12.1 The Completion of Travail

Paul’s gospel rules our knowledge of everything. – My children, for whom I travail in birth again, until Christ shall have been formed inside of you (Galatians 4:19). – The Spirit also joins as help together with our weakness; for we are not aware of the things that are necessary for us to pray, but the Spirit personally brings us in line with Father for the sake of others, with inexpressible groanings (Romans 8:26). – Now, I rejoice in sufferings for your sake, and I am filling up that which is lacking of the travailing pressures of Christ in my flesh for the sake of His Body, which is the Church. – So that we might present every person perfect and complete inside of Christ (Colossians 1:24 & 28).

Travail for the sake of others is at the heart of that Gospel.

All inside of All. This final chapter of our text is titled “Creation Set Free.” The book itself is titled “Our Glorious Salvation.” In the last lesson of Chapter 11, we considered a framework of thinking to understand life on this earth during the Age of Tabernacles. We are now going forward in our thinking from the Age of Tabernacles to the final meaning of Our Glorious Salvation, which is all creation set free inside the glorious liberty of the children birthed out from God.

It is Paul’s gospel alone that gives us the end of all things – that Christ Jesus brings every created thing back to the Father, that all might KNOW God, that the Father is ALL inside of ALL (1 Corinthians 15:28). For out from God and passing through God and returning to God are all things.

A Personal God. Before arriving at the Glorious Liberty into which Christ Jesus, inside of and through us, brings all created things, we must consider two critical truths that will take all there. In this lesson, we want to consider the completion of travail, that great pressing of God and us together, sharing one another completely, that alone will bring forth such a reality. And in the next lesson, we must know the incredible depths of meaning found in the words, “every knee will bow.”

Yet we must keep all these wondrous things entirely inside of a Personal God, giving Himself personally to us, as we put the Lord Jesus upon ourselves, as we know the Father, as we know one another, as we walk in Resurrection Life for the sake of our brethren, and as Rivers of Spirit flow out from us.

A Vision of Travail. Read back through the verses of travail from Paul’s gospel at the beginning of this lesson. The Spirit of God gave to John a visionary seeing of that exact same thing, Revelation 12:1-5.

A great sign was perceived in heaven, a woman enclothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and upon her head a garland of victory, a crown of twelve stars. Having a child in her womb, she screamed in travail, being tortured to bring her child to birth. But another sign was also perceived in heaven, look, a great fire-colored dragon… Then the dragon stood in the presence of the woman in travail, so that when she should bring her child to birth, he might devour her child. And she brought forth a son, a boy who is about to shepherd all the ethnic families with a rod of iron, and her child was seized into God and into His throne.

Another Required Negative. This is the most important visionary picture God has given us in the Bible. It is Jesus proven faithful and True. We cannot understand anything unless we KNOW what is at stake for God. (Again, we must bring in a negative.)

God said, “I am telling you the Truth.” And billions of humans and angels scream at the top of their lungs for 6000 years, “God, You lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.” After more than 1500 years of shock, God told Noah, “I think I made a mistake.”

God said, “I have placed My Word above everything that I am.” And He said, “I will send My Word as My Beloved Son to show them that I am telling them the Truth.” And we killed Him, and turned His image into a God who knows evil and turned His name into a cuss word.

Proven True. So God sent Jesus back again, to be planted in His Church as the Seed of God, to bring forth many just like Himself (John 12:24). And Jesus, the speaking of God, God telling us the Truth, comes to each of us, looking for faith, looking for humans who seize hold of a God who always speaks the Truth. John repeats a phrase several times in his vision that is the whole NEED, DETERMINATION, and POINT of God – Jesus proven faithful and True, Jesus PROVING to all creation that God always speaks the Truth. – God is Love.

It took Jesus 60 years of living inside my heart, sharing all with me, before I could hear the Father speak to me, “Daniel, I have loved you with an everlasting Love.” I know that God is telling me the Truth.

Bringing Forth Life. Revelation 12:1-5 shows us that God not only sent Jesus as Word into us, that we might know that God speaks the Truth, but that He also planted His Word into our togetherness, inside the womb of the Church.

I was there through the birthing of our four children. There is no greater human weakness on display, and no greater glory, than a woman bringing forth new LIFE into the world. This is the most important prophetic picture in the Bible.

Yet this Church, this Glorious Church clothed with Jesus, brings forth the knowledge of God into the knowledge of all, not only out from utter human weakness, but in the very face of all demonic opposition. We are part of such Glory, Jesus proven faithful and True, because we BELIEVE that God Sent Jesus as Word into us, that God is telling us the Truth.

The Entire Creation in Travail. Into this framework of thinking, then, we bring the Ninth Ruling Verse of the Bible. – For the eager anticipation of the creation awaits intently for the unveiling of the sons of God [the removal of that which hides]. For the creation was made subject to purposelessness, not willingly, but through being subjected based on the hope that creation itself will also be made free from the slavery of decay into the freedom of the glory of the children birthed out from God. Indeed, we are aware that the entire creation groans together and travails together until now (Romans 8:19-22).

Look around you. EVERYONE and EVERYTHING you see is groaning in a desperate desire to KNOW the Living God.

God’s Passageway. And all things will know the Living God as they see Christians on this earth loving one another with pure hearts fervently. Look around you. EVERYONE and EVERYTHING you see is groaning in a desperate desire to SEE the Church. There is a knowing underneath all the blither and cacophony, all the lying and hurt, of a deep, deep NEED, inside even the most evil, for Christians to be what we are.

And what are we as the Church, members of one another? We are God’s passageway into His creation. The “unveiling,” that is, the Apocalypse, Jesus proven faithful and True, is another word for the birthing of this child, many sons, just like Jesus, birthed out from God. It is Travail.

No Greater Proof. We must bring this down into the clearest understanding. God speaks to us, “I am telling you the Truth. – Let there be light. – Know that I Love you.” And we respond with, “Let it be to me, according to Your Word.” Thus the Word God speaks, the Lord Jesus Christ, enters into us, now to share our form that we would be just like Him. Then this Jesus inside our hearts, says to us, “This is My full completion, that you love one another reciprocally, in exactly the same way that I Love you.”

Will Jesus find faith inside of you?

There is no greater miracle, no more convincing PROOF of God, than Christians on this earth and in this age loving one another with pure hearts fervently.

And We Also. Read again Lesson 9.2 “Reciprocal Love.” Read again Chapter 10, the meaning of “Resurrection Life.” This is Travail, and this is God.

Consider the walk of Jesus through the Atonement, carrying us, carried by Father, the clearest picture to us of GOD as He is. – By this we KNOW Love. – God in Travail. Consider this woman screaming in travail to bring forth this same Love for one another inside of utter weakness and in the face of all opposition. – And we also. – Love one another. God in Travail. – To love one another is all costliness, and it is a costliness that continues forever. God is Love. – and Love suffers long and is kind. God made visible.

To Bring Forth Life. Travail for the sake of others is the passageway of God. What does God want? God wants to know and to be known. God wants to share our lives with us. God wants us to know that He Loves us, and then to receive that same Love back again.

Jesus won our hearts by proving to us that He loves us, by showing us that He has shared every moment of our pain and confusion entirely with us, that our travail was always His. God wins the hearts of all created things by showing Himself as that same Love flowing reciprocally among us. Now, through the completion of great travail, that great pressing of God and us together, sharing one another completely, God and we together will show each one that He has always shared every moment of their pain and confusion with them. Their travail has always been His and is now ours. – To bring forth Life.