4. Christ the Thief

I wrote the last letter, “The False Image,” in the hopes that by clarity the shadow of the false might be blown clean away from our thinking. What I prefer not to do in this series, however, is spend much time on such spring cleaning. This series is an exploration of the excitement found in this season of life and joy as rivers of Spirit are flowing out of us.

Nonetheless, we will not know that river of Life unless we first know that “Father and I live and walk as one Pperson together.”

We must re-iterate. There is no such thing as a false “self.” That’s why we call it “false.” It doesn’t exist. Stating that “I” am “decreasing” so that Jesus might “increase” is creating an imaginary reality inside the fantasy of the mind that has no existence. Such a fantasy, then, serves one purpose only; it causes the person so fantasizing to imagine themselves to be fallen short of “Father and I together.”

My human self IS the Lord Jesus Christ now living as me. The fake “self” we could define as the “religious” self, whether the pride of life in the unregenerate or the masking of self-righteousness in the Christian. Everything of my humanity in this world is coming out from Father through Christ to become me, all my likes and dislikes, my joys and sorrows, my interests and dis-interests, all my relationships and conversations.

The religious “self” occurs in my fantasy only if I fail to see God as my only source.

In Daniel 4:30, Nebuchadnezzar best described the pride of life as found in the unregenerate. The king spoke, saying, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?”

“I am my own source; therefore, I am the cause of all this I have done.”

Does that mean we should never take pride in the things we create? Absolutely not.
In fact, I have always sensed inside the Christian who states, “It was God, not me,” an underlying boasting in themselves as superior over their “lesser” brethren that matched Nebuchadnezzar’s pride fully. “I’m the real man of God here.” – “Little me” is little more than a mockery of Christ. – Christ is in ME! If it ain’t me; it ain’t Christ. If it ain’t Christ; it ain’t me.

God is after one thing – that we KNOW that it’s Him and us together in all things. “Look at this wonderful house that Father and I designed and built together.” – That is the Hheart out from which the River of Life flows. – One in union, two in communion, one in expression.

Listen, when you are in agony, it’s Father and you together. When you do something stupid, it’s Father and you together. When you do something cool, it’s Father and you together. In all things, in every moment, regardless of what you think, feel, say, or do, it’s Father and you utterly together and through your confidence that God IS, you and Father ARE making all things good.

Things do not become good by themselves. Things become good only as you and Father together call them good. – Look at that. I’ve never thought of that before. This is how we take this present world back from the evil one – by calling all real things in it to be GOOD and thus turning them towards goodness; that is, by seeing Father in all real things.

The first thing that is real is people. The second thing that is real is their circumstances. And the third thing that is real is their material possessions, that is, that portion of the earth and of the heavens that belongs privately to them.

What is not real is this fiction called “political government” by which a few criminals get away with theft and murder. In other words, I hate it when the world calls whole groups of people by the political chicanery that is their “government” or by a particular “religion” or group. At no point are we ever talking about a “government” or a “country” or a “religious group.” In every instance, we are speaking of individual people and families, millions of them, each one beloved of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do NOT pray for governments. If you pray for individuals in the government, you are praying for their salvation. Any political ruler who discovers and partakes of the tree of life will resign and walk away from all that evil the very next moment.

Exercising power in this world is placing one’s self into the total unreality of falseness. Turn the individual person towards goodness, yes, but NEVER the falseness of their place of control, a place that exists by VIOLENCE only. In other words, do not pray that God would “give His wisdom” to the “rulers.” If they truly had God’s wisdom (which you can pray), they would resign, expose the wicked deeds done in the darkness, and then face the probability of being suicided.

In fact, Paul said, “Pray for the rulers that we might live in peace.” Rulers almost always tend towards war, violence, injustice, and corruption. It’s part of the package of power in this world. To “pray for peace,” then, which must, by definition, include liberty, is to pray that God would restrain their normal abuse of power, not that they would commit injustice “wisely.”

Three things in the present age are not inside “all things real.” Those three things are angels who oppose Christ; human control by violence, that is human “government,” otherwise known as the beast; and the actions of hurting other people, that is, sin.

All individual human beings, however, are inside “all things real.”

Another statement of Paul can serve as our picture. – He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Colossians 1:13).

