removal of contempt from my heart that I might see Jesus alone is the Unveiling, the Apocalypse.

The Bottom Line. We have come down to the bottom line. Only one thing saves our souls, and that one thing is our love for Jesus in response to His Love for us. Nothing else could possibly take us through the Fire into Love revealed through us.

Here, then, is the mechanism for a saved soul, as Peter gives us. – Jesus Christ. Whom, not having seen, you love, into whom now you believe, though you do not see outwardly; moreover you exult with joy inexpressible and filled with glory, receiving the full completion of your faith, the salvation and healing of your souls. Becoming – Since you have purified your souls… love one another out from a pure heart fervently.

Loving Jesus First. Thus, the great turning point of my life was the 3 ½ year period from late summer of 1998, when I determined that I NEEDED a Savior, and that I would know Jesus alone, to the early months of 2002, when John Eldredge taught me to say, “My heart is good; my heart is filled with Jesus.” It’s as if I came awake, for the first time.

I no longer comprehend Christians who do not love Jesus first, as if the Christian life could be about anything else. In all of my continued writing to know the Gospel, and in all of my desperate need for a Savior, the Lord Jesus has only grown in my knowing, His love for me and my love for Him in return. I am absolutely confident that in every moment and circumstance, He makes my soul to be His own.

Love for a Personal Jesus. The only thing that takes us through the Fire is our love for Jesus, our Personal Savior and our All-Salvation. Jesus has won our hearts. We do not see Him outwardly, but we see Him through the clear eyes of faith, knowing that our God always speaks the Truth. We exult with joy inexpressible and filled with glory. Out from this Love for a personal Jesus inside of us, we see the Fire as our glory, as a life shared with Father forever.

“Resulting In.” Peter said, “Since you have purified your souls [the words of your self-stories] inside of a submitted hearing of the truth resulting in sincere brotherly love…”

The Greek word, hupakoe, is typically translated as “obey,” as in “obeying the truth,” but I chose the meaning of “submitted hearing” from the original definitions. The problem with “obedience” is that it is to external word. “Submitted hearing” means giving our souls to a personal Jesus written in our hearts as every Word God speaks. I have never seen outward obedience to external word, as human performance, result in “sincere brotherly love.” But Love for Jesus, knowing that His Word defines our souls first, just automatically results in loving one another.

Jesus First. Give a human ten thousand years to purify his soul, and all the motivation, instruction, and drive actually to do such a thing, and after all that time, nothing will have changed.

Jesus gives us His Soul first, that we might place His Soul upon ours, that we might know that He has always shared all with us. Then, as we know a Personal Jesus imparting His very substance to us every moment, that is, Word, so our souls come into harmony with the Father sharing all with us. There is no other Salvation. Yet this same Jesus then walks with us through the Fire, through life’s discouragements, and through all the difficulties found in interacting with others, and we “learn of Him,” the One who loves God-Is and others through us.

By Himself. A purified soul is a self story in which is found no contempt for God-Is or for our Christian brethren. It comes through loving Jesus first. And then through placing His Soul, His every Word of Truth, upon ourselves as our own souls in return, inside of every next step through Fire, that is, through God.

Look back at that ski lift. That wide open space into which we who are sharing life with God are being carried is all the expectation of an infinite God opening to us forever. The Unveiling is when Jesus, by Himself, removes contempt from our hearts, from the ongoing story of our souls, and the false judgment of not-God falls away from our eyes. The result is loving one another with pure hearts fervently.

Through Purifying My Soul. The Fire of God through which I see Jesus in my brethren has purified my soul that I might love them even as they love me in return, loving one another with  pure hearts fervently. I have submitted my soul to Jesus written in my heart as every Word God speaks fulfilled. As Jesus defines my soul by His own Word, giving me His Soul to share as my own, so Jesus Himself removes all contempt from me, and I love God-Is and all my Christian brethren fervently.

The Salvation of My Soul. The salvation of my soul means Jesus giving His Soul to me right now as my own, that I might put Him upon myself. I do this through faith. I do this through the expectation of God with me every moment. And I do it through seeing nothing outward, only by the knowing that God is always telling me the Truth.

I need Jesus to connect with God because God needs Jesus to connect with me first. I trust in Jesus that my next moment is God with me because God trusts in Jesus first, that His next moment will be me with Him. I know an invisible God forever because I know Jesus Sent into me first, sharing all with me, Soul inside of soul. This is the meaning of faith and my soul.

Faith and My Soul. Through faith, even through the Fire, I see Jesus causing my every next step to be Father with me for the sake of others. I see Jesus sharing His own Soul with me and mine with His, bringing my thinking, my emotions, and my desires into perfect harmony with a God who shares my life with me inside every next step we take together. This is the healing, the wholeness, the salvation of my soul forever. I do NOT seek “bliss.” Rather, I see Jesus now and a life shared forever with a God who gives Himself always to lifting others up.

The Joy of Our Lives. Wow! As I look across the now completed page, I see that the Spirit has enabled me to express the central meaning of the salvation of our souls out from the entirety of Our Glorious Salvation into one simple Jesus Secret page. There is much more to being the salvation of God through us into creation, of course. But always, we seek to write the vision again and to make it clear.

This JS2 page then does something really special for us. This understanding God has given us takes all the verses on “the dealings of God” in our lives, all the Fire, all the removal of iniquity from our hearts rendering it null and void, to be the joy of our lives forever. Being the Salvation of God through us is our every next step.

Reading for Next Time. Because most Christians have not yet purified their souls through Jesus Sent into them as every Word God speaks fulfilled, they go on to read the remainder of Peter’s letter as salvation defined as “an ongoing transaction between human performance and a faraway God.” We read it only as the Salvation of God through us into our world.

But before Peter takes us into sharing with Jesus in His sufferings for others, he first establishes the place wherein we love one another with pure hearts fervently. That place is us being fitted together as the dwelling place of God. Read 1 Peter 2:1-17 in preparation for the next lesson, “I Am a Living Stone Fitted Together with Others.”

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, You share our souls with us through Jesus. Through all our lives with You, You have always shared just a bit of Your agony and Your joy with us, calling it our own, even as we have shared our agony and joy with You and now call it Your own.

“Father, we know that Your purpose in this wondrous Salvation is that we might Love all our brethren, all whom You have given to Jesus across the earth right now. Father, we know that now that You have our willingness to share Hheart with You, You also have what You have sought from the beginning, a doorway into creation and into our world. Oh Father, let our willingness be complete. Oh Father, come through.

“Father, we know that we are carried by Your Life shared with us and that we look upon every next moment as the revelation of Jesus Christ into our world. Father, we are inside the Unveiling and the Apocalypse is upon us. Enable us, Oh God, to keep our eyes fixed upon Your Church, upon the Joy set before us, just as Jesus did.

“Enable us, Oh God, to see Your people, all our wayward brethren, clothed with the white hot purity of the Devotion that is Jesus. Enable us, Oh God, to see all demonic lies falling away from her as she enclothes herself with Jesus. Father, for this purpose You have placed us into this world, and for this glory we live, one hundred million believers or more enclothed with the glory of Christ Jesus, alive now upon this earth. Father, You always answer us.”