Eternally in Christ
“God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he
said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’””
Ex. 3:14
“Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to
you, before Abraham was, I am.””
Jn.8:58
It would be
grammatically correct to say, "Before Abraham was, I was." But Jesus makes
a point when he uses the “I am” form, thus emphasizing His timeless existence.
God is not only the One who was, who is and who will be - He is truly beyond
these time categories because it is He who created the time (Heb. 1:2). God exists
simultaneously at every point in time and space.
We look at the
earthly life of Christ from a framework of time in which each event matters
only for what it precedes chronologically. But from the perspective of
eternity, where there is no beginning or end, the crucifixion and resurrection
of Christ has the same relation to every point of existence.
“and all who dwell on earth will worship it,
everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in
the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.”
Rev.
13:8
Therefore, He is the
Alpha and Omega who has primacy in everything. So every act of forgiving a sin,
every healing or resurrection in human history has always been performed solely
on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ, which was still future for some
mortals or past for others, but timeless and eternal for us living in the
Spirit.
Looking at the human history,
we distinguish history before and after Christ. But the eternal God, who is
present at every point in time and space at the same time, always sees the blood
of His Son in relation to the whole human history, from beginning to end. So it
is with my life. I see it as if I was watching cars on the train pass by. I can
only see one car at a time, the one that is now rushing in front of my face.
Here I am born dead in sin, here I continue in sin apart from God, here I learn
about Christ and get saved, here I abide in Him and here I stumble again ...
But God does not see the train of events in my life as car after car, but as a
whole - from a bird’s eye’s view. He sees us as if we had always been in
Christ.
“and as many as were appointed to eternal life
believed.”
Acts 13:48
“even as he chose us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In
love…”
Eph. 1:4
“For those whom he foreknew he
also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might
be the firstborn among many brothers.”
Rom.
8:29
- Oh, I remember the day when I received
Christ! It was wonderful!
- My precious friend, it is much more important
where you are right now. Do you see yourself in Christ as much as you did that
day?
One day as I
worshiped God, I said:
-Jesus, you are the
most wonderful thing that has happened in my life!
Then I heard a reply:
-Stop seeing Me
through the lens of your past because I want to share with you this moment of
your life in the present.
After that, I
exclaimed with all my heart:
-Jesus, you are the
most wonderful thing that is happening to me right now!”
Once we enter the eternal circle of life in Christ, we must continue to see ourselves in Him constantly, without the past, present, and future, staying under the unrelenting
power of the blood of Christ every single
moment of our life.
A secret of quick restoration
I would like to share
a secret that I learnt from the Lord after falling down so very often.
It used to take me a
long time to regain my spiritual balance after a fall. A flash of anger could
knock me out of my relationship with the Lord for half a day. I knew my
repentance was enough for the Lord. But the word “repentance” also meant to me
that I had to chastise myself with a feeling of guilt. I simply could not
believe that all God expected to hear from me is “forgive me” (see Contrition,
Repentance, Confession). Moreover, if you rate high on a spiritual well-being
scale throughout day and then all of a sudden an unexpected development brings
you tumbling down, it seems that returning to the previous level will require
an incredible amount of effort and time. I am already overwhelmed by what has happened,
so where do I get strength? But when I realise that my comeback is not going to
take place any time soon, what do I do? Usually I write myself off as worthless
and let myself loose, which only widens my gap with God.
I went through a very difficult time in life, which lasted for about two
years. During that time, I did not go to church, did not read the Bible, and
did not pray. My only prayer was this, “Lord, bring me back to yourself.” Later
I realised that one of the reasons for my delayed return to the Lord was lack
of faith in the power of God’s love and mercy. Looking back at the level of
anointing from which I fell, I was horrified to think that it would take years
to bring me back even to the same level. But when I did start to return, it
took God three months to lift me to an even higher level of anointing and
responsibility. Over as long as three months, the Lord was convincing me that
He wished and had the power to restore me instantly, but I chose to cling to
human views of forgiveness, mercy and a price for falling. Indeed, I wanted to
pay the price for my return myself, thus belittling the cross.
