7. Life

Everything in the Bible is written around the metaphor of how life brings forth life. You separate that metaphor from the Bible and nothing in the Bible makes sense; that's why the Bible is then turned into non-sense. You see that metaphor as the basis of the construction of the entire Bible and suddenly you see it all the way through, that the Bible is nothing other than a vast opening up of this one thing, the reproduction of life. - The Words that I speak to you are Spirit AND THEY ARE Life. - The seed is the Word of God.

The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63

Augustine, in On Christian Doctrine, the guiding document of ALL Christian thinking from then until now, raised the question – How do we interpret the Bible? How do we understand God's words as they are found in the Scriptures? In fact, he raised that question as the proper entry point into any consideration of “what Christians believe.” As I was happily reading along in the raising of this question, agreeing fully that it is the entry point, I was excitedly waiting for some rendition of John 6:63.

You can be assured how stunned I was when I saw no such answer to the question Augustine had raised. In fact, Augustine postulated the very opposite of John 6:63 as the only entry point into Christian “truth.”

Augustine's answer was not stated, otherwise it would not have worked so effectively. Deceit operates by sleight of hand. But Augustine's answer was forcibly clear – “Embrace with all your thinking this 'correct' doctrine FIRST, then, when you read the Bible, you will know how to deal with what you find there.”

Let me give all of John 6:63: It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

It makes no difference whatever if there are “true” ideas found in Augustine's rendition of “correct Christian doctrine.” By turning his back on Spirit and Life, Augustine made the Christian reading of the Bible to be by intellect only, that is, by the flesh.

I know personally the mind-set and thinking of Mennonites, Baptists, Pentecostals, Charismatics, and deeper-truth Christians. I am acquainted with Methodist, Catholic, Church of Christ, and Jesus-only thinking. I have looked at Universalist, Eastern Orthodox, and present-grace/union-with-Christ thinking. Where there is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there is an awareness of “the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life,” but invariably, when push comes to shove, ALL fall back on Augustine's required approach to the Bible.

▶ The mind of the flesh insists that the Bible presents to us ideas to understand, that, since those ideas are contradictory and confusing, “good Bible teaching” is needed first for any one of us to “get the ideas right.” Since the words of the Bible and all the ideas people find create such a mishmash of confusion and argument in the church, it's better just to “believe” these correct ideas we tell you and not think you can “know” the real purpose of all that is found in the Bible. ◀

When I first heard the teaching of Sam Fife and the move, I heard a clear proclamation of “the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life,” but by the time my family and I left that fellowship, the above paragraph describing the “mind of the flesh,” is an exact description of what that fellowship had become.

I live in Jesus' words, “the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” I read the Bible by those words and have done so for years. Everything I teach, I speak out from and by those words. That's why most Christians do not recognize what I teach; it's too bizarre for them, to outside the “reasonings” of Augustine.

I suspect they are astonished by how rooted in Scripture I am, but they just do not read those verses the same way I do. They require every word in the Bible to fit itself under Augustine's On Christian Doctrine, which is the underlying doctrine, that is, list of ideas, of every group I mentioned above and more besides.

In the end, they are all a-Theists in their thinking, though they cannot be in their hearts, not if Jesus lives there.

Consider the brother who objected to my claim that I am filled with all the fullness of God now. He suggested that no, such a reality is not now. First, we must “learn obedience,” then, after that, at a certain point, we will, someday, be filled with all the fullness of God.

But right now, God is ABSENT. I am un-God-ly. And in my un-God-liness, I must please this absent God. How must I please this absent God? (this was a grace teacher speaking), by the right ideas (grace), yes, but also by the right performance.

If grace is an idea we can define, then we are living in the mind of the flesh.

Grace is one thing alone, grace is God in Person now in us.

You know, that way of thinking really bothers me. This is found in almost all ministers of the gospel. “That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” There it is, sitting there quietly on the page. It is apparent that God would not have said such a thing if He had not designed us to be filled with all of Him – that is, if it was impossible. You can do anything you want with any word God speaks. So what does the preacher say? No, that's future, that's not for now.

Really? Then what is for now? Being empty of God? God not filling me full? If I am made to be filled with all of God, but not being filled with God is okay for me. If I can continue on my “way to heaven” by grace, Amen, hallelujah! But empty of God – just because, well, I guess. COME ON!!!! That's pure Satanic thinking. That's the open hatred and rejection of God bought by Adam, spoken out from the empty thinking of grace preachers!