Technically, this statement is referring to what happens to us the moment we are born again. But I want to use it here as a picture for us to see this “transfer” or “conveyance” out of “meant for evil” into “the result of goodness.” This transfer is instantaneous in the seeing of our minds; that is, we call all real things good.

But – let’s look at those three “non-things,” the devil, the beast, and wicked actions. We do NOT call them “good.” Nonetheless, we separate entirely between the “not-good-ness” of those things AND the press of circumstances surrounding the individual human, a press that seems to be coming from those “not good things.”

Those three “non-things” intend their actions to result in what God calls “evil.” By the confidence that Father and we are utterly together, we, by faith, turn those same circumstances into blessing and goodness. As we give thanks in AND for our own difficult and lowly circumstances, knowing that we ARE the revelation of Father in the midst of all things, so we are then enabled to see the circumstances of other individual people as tending towards goodness.

They can’t see that, but we can. And it is our faith that counts, for the river flows out from our hearts, not from their blindness.

You see, we are delineating three things, not two. First, evil intentions and actions – second, the circumstances surrounding an individual – and third, the individual person.

And towards each of these three, we take an entirely different position. Towards the evil intentions and actions, we bind them and cast them down. We do not see them as “good.” To the circumstances surrounding every individual person, even if those circumstances seem to be caused by the actions and intentions of evil, we reject evil as the cause of any circumstance. Rather, we see through Father’s eyes, through eyes of fire; we see the circumstances as we would, resulting only in goodness and blessing.

The individual persons, however, are treated in an entirely different manner by us. It is towards individual humans that we practice the authority of Christ as the Mercy Seat of forgiveness and setting free.

All evil intentions and actions we bind and cast down. All circumstances, regardless of their apparent cause, we see and thus call “good.” And all individual people we draw into the forgiveness of our hearts and set them free into God, there above the blood.

Steal the whole world away from evil – set creation free – same thing.

Let’s make this practical in the present moment. I bind Donald Trump’s actions, the man filling the role of chief distraction of the United States, in his evil intentions towards the people of Venezuela. I bind the hurt and loss and sorrow he is sending their way. I cast down the power of evil by which he and all the violent bureaucracy of the American “government” operates.

I see all the present circumstances surrounding the individual person, Donald Trump, as the goodness of God towards him. I see all the hurt happening to individual people in Venezuela, all the intentions of evil, I see those circumstances as good and I give thanks, and I know that Father and I together are turning the outcome towards unending goodness. And I draw the individual person, Donald Trump, into the forgiveness and love of Christ in my heart, setting him free into God, knowing full well that his freedom would likely get him killed. And I draw each individual person in Venezuela hurt by those circumstances meant for evil into the same Mercy Seat, the Love of God filling my heart and flowing out.

Now, in my example, don’t think I’m leaving out the hooligans and thieves calling themselves the “government” of Venezuela. Taking “sides” in political issues is always joining with the evil to be part of the wicked actions that hurt so many people. We do not choose between one demon or the next, or between who is the less corrupt human. We cast down every evil spirit, and we block the actions of all wicked men and women.

Now, I am using known rulers as my example, but they are not our focus. God does not call many of them into His church and when He does, they tend to muck things up for everyone else. Our focus begins with those that society does not exalt.

“All authority in heaven and earth is given to Me,” that is, the Jesus filling our same hearts with His glory. – The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof. Not one particle of the material world belongs to the evil one. Not one human being belongs to those who control by violence. Their claim of ownership is false.

Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it (Colossians 2:15). Not one human on this earth belongs to evil. Not one circumstance experienced by anyone belongs to evil. Not one material thing belongs to evil.

I am now thinking of two things Jesus says in John’s vision. They are curious statements that I have never before considered inside this word of Christ our life.

Bring to mind, therefore, what you have received and heard – and guard it and change your minds. If not, you shall watch [all you want] [but] I will come as a thief and you shall not know at what hour I will come upon you. – Look and see, I presently come as a thief. Blessed is he who continually watches and is continually keeping his garments {that is, Put on the Lord Jesus Christ}, lest he walk naked and they see his indecency (Revelation 3:3 & 16:15).

Now, the initial meaning of these words refers to the first thing God must do with any individual human before that person can even begin to know God. God must bring them guilty and silent before Himself, that they might see the justness of their execution, and thus see the glory of Christ their life.

