Bridge 1 ~ God Contending with You ~

Let me speak now as the contention of God with you, dear reader.

Show me one place in the preceding six chapters wherein I have spoken contrary to the clear gospel verses found on the pages of your Bible or not out from them. Show me one instance in which I have not placed the Lord Jesus Christ above all, your only Savior, your only Connection with the Father. Show me one place where I have belittled the precious Blood of Jesus shed for you or dishonored the Cross that has already separated you from all that is not of God.

For in all, I have shown you Jesus faithful and True, your Life.

The Valley of Decision. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision (Joel 3:14). – “How long will you falter between two opinions? If Christ Jesus shows us God, follow Him; but if Satan defines ‘God’ for you, follow him.” – “I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God” (1 Kings 18:21 & 24 – paraphrased).

Understand this, dear reader. If you have read this little book up to this point, with understanding, you are not free to return to the “Christianity” you have known. Yet how can you go forward? Yes, falseness must be cast down from your mind, but the Jesus you have always known has always been True inside of you. Believe into Him.

Covenanting with God. I was 22 years of age when I made my decision, and I have never thought of revisiting that decision since. “I WILL Know You, God my Father, and I will walk together with a people who KNOW You, in this age and on this earth.”

The agony of my covenant with God is best expressed by these words. – And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know?” … Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him… And there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram (Genesis 15).

– The God who answers by Fire.

A Consuming Fire. For our God is a Consuming Fire (Hebrews 12:29). – I saw a woman clothed with the sun – a Church clothed with the Fire that is God Himself (Revelation 12:1).

God is a jealous God; He will not share you with those who hate Him. His Fire must remove all fakery from you. – The day will make it clear because it is unveiled inside of fire; and the work of each, what sort it is, the fire itself will prove (1 Corinthians 3:13). – The proving of your faith, which is more precious than perishing gold, being refined through fire (1 Peter 1:7). – “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly (Isaiah 33:14-15).

The God Who Answers by Fire. In November of 1994, my family and I attended a Thanksgiving weekend at a Christian retreat in the Oregon Cascades. It was just like the community gatherings we had known. As I looked across the gathering of these precious people, I saw God’s Church all across the earth. Knowing that I carried the word His Church needs, I knew even more that I was not ready. I got on my knees in a prayer hut on the wooded hillside and I asked God to make me pure for the sake of His precious people.

God heard my prayer, and He answered me. He answered me with FIRE. I got up from my knees in that prayer hut and entered the “worst” years of my life. Indeed, the best word to describe my next fifteen years would be FIRE.  

Keeping God Safe from You. Why do you want to approach God? What do you plan to do with Him as soon as you get your hands on Him? Do you contrive to use God for your own purposes; do you intend to use His gift to place yourself above those around you? Do you imagine yourself a master of His Word?

Do you lie and cheat and steal, imagining yourself to be righteous? Do you pretend to be somebody in the gathering of the Church, even though you know how empty you are? Do you use God to justify your place in this world? Do you appeal to Him when you burn people to death on the other side of the planet? Is your heart untrue and your words unsound? Do people rely on you to their own hurt?

How will God be kept safe from your cruelty?

Fire that Kills. A friend who was an electrician shared an experience with me. He was tasked with another to work on the main power controls of a huge hydroelectric dam in the Pacific Northwest. They had been instructed to wait until the vast generator had utterly stopped. The other man grew impatient, however. To his eye, it had not been moving for some time. Against all caution, he opened up the controls. Yet that vast rotor had not stopped, even though its movement was not visible. The power BLEW that man’s charred body far across the distance.

You do not touch God except through Jesus; you will not survive the encounter. Put the Lord Jesus Christ upon yourself, if you want to Live.

Fire that Gives Life. Yet the Fire that is God is also Life, all Energeoing Energeia. The same electricity that kills the foolish, also powers everything in our homes. We love God because He first Loves us. We are devoted to Him because He is first Devoted to us. – It is the Spirit that gives LIFE; your human vessel doesn’t produce anything. The Words that I am inside of you are Spirit, and they are Life (John 6:63 – paraphrased).

When we embrace the Fire that is God, we discover something wonderful. We discover that Fire is just another word for His all-consuming Love, for His Passion, for His utter Devotion to us. We were made for God; we live inside of His Life.