Grace is one thing alone, grace is God in Person now in us.

So-called “godliness,” absent of God, is exactly what Adam bought in the garden. “I can be 'like God' without God.” This godliness without God is iniquity; it is seething hatred of God. Doing great without You, God! On my way!Being filled with all of Your fullness now just doesn't interest me.

Better to be silent before Him than to speak out of gross unbelief – the rejection of what God says.

I will write on the Holy Spirit last, because that is God's order. The problem is, of course, that without the Spirit first, we cannot know anything real. That also is God's order. You see, without God present, it's all a bunch of confusion. God present in us Personal and now in all fullness is the only thing that makes sense.

We know such a thing ONLY by the Spirit.

All this introduction is simply to position before us the utter importance of, “the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” Why don't I have these words in The Ten Most Important Verses in the Bible? That little book remains a work in progress, and I will change it regularly.

There are five things in this line, all five are of utmost importance. 1. Words. 2. I speak. 3. To you. 4. Are Spirit. 5. Are Life.

Let's start with life. Life is the nature of substance in the heavens, life is the energia, the matter of spirit being. Our physical bodies know life only as our spirits transfer the life that they are into our physical bodies. But the life of Spirit is explained to us by God through two earthly symbols.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. . . Romans 1:20

Life is an invisible attribute coming out from God. We understand life by looking at the things that are made. The things that are made are part of God's language to us as He communicates to us His reality.

The primary visible reality, the primary symbol God gave us to comprehend Jesus' words, “My Words are LIFE,” is reproduction – sex. Reproduction of life is everywhere, the most prolific symbol in the creation all around us, staring us in the face, shouting God to us.

The central element of the reproduction of life is sperm, or its more generic term, SEED.

SEED as sperm is the central defining reality of the entire Bible from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21.

Life! – The reproduction of life!

When Jesus said, “You must be born again,” He was talking entirely about sex in all of its ramifications.

I am not speaking of smut, but of God.

The reason God places sex only into marriage is because it is holy, as Hebrews says.

Seed is found in the Nicene Creed – “only-begotten,” but that Seed is left fruitless, cut-off by the savageness of its isolation from ever reproducing itself, totally contrary to the gospel.

The Words that I speak to you are Spirit AND THEY ARE Life.

The seed is the Word of God.

The words God speaks are God's sperm. We understand what that means by studying both human seed and plant seed. Both types of seed are 100% contributive to our knowledge of God in experience.

It's all about God reproducing Himself; many sons to glory is literal.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

In the beginning was the Sperm and the Sperm was with God and the Sperm was God.

When God speaks, He is not giving us ideas to know or commands to obey; rather, He is planting His Seed into us, that it might bring forth in us the Life that it is.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

Everything in these words of Jesus speaks of the female part of the sexual act, from beginning to end, from foreplay that awakens desire to bringing forth a child.

Faith is the female part of sex.

You know, when we beat around the bush, dressing up God's reality with Victorian blushing we only prevent ourselves from seeing and knowing God clearly.

To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. Titus 1:15

Worship without preaching after is like foreplay without consummation; desire is awakened, yes, but no life can come forth. Preaching without worship first is like sex without romance; it gets the job done, but not inside of love. More than that, preaching without worship first means much of the seed sown will not find faith.

(Please don't post these statements on Facebook, independently or even in brief context. K)

It's all about God; – the whole Bible and all creation are all about God reproducing Himself.

Life MUST bring forth life.

The drive for sex is life's most visible characteristic in all realms, human, animal, plant, fish, insects, even creatures under the soil. Why do salmon beat themselves to death to arrive back, somehow, to the place where they were spawned? They must bring forth life.

Life Must bring forth life. – God MUST bring forth Himself.

To those who do not know this reality, the Bible cannot be what it is.

You know, I must put it bluntly because this IS God's reality as He has crafted the universe: His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. Human reproduction reveals God.

We do not read the Bible in order to know things about God. We do not read the Bible in order to obey what God says. We read the Bible in order to “have Spirit-sex” with God, that He might plant His Sperm, Christ, inside of us, inside of the female egg, our faith, that we might birth the revelation of God into the universe.

In an earlier letter I said this: – God speaks His Word into me by the Spirit. I receive that Word into my Faith (Jesus as me) by that same Spirit. That Word reproduces itself inside of me as my only Life as I speak it with my mouth. God fills me full with All of Himself. – the same thing, the reproduction of life.