This happens to us all the time. Of course, this condition does not last for
years, perhaps just hours. But even a few minutes of it is too much. Though the
unfailing power of the cross and the blood of Christ, the Lord made it possible
for us to come back to Him after a fall instantly. But our enemy constantly tries
to whisper to us about some additional price that we must pay for our apostasy.
And when we see our
inability to pay (what can a spiritually bankrupt person offer God?), Satan seizes
the opportunity to further control our life either through sin (after all, only
a forgiven righteous person can resist it), or through self-condemnation (which
we consider as the price for restoration), or through legalism (restoration
through good works).
People without a past
Perhaps you have seen
these movies where a guy who lost his memory desperately tries to remember who
he was to come back to his former life. However, my experience as a born-again
person is exactly the opposite. I am not trying to get back to my former life,
but I am trying to get rid of it. I am trying to forget who I was apart from
Jesus, forget it all as if this was not about me. And really it was not about
me because my former self died.
God’s Spirit through
Scripture encourages us to never look back, never see ourselves outside of
Christ, whether it be the past, present or future. I am a man without a past,
without a family tree, without errors, curses and wounds.
“For you have died, and your life is hidden
with Christ in God.”
Col. 3:3
If I want to stay
hidden with Christ in God, I need to cut off everything I was apart from
Christ. I refuse to remember and regard myself according to the flesh.
“For the love of Christ controls us, because we
have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he
died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for
him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard
no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to
the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he
is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
2 Cor.
5:14-17
There is only “now” in
Christ. Jesus is the reality, He is our present. If, trying to correct my
present, I turn to my past, I do it without God because He keeps track of my
life beginning with Christ who is always “now”.
A few words about
birth curses and other consequences of our sinful past. A new creation has a
very short family history. Curses continue to work only in the life of those of
God’s children who, under Satan’s deception, believe that he has a legal right
to attack their family including themselves. But a new creation has the power
to stop any curse of any kind because grace is incomparably stronger than a curse.
Our freedom, as well as our healing, was secured by the wounds and cross of
Jesus.
A young woman once told
me that for many years she had been fighting fiercely for her spiritual freedom
from a family curse. At some point she received the prophecy that Jesus would
soon break the curse. Then she saw a vision in which Jesus said he had freed
her from all curse. This lifted up her faith, and she finally found long-awaited
freedom and joy. Without contesting the truthfulness of her vision and
prophecy, I asked her exactly when her freedom from the curse was secured -
when Jesus announced this in her vision or two thousand years ago when He died
for her on the cross? She could not really answer that question. After which I
told her that she could be free as soon as she became a daughter of God, but,
because of her unbelief and following human teaching, supernatural intervention
was required to make her finally believe in her freedom, which had already been
announced in God’s Word:
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law
by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged
on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the
Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”
Gal.
3:13-14
When people believe that
breaking the law will certainly entail bad consequences or that the sins and mistakes
of their ancestors and their own past continue to have an effect on their present,
they still experience the reality of their curse according to the law of faith because,
by believing a lie, they open the door for these consequences themselves. These
consequences can only be stopped by faith in the sufficiency of Christ’s
sacrifice.
Curses are specific consequences
of unbelief in relation to God (see Gen. 3). If you object to using the word curse in the New Testament context, we
can call it a consequence of unbelief but this does not change the meaning of
the concept. For instance, Paul who was warning Galatians about the
consequences of their legalism called it a curse.
“For all who rely on works of the law are under
a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all
things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
Gal. 3:10
“… stand firm therefore, and do not submit
again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept
circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you … You are severed from
Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from
grace.”
Gal. 5:1, 2, 4
These words were
addressed to the Galatians who believed in Christ but who tried to add obedience
to the law to their faith in Him. We can only be free from curse in Christ who
became a curse in our place because anyone who does not believe in the
sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice will find Christ of no advantage to them and they are severed FROM CHRIST, which
means they are open to the consequences of breaking the law and vulnerable to a
curse.
To abide in freedom, it
is not enough just to give your one-time assent to the truth that you are free
from all curse through the sacrifice of Jesus. We daily face a choice and a
challenge to abide in the same faith. If we deny that we all must be watchful,
like Galatians, we face the threat of drifting away from the original pure
teaching to legalism, which necessarily entails the consequences of breaking
the law:
“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It
was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified …
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by
the flesh?”