Beliefs and Opinions. I don’t give an [expletive deleted] about what my beliefs and opinions about anything might be. I care even less for your beliefs about God or opinions about His Word. Your beliefs CANNOT save you and your opinions CANNOT cause you to know the Father, and neither can mine. In Philippians 3, Paul called his own beliefs and opinions to be “dog crap,” worth less than nothing. And yes, that is an accurate translation.

Whenever God’s Word comes to you, in whatever form, take off your shoes, take off your boasting stupidity that you know or can do anything, for the ground on which you stand is utterly Devoted to God. Place your forehead upon that ground and tremble at His Word (Exodus 3 & Isaiah 66).

The Bony Finger of God. “What are you doing with My word?” The bony finger of God, pointed straight at your forehead, demands an immediate response. How do we give answer to the Almighty? How do we respond to Him? If your eyes have been closed to the ruling verses of the Gospel, if you have never paid attention to John 14:20, it’s for one reason only. God has protected His Life and His Word from you with a veil cast over your heart.

I know that you want to live. God knows that you want to know Him, for you were made to share life with Him. Here is God’s response to you. – On this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit (who has shut up about himself), and who trembles at My word.

Let It Be to Me. Those who place God’s word into their intellects so that they might know some things about God, so that they might imagine themselves to be doers of His will, sin against God. This is not how you and I approach any Word God speaks, ever. Instead, we place ourselves eye to Eye with God, as equals in heart and purpose, in full confidence that Jesus alone is our life, and we say to God, to every word He speaks, “Let it be to me.”

“Look at me, God, Eye to eye, for I belong to You. I contend with You, God, that Your Word is True, that Jesus inside of me fulfills all. Let it be to me, my Father, exactly as Your Word says, in all that You intend by these words. And having asked You, as All-Consuming Fire, so I KNOW that You have answered me. You have answered with Fire and with Life.”

My Ignorance. I am deeply humbled. Yes, the things I have written in Chapters 1 through 6 of this text are things I know out from the Lord Jesus as every Word God speaks. When I look at the things that must fill Chapters 7 through 12, however, I am staggeringly aware that I hardly know anything. I begin to write only to discover how ignorant I am concerning that Glorious Salvation in which we live.

I feel blown apart. I feel as if I have never taken a life shared with God and God with me seriously, as if all my writing has brought me up short. I cannot pretend to be anything. Apart from Jesus, I can do nothing. Yet I know that Jesus saves me; I know He always has.

A Dim Outline of Glory. I am quite unable to present myself as an “expert” on our Glorious Salvation. All I can do is show you a dim outline of the Glory in which we already live. Yet I do know the words of the Gospel, and I know that we have this instruction – to approach EVERYTHING we find, here inside of Jesus, here inside of God, with FULL assurance of faith, seizing hold of everything that is God for ourselves, knowing that God has already seized hold of us. It is this faith alone that pleases God, this confidence that His Word is True, yet even this Faith is Jesus given freely to us.

Do not expect great understanding or cohesive explanation in the remainder of this book. All you will find is a little boy gazing with awestruck wonder at all that belongs to him,

The Jesus Secret. My dear one, don’t let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also that inside of Me, you are completely safe. Do not imagine that you could ever be separate from Me. I am the Secret of your heart; I am every Word God speaks already fulfilled as you. My Devoted Spirit causes you to know Me as I am, to know Me all through yourself. My Grace, My presence with you inside of you, is all that you need, for My strength, as all Word fulfilled now, finds its full completion inside of your human weakness.

My dear one, you are never on your own, for I am always with you in all things. And I carry you inside Myself all the way through the darkness, all the way into your All-Connection with God.

My Hope of Glory. God, my Father, the Lord Jesus connects me to You in every way. His Blood always cleanses me; His Cross always protects me. His Life flows between us; by Him we know one another. I engage only with You, Father, face to Face, Eye to eye. Your Person is inside of my person, and I am inside of You.

Your Word, written upon my heart as all that You mean, is my hope of Glory. Through Jesus, I see such a Salvation beyond what the human mind can conceive. I may see dimly, Father, but I see, for Your Spirit given to me causes me to know. I see my story enclothed with Jesus; I see the ages of knowing a shared Life with You. I see the beauty of being part of Your Church; I see the glory of Resurrection Life. I see Rivers of Spirit flowing out from us together; I see creation set free. I see all things brand new; I call all things good. I see glory.