And we very much recognize the critical importance of this direct confrontation between God in person and each individual human. – And there is no created thing unseen in His presence; all, moreover, are uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we give our account [our word, our story of self in return] (Hebrews 4:13).

Before we expand on this fascinating concept of Christ the Thief, (Christ the Pirate towards God and Christ the Thief towards this world) we need to consider a quality of the Word of God that I have not addressed in quite the specific way I want to address it now.

Several years ago, now, I presented a verse to someone on Facebook in answer to the question of “What is the tree of life?” – By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

I see this line as a critical part of knowing Christ our life, an essential part of the ruling verses of the Bible. I see it as speaking of Jesus in and through us, fulfilling this Word as us. BUT – the person looked long and hard at these words and saw none of that. I assume that they saw only the actions of someone way back then and far away from themselves and then the obligation laid upon them to perform by some sort of human achievement.

Origen of Alexandria (c. A.D 184-253) taught much the same word concerning Christ that I teach. Part of what he taught was that often the words of Scripture carry a “deeper” meaning along with the surface meaning. Now, he would have been referring to exactly the same thing that I teach, as Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh {human intellect} profits nothing. The words that I speak to you ARE Spirit and they are life” (John 6:63).

Bible expositors today, however, denounce such a way of understanding the Bible. The problem is that they “know” only in and by their minds. They are not immersed in the Spirit, and thus cannot know anything about heavenly reality. For that reason, they decipher what we call a “metaphor” that speaks of Christ our life, as just another intellectual approach to Bible interpretation, the “allegorical” approach, which they denounce along with Origen, “the heretic.”

But for us, the most wonderful thing in all the world is that we do NOT have to know what God means by what He says, because we know that Jesus is the all-speaking of God. Thus when we say to Jesus coming to us by every verse – “Let it be to me according to whatever YOU mean by what You say,” we are entirely covered. We get to proclaim all of it as our own, as defining us in its entirety, without having the slightest clue what it means.

But the hatred against calling Jesus the Word God speaks, every Word God speaks, including every verse in the Bible, stems from the first words of the serpent and fills Nicene thinking. Yet Jesus promised us. – To the one who is presently and actively overcoming, I will give the hidden manna… (Revelation 2:17).

Now, here is a statement I made earlier. – “The Bible as well is written inside of a universe of death, a reality of a heaven and earth that knows only the split-apart-ness of good and evil and has no knowledge of what a universe of life might even be. Yet God has placed inside His word a view of what life is and means that can be seen only by those whom He has chosen.”

In saying that, I did not mean that the Bible is “marred” by the world of good and evil, but rather, that it is written to humans who think falsely. And, of course, we understand that age-unfolding life is to know God and that “to know” is a sliding-scale concept. Never in all the ages to come, will we ever come to the end of the discovery of new levels of life and joy in every single word God speaks. The increase of the knowledge of God is forever.

Yet EVERYTHING of that forever increase, every particle of what God might mean in every future age and in any incredible thing we might be doing, things we cannot even imagine right now, everything of meaning that we will know in each Word God speaks then, is already found in that same word right now as it sits on the pages of our Bibles.

Since I was 21, I have understood that there are truths found on the pages of the Bible that cannot be deciphered by the human intellect but are things known only by the Spirit.

It’s not that a surface understanding cannot be useful. Refraining from committing adultery is a wonderful idea that will save a person from disseminating untold waves of grief and pain in every direction. It’s a very good idea not to commit adultery, even to the point of running away as fast as one can. And if someone get’s that idea from reading the surface meaning of a verse, they have gotten themselves a valuable idea.

The problem is simply this. There is no life found in not committing adultery. It will prevent you from causing untold harm, but it will never take you out of death and into life.

Knowing Christ our only life, then, we turn and see a glory in the words God speaks that those who see by their human intellects only cannot know.

Most Christians define the end of this age of human folly as being marked by the complete and total failure of the Church of Christ along with the final assertion by God that His word cannot be fulfilled in our lives on this earth, that is, “the rapture.” And they use the word “apocalypse” to define that utter ruin. For that reason, the world itself has taken the word “apocalypse” to mean total ruin and disaster.