Gal. 3:1, 3
“You were running well. Who hindered you from
obeying the truth?”
Gal. 5:7
In the eyes of God
who sees us as eternally abiding in His Son, we are people without a past.
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor
angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, no height
nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Rom. 8:38-39
“So let no one boast in men. For all things are
yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the
present or the future – all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is
God’s”.
1 Cor. 3:21-23
Note that there is no
mention of the past in the verses above.
“Repent therefore, and turn back, that you sins
may be blotted out.”
Acts 3:19
“And you who were dead in your trespasses and
the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having
forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood
against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”
Col. 2:13-14
ἐξαλείφω (Greek verb)
To erase, blot out, wipe
out, cross out, obliterate, wipe away.
It is a powerful verb
which means “to wipe off any memory of something, as if it never existed”. This
word is used to describe the destiny of our sinful past and its consequences as
a result of our conversion. It is not God who reminds us of sins, but rather,
we try to remind Him of them when we succumb to temptations and
self-condemnation. My old self that was there before conversion died, was
crucified, and buried in the waters of baptism. So I should also bury any
memory of it.
Whatever happened in my
life before my conversion did not happen to me, but to my old self who is long
gone. Together with it, its sins, as well as its pain and hurt were wiped off.
It was my old self that was once beaten, humiliated, slandered, raped and
betrayed. Now all of this is buried with it.
But what about the
sins and injustice that I experience in my life after conversion? The most
amazing thing is that the blood of Christ, which has covered us once, never
ceases to purify and heal unless we stop it with our unbelief:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
1 Jn.
1:9
Satan who has no
access to all of our life, tries to steal it bit by bit, moment by moment, first
tempting us with sin, and then reminding us of it and condemning it.
So I decided to stop
constantly evaluating my spiritual well-being, in which case I would suffer
from under the oppression of the accuser half of my life. Instead, I focus
entirely on what is happening to me right now. If now I do not feel that I am
within the will of God, if I am led by the flesh, I simply direct my inner gaze
to the Lord and by faith accept the flow of His Spirit within myself and simply
begin to do what I feel comes from Him. Condemnation, disappointment, self-centeredness
are all signs of unbelief.
Satan seeks to keep
us in a state of self-contemplation for as long as possible. If he cannot catch
people in a net of carelessness, he imposes on them exaggerated demands for
themselves to secure access to them to keep paralyzing their faith through
condemnation, disappointment and fear.
What does God seek to
achieve when we stumble? He seeks to bring us back as soon as possible to our
position in the Spirit that was lost, does He not? Our enemy benefits from any
delay when we play back the colorful memories of our fall in our mind over and
over again and picture its gloomy consequences.
Think about it and do
not let Satan neutralize your faith.
On the negative effect of a positive past
“The greatest misery in adverse fortune is once
to have been happy.”
Boethius
Self-condemnation and
narcissism are two sides of the same coin because in each case we allow our ego
to eclipse the glory of Christ from us.
This happens when I
focus not on what God’s Spirit is doing in me right now, but on my past. As for
the effects of the negative past, I described them earlier. But a positive past
also carries certain consequences with it, which I also seek to avoid. The fact
is that the memories of past victims, victories, successful projects, good
deeds, experiences of God’s anointing and glory, in addition to thankfulness to
God, can lead to self-aggrandizement and lukewarmth, which will replace God’s
reality in the present. I try not to forget what God did yesterday and on the
third day in order to maintain a thankful attitude in my heart, but I should
not let my past eclipse for me what God is doing right now.
Moreover, my view of my own positive past can reveal a lot about the
subject of my hope. If my confidence in God’s acceptance is based on memories
of how good I am and how many good things I have done for Him, this is not the
hope that God expects from me. The focus of my hope and the depth of my faith
are revealed in how easily I can accept God’s forgiveness and love in the midst
of a severe defeat. I think that the view of a positive past I just described
is the reason for the falling and lack of freedom of many of God’s children.