Now, the New Testament did not exist during the early church. Thus word, that is logos, did not refer to the “written word” contrary to what some teach. Over and over, the apostles said, “Thelogos that was preached into you, the logos that was preached into you.”

God plants His seed in us through the foolishness of preaching.

You know, we dress reality up with euphemisms, and that's okay. Most people are not pure; most people see evil, that is, double, flesh AND Christ, and thus possess defiled minds.

We love God, therefore we give ourselves to Him that He might have His way with us, that He might procreate Himself in us, that He might plant His Seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, inside of us, that we might bring forth to God His very own sons and daughters.

My children are everything to me. I would trade all that I am at a moment's notice for their sakes.

I love with all my heart the precious woman God gave to me that I might know and behold these most precious children of OURS.

God is all about SONS, many, many sons. God must bring forth God. Where is that in the Nicene Creed?

My children are as much out of my wife as they are out of me; yet each one stands completely as his or her own person. I have no children not of my wife.

No son of God can be non-human. No son of God can be non-divine.

Fully God and fully man.

We can bring forth God because we are of His same species, created in the likeness of God.

A human empty of God is all contradiction, that is, all speaking-against.

It is entirely in this context alone that we can understand the full implications of “Did God indeed say?”

The serpent was deflecting God's Seed, that it might fall upon the ground, useless. The serpent deflected God's Seed; Adam and Eve cast it useless to the ground. The tree of life contained God's Seed; Adam turned his back on it.

Do you see the horror of Adam's rebellion?

It is only when we see the obvious about life, that life MUST bring forth life, can we then see the full meaning of the first three things Jesus said: “The words that I speak to you.” – “My Seed that I plant in you that it might bring forth its life through you.”

“I” the male; “speak” the act of procreation; to “you” the female; “words” the seed.

Did you know that the Feasts of the Lord in Israel's religious year follow the pattern of the growth of the fetus in the womb exactly, to the day – in a “normal” progression of that development? It's a fascinating study.

Now, NONE of this procreation of God can take place outside of Spirit. And when I say, “Spirit,” I don't mean spirit generally, but Spirit specifically. And what that means we must also know.

But first, there is a second aspect to life; Life is STORY.

And so most of the Bible is story, human story, and the parts that are not story are built around the parts that are story. Story imparts the meaning of life at a gut level, at a level of Seed.

Let me give an example. As an autistic man, certain social settings terrify me, specifically, hard-browed people who are absolutely certain of themselves and who speak down at me from their lofty perch, but who also have the authority to cause harm to my life. Out from that reality, I have been frightened in one of my present college courses, at the level of a child's fright. Yet I must bear this thing out and win at least a B; I must have these credits I have already purchased.

I asked for prayer and a number of people shared good things, which I read and acknowledged. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid.” Peter said, “Cast all your care upon Him for He cares for you.” Sorry, those nice ideas have never helped me. (God moved through your prayers, however. Thank you.)

Last Sunday I was facing a gauntlet; I did not know if I could survive it; I was terrified.

I watched After Earth with Will Smith and his son. As I watched a real father playing a pretend father speak to his real son playing a pretend son, I heard the father's instructions on fear. Then I watched the son, in the hour of greatest need, draw that instruction into himself. I watched that boy lie under terror in utter peace, knowing the demon could sense only fear and nothing else; I watched that boy kill his demon.

In that moment I was set free in a way I have never known in my life. I went out the next morning without fear and slew the big test, not missing one question on the part relevant to me. I inserted my disagreement into the college course without fear, I chose not to do one assignment, something I have never done, and suddenly I now know how to slay the big one yet coming up. I know how to turn Thomas Hardy on his head.

STORY. – God's seed is much more than just a Word, it is STORY.

The most important stories in the Bible to us are the life of Abraham, the journey of Israel, the life of David, the life of Jesus, and the acts of the Apostles. Intermingled with these most important stories are many other stories, great and small.

How can anyone walk with God without knowing every single tiny detail of the life of Abraham? I don't think it can be done. I can praise the Lord in my fear because David praised the Lord in his. I can walk around a shattered church weeping because Jeremiah walked around a shattered city weeping. I can wrestle with God until I win because Jacob wrestled with God and won. I know these things in my darkest moments.

Story is the impartation of God.

Story means many things including purpose and a journey, companions and an enemy.

I read because I love story. To my great horror, I have discovered that literature “study” in the secular college despises story with all the hatred of the serpent for Christ. And that hatred is real and very visible. Story means purpose; purpose has no basis in “science.” “Scientism,” that is the worship of knowledge, hates purpose.

