4. The Victorious Warrior

Our battle is not at the level we have known in the past. Passivity is the opposite of God. Jesus – the only life we have – is a mighty and victorious Warrior. We wrestle against spiritual darkness and iniquity in heaven. This is part of our role as sons of God.

 

Each one has his or her place in the body of Christ and in the unveiling of Jesus Christ. God has not given any of us the whole picture, nor does anyone yet see all things clearly. We are traveling up a path we have never known.

Each of us walks in the light Jesus gives us personally. Hammering against each other with verses or with our “understanding” or “experience” is such a pointless ridicule of Christ – it is simply declaring that He doesn’t know what He’s doing.

Jesus, the Savior, does all things well with those who belong to Him.

I must follow that which my heart yearns for, that which God quickens to me in His word. I am accountable to God for what He places in me. So where am I coming from?

I draw from and speak to three different streams of the church, three different things God is doing through His people at this present time. I draw from the gospel of grace and the reality of Christ living as us in this world as is taught by those who knew Norman Grubb. I also draw from the river of life moving of God’s Spirit, the outpouring of power to heal and set free, the power to transform lives mightily as found in the writings and ministry of Bill Johnson and others. 

But both of those streams are two means to a third end. One of these parts, as you see, is Word, the other part is Power. But the third part is what my writing is all about and those to whom I really speak.

You will find that third part in the latter rain outpouring, and the revelation of the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles in the life of the church, and in the manifestation of the sons of God.

Now, these things may or may not be familiar to you, yet they are fully part of the teaching of the New Testament. I have made the decision to receive into myself all that God speaks in the New Covenant and not to pick and chose.

Does God say, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you”? And does He say it inside the Covenant of Grace and the present revelation of Christ? Yes. Has the church misunderstood terribly the role of the enemy and our warfare and created much abuse and suffering as a result of that misunderstanding? Yes. But is there an understanding of the warfare in which we are engaged that fits fully with the victorious word of power that God is revealing to us now?

Absolutely. We do not throw out anything God speaks when a new understanding comes, we simply raise it to the new level God has placed us on.

I want every word that God speaks, whether I understand it or not, whether it “fits” or not. I want to see it fulfilled in my life, here on this earth. And, although I am ready in a heartbeat to have God remove from my understanding things I picked up along the way that are not what He says, yet I will let go of nothing, not one thing, that God made alive in me over the years.

I must follow that which alone satisfies, that which the same Jesus has placed in my heart – and that is to see all that God speaks fulfilled in me in this age, in this life, and on this earth.

We are at war. God and the Lord Jesus are presented as mighty and victorious warriors from the beginning to the end. As the image and likeness of God, we reveal to all creation the victory of Christ over His enemies.

God and the revelation of Christ are not passive but mighty, tearing down strongholds and every high thing that opposes the knowledge of God. God has a purpose for Satan – he is created that we might defeat him. God has a purpose for the curse – He placed it on all creation that we might cast it off.

Look at a butterfly in the chrysalis. That chrysalis is not the butterfly, nor is it any part of the butterfly. Yet, if the butterfly does not cast off that chrysalis, the life that is inside it fails to flow into every part of its being and it remains too weak to fly in the heavens and to live. The purpose of the chrysalis is to be cast off.

In casting off the curse, we come to know Christ the way God intends. We do not know Him that way at present.

How can anyone settle for their present knowledge of Christ or for their present understanding of any verse in the Bible? I cannot. If my present knowledge of Christ and His revelation in me and through me and as me is all there is for me right now, then I am of all men most miserable.

Our battle is not at the level we have known in the past. Passivity is the opposite of God. Jesus – the only life we have – is a mighty and victorious Warrior.

We wrestle against spiritual darkness and iniquity in heaven. This is part of our role as sons of God. This is not about “our redemption.” Our redemption is behind us. This is about God fulfilling His purpose in the earth. This is about God proving His word as He intended from the beginning. We are seized in the grip of His determination. God has established the creation as it is, filled with darkness and evil. He placed His Word inside that darkness – with the full intention that His Word win in all possible ways, dispelling the darkness as if it never was. You and I are the vessels that contain that Word.

This is far, far, bigger than salvation. Salvation restores us to being the image of God. Now, as the image of God, we fulfill God’s purpose in the earth.