That is because our heavenly Father seeks to give us freedom only if it is
secured through the blood of His Son, otherwise His sacrifice would be in vain.
“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate
the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it
and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats
of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the
life of the world is my flesh.”
Jn. 6:48-51
The manna symbolized
a relationship with Jesus. Jews had to collect manna every day, without leaving
it until morning because it got infested by worms. This is a type which shows
the importance of daily relationships with Jesus - today, not yesterday, - and
the need for constant guidance through His Spirit and Word.
At the same time, there was a two-day serving of manna collected immediately
for two days - on Friday and Saturday. It symbolized revelations and visions
for a certain time or season of life or ministry, just as the law was given for
a certain time, before the coming of faith (Gal. 3:23). Failing to understand
this, some Christians stubbornly hold on to dead and fruitless projects and ministries.
They deem them to be of some worth only because these things once had life and
anointing in them, but, in doing so, they ignore and overlook what God had
prepared for them today (1 Sam. 18:4).
And finally, there
was a portion of manna, which had been stored in a pot in the Ark of the
Covenant for centuries. It symbolized those truths, doctrines and revelations
that were deemed unshakable, unchanging and unforgettable.
“It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Mat. 4:4
Spiritual life is sustained
in us by the word which “proceeds” from God this very moment, not by the word
which “proceeded” from Him at some point in the past. We cannot feed and live on
past revelations, Scripture studies, if they are not enlivened by our daily
relationship with the Spirit of God. Past revelations and knowledge are very
important, but are they as lively and relevant for me today as they were on the
day I received them? Information divorced from the Source, from a living
relationship, leads to lifeless literalism and formalism.
Once the Holy Spirit said to one man: “Do not make monuments out of your
victories and achievements, and tombstones out of your failures and defeats” (1
Sam. 15:12; Judg. 8:24-27).
Regardless of where I was five minutes ago – whether in faith or unbelief,
in victory or defeat, in the Spirit or in the flesh, there is God’s perfect
will for this moment of my life.
You must also understand that being in Christ is not about what you feel,
but what you believe, or how I see myself at the moment. Because I am writing
these lines, and you are reading them, we are both aware of our being in
Christ, which means that right now, through faith, we are immersed in His
eternal victory and covered with His pure blood.
Maturity shows how much I can keep my consciousness focused on the
promise of Christ’s presence in the face of adverse external circumstances, and
how quickly I can regain this focus if it gets shifted or lost.
Do not allow the future to rob you of the
present
The wrong view of the
future, just like the wrong view of the past, can rob us of our present.
“Martha said to Jesus, “Lord,
if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But
even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise
again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise
again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus
said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever
believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”
Jn. 11:21-25
Note that Martha sees the Lord in the past (“If you had been here”) and in
the future (“I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last
day”). When unbelief fails to leave us regretting about the past, it begins to
focus us on the future. Faith always sees Christ in the present: “He is the
resurrection and life here and now.” Faith does not belong to either the past
or the future. Faith is the ability to perceive spiritual reality in the
present. When we find no confirmation of the promise in the material reality,
instead of focusing on spiritual reality, we place the promise in an indefinite
future where, as we see it, we will have enough tangible reasons to believe in
its fulfillment.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.
Heb. 11:1 KJV
It is interesting to
note that in Scripture such concepts as “substance” (reality or actuality) and
“evidence” are described by the same word, upostasis
(as in Heb. 1:3). In other words, what I believe exists because I believe in
it. Faith is both the reason and the proof for the existence of the invisible.
We are called by faith to live in the invisible spiritual reality of the
promise, no matter how it is expressed in material reality.
The devil is the author of “defect theology”, a term I use to describe the
teaching that encourages believers not to show anointing, presence, glory,
strength, awakening, etc., but to ask God for all these things:
“For God knows that when you
eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good
and evil.”
Gen. 3:5
Satan shifted Eve’s
focus from the glory of God in the present to possible future prospects,
focusing her attention on what she supposedly lacks. “You WILL be like God - no
matter who you are, no matter what happens here and now, it is important who
you will be.” So it turned out that a relationship with God, His presence, His
love, His affection and provision are not enough! What madness!