“YOU HAVE NO PURPOSE AT ALL,” they scream.

Thus I am finding that these people “study” literature as a biologist dissects a frog. They simply cut everything to pieces and leave you feeling torn up and depressed. They then call their spirit-driven accusations “realism” and consider themselves “scholars” and “scientists.” Underlying their words I see great purpose all the way through. They have a continual desperate need to prove that they are SUPERIOR to all those stupid people out there. I sometimes feel like I'm in kindergarten, and all the highly-educated scholars are sitting on top of their little hills beating their chests and feeling mighty pleased with themselves.

Human beings empty of God are empty indeed. Being so empty inside, they build all around their empty souls this mighty fortress of bluster and pretending out of powerful boastful words. Poor people, I really feel sorry for them. For their sakes we lay down our lives, that they also may know the God who carries them with tender concern.

I will go no more into story here; rather, I want to look more closely at Jesus' first words in John 6:63: It is the Spirit who gives life. – The Words that I speak to you ARE Spirit.

The procreation of God, the story of God, takes place ONLY inside the life-giving Spirit. Apart from the immediate presence of the Holy Ghost, the words of the Bible, the words of the preacher, remain either ideas or commands only. Without the immediate presence of the Holy Ghost, no life of God can ever be known. Without the immediate presence of the Holy Ghost, all seed of God falls useless to the ground.

Spirit/Word, Word/Spirit can never ever be separated.

Truth is known by lateral leaps in unexpected directions. I want to go in an entirely different direction now, hoping that Truth Himself will cause what He wishes to be life in you.

I want to talk about “the anointing.” Most of God's people just do not know what “the anointing” is.

Also Moses took the anointing oil, and anointed the tabernacle and all that was in it, and consecrated them. He sprinkled some of it on the altar seven times, anointed the altar and all its utensils, and the laver and its base, to consecrate them. And he poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron’s head and anointed him, to consecrate him. Leviticus 8:10-12

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. John 16:12-13

. . . partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. Ephesians 3:6-7

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. – But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him. 1 John 2:20 & 27

The Spirit is life, energia, power. The “anointing” is not something from God. The anointing is the Holy Spirit Himself, but in a very, very specific manner and for a very, very specific purpose. Grace and anointing are two sides of the same thing. Grace is the phenomenon of God within filling us full; anointing is the phenomenon of God flowing out. Yet we see New Testament verses switching those two around just as easily with the anointing as God within and grace as God flowing out. Such is the Spirit.

There is no such thing as birthing God into visibility that all might see and know Him without POWER.

Christ is a Spirit of Power.

The entirety of procreation, carrying, and bringing forth life is enabled by, bathed in oil. Without the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit, none of it can be. People who read what I write apart from the Holy Spirit receive nothing. To them it's all gibberish. Yet that Holy Spirit attends my words, to those who will hear.

In researching for a college literature assignment, I came across this statement: “God will anoint that word (preached) which is from Him.” I have been pondering this reality since. “God, I know that what I write is from you. What about that anointing?” Yet I KNOW that anointing is not something we drum up or pretend.

I know what is a man anointed by God in the demonstration of the Spirit and power, preaching a word that opened the heavens wide open to our understanding. Sam Fife was such a man.

There have been others, including William Branham. In fact, there seems to have been a number of such men and women to varying degrees from the 1930's into the 70's, about a 50-year period. Some of these were rough and hoary men like the prophets of old. All established in a segment of the church something powerful and utterly in-part.

Today, God has a different kind of servant speaking to His church, men like Joel Osteen, the most influential pastor in church history, and Bill Johnson. These are gentle men, of impeccable character and integrity, pointing God's people towards hope and love and power. Don't ever speak against these men and women (I think of Joyce Myers, much the same) God is using now. They are perfect in their place. We owe them much.

The church is one; don't ever think of her any other way.

Joel Osteen could not possibly fulfill my calling in God, and I could not possibly fulfill his. Let's not lay the wrong tasks on our brethren.

Bust as I ponder this word I read, I see, almost as a vision, the curtain going down on the present scene. As it goes down, I have this thought. God is FINISHED with the William Branham's and the Sam Fife's. They filled their place; they did their part, but God will not have such again.

When the curtain comes back up on the final scene of this present in-part church age, there will be there standing, scattered all across the earth, as if they have just sprung full-grown and brand-new out from the woodwork, a ministry more powerfully anointed by the Spirit of God right from the moment they “appear” than any ministry before now in human history.