You and I are called to be the full revelation and image of God to all creation. Are we that now? In part, yes. As a seed, yes. By faith before God, yes. In fullness? In all that God intends? No. (Some people settle for a very little God.)

Everything we are, we are in seed form. We are in the womb of the church. We have not yet come into the full light of day. To force our present vision, enclosed in darkness, upon all that God speaks is blindness. On the contrary, let all that God speaks inform us of the reality into which we are birthed.

Satan and his demons fill the earth and torment all mankind. The earth continues to stagger under the curse of sin and death. Christians continue to die – that is the curse.

Physical death is an enemy of God, it is the curse of sin and death. It is the consequence of sin. If we are to believe that there is no condemnation, then we must believe for the overthrow and end of physical death upon this earth. Removing feelings of guilt from our consciousness does not fulfill the word in Romans 8:1 – no condemnation. Removing death and all of the curse from this planet does. Adam was not condemned to “feel bad”; he was condemned to death. No matter how you paint it, dying physically is falling under condemnation.

  This earth is our inheritance. The meek shall inherit the earth. I want to see it clean. I want my children to live their lives free from the curse and from a world full of demons.

It is time. It is God’s time.

What God does through you and me, He will extend to all. All creation is waiting for those who will presently enter into all that God is and all that He speaks here and now. They cannot know it until we know it.

But we do not engage in foolish antics as part of our warfare. We do not “buffet the air” as some do. The weapon that we possess is to speak what God speaks. And it is our faith in what God says that defeats all of our enemies.

The mightiest weapon in the universe is dancing with joy in the moment of greatest peril, in the hour of greatest darkness, in the midst of the greatest hatred and death and sorrow, as if we have already fully won. It is the greatest honor that can be given to the Lord Jesus Christ – to the Word God speaks.

Now, here is what you must find for yourself. You must find for yourself what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing and speaking presently in you. That is all that matters. As far as you are concerned, what Jesus is presently speaking in and through me is not what counts. What is He making alive in you? What is the deep cry welling up in your own heart as you lie upon your bed in the night watches?

If you are not drawn to the same word that is drawing me, that does not mean in any way that you are “missing God.” I hate that whole way of thinking. Jesus is the Savior; He fills your heart. When you or I try to ask Him about what He is doing in someone else’s life, His only reply ever is, “That’s none of your business - YOU FOLLOW ME!”

That says everything we need to know.

There is an order, a progression. The Word God speaks was first fulfilled in Christ 2000 years ago. Next, it is fulfilled in the firstfruits, in a company of overcomers at this end of the age of human folly. These are the elect of God. He has chosen those in whom He will reveal all the fullness of Christ in this age and on this earth.

How do you know if you are one of those whom He has chosen? Look deep inside your own heart. Do you want to be? Your deep and true answer is the answer. And if you do want it with all your heart – to be with Him as He stands in His glory upon this earth – then believe that you are. Believe it with all your heart. It is better to die in faith and overwhelming confidence than to live in hesitation and unbelief. And faith is making every word God speaks personal to me.

I am Your servant; let it be to me according to Your word.

But those who enter in now are not any sort of “elite.” They are simply the first-fruits, and the entire delight of their lives is to hold the door open and to point the way as the many, many multitudes of those who also belong to Jesus then rush in to all the fullness of Christ, oblivious to those who have opened the door. And we will step back into the shadows rejoicing in the joy of our beloved Friend.

This is the context and the framework in which I write.

Again, the important thing for you is to draw those things that God is making alive to you right now. If you read things that you don’t understand or that don’t seem to fit what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing in you right now, no problem at all. It doesn’t mean those things are “wrong” nor does it mean that you are “wrong.”

Jesus is our Salvation; He lives in our hearts. That means everything. Nothing else matters.

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You may wonder who and what I am. I am a friend of the Bridegroom. By sharing with you the journey God has me on and the light upon my path He gives me, my only desire is to place your hand in the hand of Jesus and then to step back into the shadows rejoicing in the joy of my Friend. If that happens for you as you read these pages, then I have fulfilled my purpose in writing.

Yet, my Friend, the Lord Jesus Christ, is doing more right now than bringing His bride to all purity and faith in union with Himself. He is also vindicating His Father upon the earth. And the sound of the shattering of all things that can be shaken is growing louder in our ears. That, also, is the revelation of Jesus Christ, and I must share those things as well.