But are we no less
crazy when we think that the sacrifice of Christ, the new birth it produces and
the gift of the Holy Spirit are not enough to walk with God and that we need
something else?
“For in Christ all the
fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in
Christ you have been brought to fullness …”
Col. 2:9, 10
“His divine power has given us
everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us
by his own glory and goodness.”
2 Pet. 1:3
While living out the I am principle, I have seen my fear disappear.
Why? It happens because fear belongs to the future. This is a fundamental
difference between fear and faith. Faith is always “now” because it stems from
an awareness of the reality of the eternal Kingdom, the unchangeable presence
of Christ. On the contrary, fear comes from the loss of focus, a shift in the
internal gaze from the reality of the present to an indefinite future.
So, instead of fighting fears, it is better to start living in the present,
living out the reality of the Kingdom, which is here and now. I will never find
peace by connecting my safety and security with the circumstances of the
outside world, with my own abilities and efforts. My world does not rely on my assurance
of tomorrow, but on the awareness of my belonging to the eternal Kingdom:
“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’
or ‘What shall we wear?’ For
the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you
need them. But seek first his kingdom and his
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about
itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Mat. 6:31-34
On the one hand, a
clear vision of the future helps overcome the difficulties of the present,
giving hope for the fulfillment of God’s promises and prophecies. Probably this
was true of Joseph who remembered his prophetic dreams in prison, and of
Abraham who looked at the stars and the sand that showed him how many
descendants he would have.
On the other hand, we
should not allow our dreams, as well as worries about the future, to rob us of
efficiency, joy and peace that stem from our relationship with God in the
present.
If Noah knew the
exact date of the flood, it seems to me that the ark would have been built fifty
years earlier. After all, we know very well what it is like to have the “fear of
being late” to which we sacrifice responsibility in other areas of our lives,
neglecting relationships with our family and even with God.
For a long time, I lived under the pressure of the fear of being late to
fulfill my purpose in life, take a wrong turn, miss the voice of God, make a
fatal mistake or miss out on something important from Him. One day the Lord spoke
to me very clearly, “Son, if only I see your sincere interest in Me, I will
disregard your sheer dumbness, deafness and blindness and find a way to convey
My will to you and not to allow you to miss what you miss not should.” From
this point on, my relationship with God began to change a lot. I finally realised
that fear of the future robbed me of an opportunity to enjoy a relationship
with God in the present.
On the contrary, our expectation
of a negative future can sometimes plunge us into apathy and fatalism. Imagine
a woman who finds out that her child will die in a year from now. Her life will turn into a constant excruciating expectation of
a tragedy that will rob both her and her child of the joy of fellowship in the
present. If I trust God with my future while focusing on the present, then,
when tragedy comes into my life, I will find myself surrounded by enough grace
to go through suffering without compromising my faith.
History knows of cases when apocalyptic prophecies caused a famine in the
land because the people who expected the end of the world stopped working and
doing their everyday duties, leaving crops
in the field unharvested. At this time, people filled
churches and listened to the preaching of Scripture. But this was not a true
awakening because right after the announced Doomsday, people felt disappointment,
which caused an even greater spiritual decline. Is it not for this reason that
the Lord concealed the date of His coming so as to reveal those whose
commitment would not be tied to a specific date (Mat. 24:42)? So it turns out
that some live as if Jesus would never return, while others live as if earthly
life had no meaning, showing infantilism and
fatalism.
I grew up in the far north in the city of Norilsk. Older people thought
they were staying in this place for a while, cherishing the dream of moving to
the “mainland”, to the south. So they would often say that
they had one foot out of the door. Imagine what you are waiting for your
plane at the airport to fly to a resort. You are showing little interest in the
airport and the people around you because in your thoughts, you picture
yourself on the beach, a sea tide gently caressing your heels. These people spend
twenty, thirty or fifty years of their life expecting their departure - decades
of an inferior, undervalued, “transit” life. This is how some Christians view their
earthly life:
“We are foreigners and strangers on earth; our
citizenship is in heaven; the earth and everything done in it will be destroyed
by fire, so we are just awaiting heaven while we are here.”