It is not possible to spell out a definition of a Bible word to be more opposite of God’s meaning of a word than has been done with the word “apocalypse.” And I can see now that it will be a lot of fun to write about “The Apocalypse” with a different approach than I have done before, along with placing the Mercy Seat of our hearts as the source of the River of Life flowing out.

But here let me say this (and I am rambling shamelessly, I know). I see the entire world swallowed up by life and goodness in a way that NO ONE is expecting, an upset and overturn so huge and so glorious. Light arising in the midst of the blackest night. Love pouring out in the press of the cruelest expressions of hatred. Goodness triumphing utterly over every intention of evil. And I see it coming THROUGH the least people on earth, that is, you and me.

And I call this enormous upset by the word God uses – the apocalypse.

Ever since March of 1978, when God by the demonstration of the Spirit upon me, in dramatic and personal confrontation, personally planted His Seed of the revelation of Jesus Christ in my heart, I have seen and known this very apocalypse hidden inside so many seemingly obscure statements in the Bible. You can point to someone all you want the hidden manna of those words, but they are incapable of seeing it because they are not eating of Christ by the Spirit.

And so, on the surface, “Christ the Thief” refers directly to bringing every created being into silence before Him, yet underneath that vital meaning there lies a deeper wonder.

Christ the Thief. – Of course, He is not stealing what is not His. All things claimed by evil belong only to Jesus in the first place. But that is substance; here we are referring to appearance. Look across the earth. Everything you see belongs to evil by appearance. To the sight of appearance, as we snatch every person, circumstance, and material thing out from darkness and into goodness, we appear to be Christ the Thief.

I like that thought. In fact, I have never before seen in this way the audacity by which we “steal” back what is already ours.

The evil thief wants people to believe that they are bound by evil. When Christ through us speaks goodness and life into others, thus convincing them that they are not bound at all, but are free to rejoice in thankfulness, we appear to the evil one as a thief.

You can’t set a slave free without “stealing” that slave from its pretentious “owner.”
Here’s the thing. We have absolute and total authority to “steal” everything back. And, as I suggested in the first letter, we are looking, God NOW through us, at the next ten years.

In essence, we are launching the REAL world-war. Make no mistake about it. That is our inheritance out there. Everything in this world, every human person, every circumstance of life, every material thing belongs entirely and only to Christ as us; none of it belongs to the evil one or his henchmen or his human controllers or to the mind-games people play.

No human belongs to Islam. No human belongs to the United States government. No human belongs to Marxism. No human belongs to sin. No human belongs to the false definition of the “natural Jew” or the pretend “nation” called Israel. No human belongs to any institution or fantasy or masquerade of this world. Every human on this planet belongs entirely and only to Christ through us. They ARE our inheritance, and we will seize ALL that belongs to us.

And we will do so by the River flowing out from our bellies, from the Mercy Seat of God, our hearts. – And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them (Revelation 20:4).

No circumstance experienced by any human on this earth belongs to the evil one or to the intentions of hurt. Every circumstance belongs to the seamless story of Christ, sustaining all things by the word of His power.

No material thing on this planet, no spiritual quality of the heavens, belongs to the evil one or to the structures of human/angelic control in this world. Every material thing belongs to us, and we exercise full responsibility over all, for the sake of all.

But let’s think about our frame. Right now – everything by appearance possessed and consumed utterly by evil. Ten years from now – everything by appearance swallowed up inside of unending goodness.

Upset! Overturn! Utterly unexpected, coming from a direction towards which NO ONE is looking. Unforeseen. The Apocalypse, the cover taken off, so that what already has been by substance, is now seen and known by all.

I have seen my calling in God as that of a mapmaker, as one who goes just ahead to mark out the way and to remove the debris from the path so that precious ones coming after can enter all the goodness of God without wasting time in the crooked places off the path.

But I could also call this series, “The River of Life,” by a different name. I could call it “The Art of War.” Or the strategy by which we, through the next ten years, cast all evil from off this earth that we might take full possession of all that belongs to Christ. I will not use Sun Tzu’s title, but I will pick his brain.

And so I will also write this series from the point of view of a military strategist, laying out in front of us every path and device by which we will take back from evil what already belongs to us.

It’s called the River of Life.