They will be more anointed by far than Sam Fife or William Branham, but there will be nothing of control or self-exaltation coming through their impact on others. They will be more anointed than Moses and Elijah.

They will even be “more anointed” than Jesus.

Please understand what I mean. The “anointing” is divine enablement for specific ministry. God flowing out from us is always for specific purposes and in specific directions, differing entirely from one member of the body of Christ to the next. There is no generalization in God; everything of God is unique and specific.

God anointed Jesus primarily for two very specific and limited ministries. Yes, Jesus enjoyed the Spirit without measure, as do we right now. But He did not use that Spirit without measure; that is, Jesus did not by the Spirit transform the whole earth.

The first specific and limited task God anointed Jesus to accomplish was to prepare a people for the Day of Pentecost, a people who would hear His apostles and enter His church with joy. The second focused and specific task God anointed Jesus to accomplish during His time on earth was to walk the path of the Atonement and to obtain eternal redemption for us. Every element of the anointing Jesus expressed was directed entirely to the accomplishing of these two tasks.

On the Day of Pentecost, God anointed Jesus for a third task, the task of becoming us, of being the mono-Seed, which having been planted in the earth, now becomes the plant out of which many new seeds will come, each individual and unique, yet each just like the original seed that was planted.

This ministry appearing suddenly (you and I know God has been hammering our hearts for years, teaching us of His ways in the secret places, in the lonely seasons of our lives) will also be anointed by God for specific tasks, five, in fact. That anointing will be like the continual crackling of lightning, like St. Elmo's fire, almost. In the presence of these ministries, God will instantly become known to people by power and by word, that is, by the gospel. Those who call word-only “the gospel,” have never known the gospel.

Those five tasks are these:

1. Get people's attention (Jesus also had this task).

2. Preach the gospel of the Kingdom, a gospel that few have ever heard.

3. Establish the church in righteousness, that is, in the Tabernacling of God, out from a Melchizedek priesthood. (Of truth, this is the positive side of defeating the beast.)

4. Cast every demon out from the experience of mankind, the positive of which is to demonstrate the highest respect and the tenderest of compassion for each individual person – life laid down, love poured out.

5. Defeat death, the positive side of which is the release of the River of Life across the whole earth. They will do so by 1 John 3:16.

Look again at Jesus' words. It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

Word/Spirit/Life. These three can never be without the other two in fullness. Word/Spirit without Life is not. Word/Life without Spirit is not. Spirit/Life without Word is not. The gospel is and has always been only WORD/SPIRIT/LIFE.

Christianity never has been humans sitting around telling each other ideas and then attempting to live some sort of “life” out from those ideas. Christianity has always only been God reproducing Himself through us into all creation, both heaven and earth.

You cannot know anything of God without the present energia, the immediate, miraculous presence and power of the Holy Ghost resting upon you. POWER. Apostles show you what that means.

Words without Spirit cannot bring forth Life.

Spirit without Words cannot bring forth Life.

Words and Spirit that do not bring forth God-Life are, in the end, fruitless and wasted.

Ministries such as Joel Osteen and Bill Johnson are preparing God's people for the final act of God upon the earth. When God anoints us with power, we will find millions eager to know Him. Both men move in Word and Spirit, but neither brings forth God-Life in the church.

That task is given to us. I draw freely from both men with all honor because my ministry is to complete that which comes to me through them. My ministry is to birth God-Life in you; that is, my ministry is to cause you to know the God who already fills you full.

When I read brethren who know God in Tabernacles sharing that they see God speaking through what I write beyond what they find anywhere else, I am so grateful, so deeply grateful for all the total, mind-numbing failures of my life. How those moments and years of ignominy and ruin shine like priceless jewels. I see how incredibly perfect is my gross inability; that I, a 57-year-old man, attempting to share Christ, would also need to confess a child's autistic fear, and a hearing of the words of a younger father.

Let it all be Him. Yet, beyond all wonder, He shares His glory with me.

Christ IS every Word God speaks. Christ IS a Spirit of Power. Christ IS a many-membered temple through whom God Himself is seen and known by all, a Corporate Body – God-Life.

Christ is the One who lives as me, my Friend, the One upon whose breast I lean my head.

It is the Spirit who gives Life, knowing ideas about God profits nothing.

Covenant Fulfilled Books

The Two Gospels Chapters

7. Life