But is this how God
views it? Throughout all Scripture, the Spirit of God calls us to take our
earthly life with full responsibility because it is our earthly life that shapes
our character, as well as determines our heavenly reward and position in
eternity.
“Therefore go and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And
surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Mat. 28:19, 20
Believers who live by the expectation of the Kingdom of Heaven view it as
an afterlife, not realizing that this kingdom is omnipresent and we are called
to live in its reality here and now. Moreover, we have the responsibility to
reveal this kingdom to the world. We must not sacrifice the interests of this
Kingdom in the present for the sake of our expectation of the future Kingdom.
“… nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There
it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst” … People will tell you,
‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them.”
Lk. 17:21-23
“He said to them: “It is not for you to know
the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will
receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts
1:7-8
Because God knows our human predisposition to hide from the challenges and hardships of the present in dreams about the future, He does not reveal to us our future far ahead:
“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my
path.”
Ps. 119:105
This verse talks
about a lamp that people tied to their feet so that they could keep walking in
the dark. God lights our way just enough for us to take only one step, after
which we find our way lit up again, with just enough light for just the next
step. This helps us rely on the Lord and His guiding grace constantly, with
each step we take.
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear
its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is
with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Jn. 3:8
God’s guidance makes
life with Him a daily adventure.
A detailed knowledge
of the future and thorough planning motivates us towards some sort of
independence from God. I have often seen small children run far ahead of their
parents and nearly get lost because they were fully convinced that they knew the
way. Since God is aware of this tendency in humans, He does not give us a
detailed map of our life path, but instead offers to guide us through it. If
you fully trust the experience of your guide leading you through impassable and
dangerous jungles, you will not try to make sure he has chosen the right path
or worry about the rules of survival - you will just closely follow everything
the guide does and says. We find peace not in knowing our way, but in trusting
our Guide and relying on Him:
“I will lead the blind by ways they have not
known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into
light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will
do; I will not forsake them … Who is blind but my servant, and deaf like the
messenger I send? Who is blind like the one in covenant with me, blind like the
servant of the Lord?”
Is. 42:16,19
Without setting
goals, without a vision or a plan, we will not achieve anything. Everyone talks
and teaches about it nowadays. But let me tell you about the flipside of this
issue. We must not replace trust in God with faith in a plan.
Having in our hands a
detailed outline of the upcoming event, ministry or season of life, we
sometimes replace a relationship with a form, guidance with a liturgy, or live
worship with a concert program.
God gave Abraham and Sarah a vision of many descendants. But when faith in
a vision began to prevail over trust in God, Sarah had a plan that led to the
birth of Ishmael, not the son of promise.
From the moment I
converted, I was fully confident that I was called to full-time ministry. But
over almost thirty years of walking with God, I served on the church staff for
only a couple of years. It is probably not hard to imagine all the
disappointment and guilt I felt over my alleged lack of commitment. Only when
God changed my understanding of what “full-time ministry” really means, and
showed the importance of “now”, did I begin to receive satisfaction from serving
God in my workplace. If I continued to consider my work as a temporary obstacle
to my “real” ministry which awaits me in a bright future, you would not read
these lines which I would write in my welding shop during a lunch break.
“Now listen, you who say,
“Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry
on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know
what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a
little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to
say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.”
Jam. 4:13-16
In the spiritual
realm, there is no “yesterday”, “today” or “tomorrow”, there is no “before” or
“after”, but there are only two positions - “in Christ” and “apart from
Christ”. Therefore, it does not matter what happened ten years ago when you
first entered the Kingdom, or half an hour ago when you were in the realm of
flesh because of unbelief – all that matters is where you are right now. It is
precisely this momentary position of yours that shapes your view of the future
- whether you see it hidden in Christ, or is it filled with the expectation of
future falls and defeats.
“Things in this world come and go –
they will never last
All that there is
just a moment, not more.
It lies between
all things future and all things past
This is our life
which is worth living for.”
Leonid Derbenyov
If I want to change
the present, it is to the present that I should direct my prayer. Prayer in
hope and prayer in faith are completely different types of prayer. Hope is always
focused on the future and grows out of a desire to have something that is not yet
there. But faith is always located in the present and focused on what it
already has, according to God’s promise; it looks like it can see the
invisible. And it is faith that ultimately does the job of bringing reality in
line with the promise. So in my prayers, I have replaced the expressions “I
want ...”, “Lord, give me ...” with the words of faith, “I have … in you”, “thank
you for ...”
Faith is an awareness of the reality of the promise, and the ability to act
upon this reality. Jesus is not awaiting us in our future to become our
freedom, victory and healing. He not just WILL, but IS the resurrection and
life. So asking “when?” while in Christ does not make sense because there is
only now in Him. This question constantly sends us into the future, endlessly pushing
aside the reality of the promise. When I realised this, I stopped asking God to
do something in the future – instead, I try to thank Him for the things I have
got. I believe Abraham began to live by the reality of the promise long before
his eyes saw Isaac. Some may say it is self-deception. But these people simply
fail to understand that the only true and unshakable reality is the Word of God
by which the material world was created.
But what about people
like Nick Vujicic? How can they live in the reality of the promise? In fact,
that is exactly how Nick lives. If he chose to live by always asking “when?”,
we would not know anything about him today. But he chose to live in the realm of
the Spirit. Contrary to his physical limitations, his faith began to reveal to
him opportunities, not obstacles.
In spite of my being hurt, I choose to believe in the reality of
forgiveness, so I willingly extend my hand to my offender. In spite of my pain,
I choose to believe in the reality of healing, so I am willing to step on my
sore foot. I do something within my abilities, while expecting that grace will
do the impossible. Grace is driven by faith and activated by it. Faith is an
application we place with God for a required amount of grace. Grace will not
take the first step for me. It will pick up and carry me when I take this step.
Calvinists will say,
“How is it possible? Is grace not the reason for faith (Eph. 2:8)?” Yes, it is,
but at the same time, Paul, a preacher of grace, writes that, without faith,
grace remains vain and inactive (2 Cor. 6:1). In Scripture, I see a synergy of
grace and the will of man. So my response to grace does matter. Faith is my
conscious choice to live in accordance with the reality of the Word of God.
Grace confirms this choice.
Live out our dream
“Live in harmony with one
another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low
position. Do not be conceited.”
Rom. 12:16
“In the very same way, on the
strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject
authority and heap abuse on celestial beings.”
Jud. 1:8
“For by the grace given me I say to every one
of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think
of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has
distributed to each of you.”
Rom. 12:3
“For we also have had the good
news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no
value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.”
Heb.
4:2
Dreams shaped by our imagination are a wonderful tool of the mind, which
allows us to look into a potential future. There are teachings and practices, such
as the “fourth dimension” and “visualisation”, which make events of the
material world depend on human imagination. They say, “Dreams come true! So
keep dreaming! If you dream hard and clearly picture what you want, you will
definitely get it.”
However, Scripture calls us not to dream, but to believe. In fact, it is
not the same thing. Dreams constantly send us into the future, while faith
deals with the present. Dreams not combined with faith are just barren human
fantasies. Those dreams come true that are supported by firm faith. Faith is
the substance of things hoped for, which means that my faith in the dream is
evidenced by my view of the present, by what I am doing now to bring the dream
to fruition. In fact, if the dream is true, and not just one of many items on
my “wish list”, it will constantly spur me to act in the present.
A woman received the
word that she would become a prophet. Fifteen years passed, but she never came
close to fulfilling this word. Why? Because this word did not become her dream
and was not combined with her faith. Perhaps she was simply impressed by
someone else’s word or example.
In the eternal
reality of God, there is no concept of “you will be”. Having chosen us from the
beginning of creation, God already saw us as those who we should be according
to His design. At a certain point in my life, He simply reveals to me who I am,
and from that moment on, I should start moving towards my destination, depending
on the level of understanding and opportunities available to me.
About twenty years ago,
I received the word that I would be a teacher. I imagined
myself preaching many times. On the way to work, I would often share out loud
one of my revelations with an imaginary audience. I read and wrote a lot,
outlined the books that touched my heart, and kept a spiritual diary. Then I
began to write articles with no good educational background, and I had to
rewrite the same phrases over and over again, honing my skill to express
thoughts freely and correctly. However, I never called myself a teacher and did not seek to take any
position in the church, trusting God to guide and develop my ministry. I just
did what my dream led me to. Today, many years later, I serve on a different
level with different opportunities, but I am still the person who I was from
the beginning in God’s plan.
It is finished!
All of my growing in
maturity is basically an attempt to break through my negative experience,
misconceptions, beliefs, attitudes, strongholds and false doctrines to one
single revelation expressed in just one phrase: “It is finished!”
All my attempts to
convince God to meet me halfway, take away the symptoms of my illness or lack
of freedom and ease my mental suffering is little more than an attempt to find
something in myself that I could offer God to pay for my freedom and prove to
Him that I am worthy of help.
Such is the greatness
and sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice that God will not lift his finger to add
anything to this sacrifice, or allow me to add anything to this sacrifice.
When my surety lays
out a billion rubles to pay off my debt of one thousand rubles to permanently
destroy any possible claims on the part of the lender, will it not be utter
madness and disrespect on my part to try to bargain a couple more rubles from
him or add them from your own pocket?!
Today, whenever I give in to doubt, I beg, “Oh Lord, come out to meet me!
Heal or free me or just do something”, He brings me back to faith with a simple
but firm phrase: “Everything is accomplished! It is finished!”
The source of my freedom is not in the past and
not in the future - it lies in an eternal and unshakable reality. Today my
ruthless and uncompromising struggle with my fleshly soul and with all the
demons of hell is reduced to this: I am breaking through to fully accept one
single phrase of Jesus on the cross, which, however, is so infinitely meaningful:
IT IS FINISHED!
It was revealed to me how I diminished
My Lord when at His table I would add
My worthless “yes but still” to that which he
called “finished”
And disregard the word he said.
Bottom line:
Pride, resentment,
anger, guilt and frustration are the effects of my consciousness being stuck in
the past.
Fear, envy and lust
are the effects of my consciousness staying in the future.
All this means that I
have fallen out of the eternal circle of life and lost touch with the reality
which is “Jesus is in me.”
Faith and love are the
effects of awareness of Christ’s presence and experience of eternity in every
moment of your life. I no longer allow my past and my future to rob me of my
present with Jesus. I have only one true reality – “now”, and I try to live it
out moment after moment to enjoy the unflagging bond with my Lord.
We cannot change the
past – let’s leave it the way it is (even if it was five minutes ago); the
future belongs to the Lord – let us not worry about it. The only time interval
available to us is “now” - we can live it either in faith or in unbelief,
according to the Spirit or according to the flesh. Right now we can accomplish
a lot in the Spirit because there is God’s perfect will for this very moment of
our life, which is available to us through faith, even though we did not abide
in it at the previous moment.
Therefore, the enemy
is constantly seeking to keep us in the grip of regrets about the past and
worries about the future, thus depriving us of an opportunity to influence the
present.
From the moment you
are born again, you become an eternal spiritual being, which means you are
called to live in the realm of eternity, live out the I am principle.
Start right NOW! Live
this moment in Him … And the next one … And the next one … The most important
thing to take away is this:
“What, then, shall we say in response to these
things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own
Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously
give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?
It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus
who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and
is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or
sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are
considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death
nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor
any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will
be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Rom. 8:31-39
A word from the Lord:
“If you have delivered your life into My hands,
you should also surrender control over all its spheres and aspects. This
includes health, provision, protection, well-being and the spiritual growth of your
wife and children. I love them much more than you do, and surely I know how to
take care of them in the best way in any situation. Today thousands of My
children around the world will enter My eternity one way or another, and I
certainly know how to take care of their loved ones, how to comfort them and sustain
their faith. I do not call you to give up the struggle, but I want you to look beyond
it and see My glory. I want to free you from the illusion that you have control
over something, and free you from the fear of responsibility to do everything just
in time or do everything right. Thoughts about the consequences of your own
decisions and worries about tomorrow rob you of the daily joy of talking to Me
and rob your loved ones of the life and love that I could otherwise bestow upon
them through you if only you focused on the moment that you have right now.”
Translator:
V. G. Saviankova
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