Many people struggle over issues of legalism and licentiousness. What MUST I DO? What MUST I NOT DO? What constitutes spiritual failure? What constitutes spiritual success? Often there is torment for the ones who feel that they are unable to please God. Often there is arrogance in those who feel they please God more than others. Some seek to "know" their way into God's kingdom. Some seek to work their way in. Others seek to set everyone free from all responsibility by declaring freedom from the law. Then others try to make everyone responsible to all the laws and ordinances of Torah. Every group has a set of tenets and beliefs, rituals and priorities that they measure performance by. They frequently accept or reject people based on those things. It provides the impetus for our very existence in many cases, as we set ourselves in the place of the ones who are putting others straight. It is often extremely difficult to discern the Spirit of Christ in our midst. People begin to think that it is not possible to know Him. We begin to wander, adrift upon the limitations of our perceptions, measuring ourselves by ourselves and comparing ourselves with ourselves. Worse, we lose faith in the scriptures, feeling that all interpretation is comparative and elusive.
No one can interpret the scriptures for anyone else. We can only bear witness to what we have seen. Then we must trust the Holy Spirit to sift, expand and establish our understanding. We know that Jesus said that the Spirit, when He comes, will comfort us (not torment us), and lead us into all truth. The Spirit of God is not a spirit of fear, nor is He a spirit of confusion. He testifies to Jesus Christ, because the testimony of Jesus Christ is the Spirit of Prophecy. He glorifies Jesus and the Father, revealing them to us. All truth is centered in who God is(I Am That I AM) as revealed in creation and as revealed through the express image of God, Jesus the messiah(Before Abraham was I AM). The divine nature of God is both the revelation and the manifestation of God. If someone has a revelation of the divine nature(seeing who God is in His character) but is not growing in the manifestation of the divine nature(Christ in you the hope of glory), then that revelation has been interrupted at the critical point. Even then however, God is gracious and will find a way to redirect our seeking back to Him.
Believers are to be the means by which the divine nature is revealed to the world, Lamps shining in a dark place. The scriptures provide us with clues and keys to this reality of fellowship with God, but the scriptures cannot provide the reality of that fellowship. Many different and opposing groups stand on scriptures and they cannot all be "right". Yet, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Is this the fault of the scriptures? Well, in my mind, it cannot be. As my understanding has grown through the years I have become aware of my misunderstandings of scripture. The fallacy is in me, not the scriptures. If we fail to understand the hope we have secured in the scriptures we are cast adrift onto a sea of speculation. Yet, the scriptures are only a field in which we dig for treasure. There are treasures, and then there is THE TREASURE- a pearl of great price. When we have the ultimate treasure, we have a base value set for everything else. All values in this world are set by what men treasure. Where my treasure is, there will my heart be also.
The ultimate treasure is love. God is love. Jesus was the purest reflection of the love of God. He is the "radiance of the Father's glory and exact representation (express image) of His nature". "If you have seen me you have seen the Father. You will understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me". This pearl of great price is the beginning point for freedom from misunderstanding. It is the Rosetta Stone of the language of scripture. It is the key to open the unfolding matrix of truth in the scriptures. At the point where we leave the love of God; at that point we stop moving deeper in understanding and fellowship with God, and begin moving horizontally or backwards -out of revelation and into empty religion and philosophy.
Abraham manifested fellowship with God by sharing the sacrifice of a son. In this way he was the friend of God. This exceeds my personal understanding, but I know it is true, because Abraham was the model of the Seed to come from his loins, Jesus the Messiah. I personally cannot yet conceive of such friendship, but I believe it is the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus portrays this "union in sacrifice" as the essence of discipleship, Yet, for us this is difficult to receive, since we often cannot see the grace in it. We see it as ascetism and law keeping, rather than as a growing walk of fellowship in love, trust and grace. "Take my yoke upon you, for I am meek and lowly of heart and you shall find rest." Jesus expressed the ultimate love for His Father and the ultimate love for all men as His brothers at the cross in a free will offering- poured out in love. This was and is the perfect revelation of the Father's character- and His love for all mankind.
Peter writes that we are born again from an "incorruptible seed"(Christ the Logos) unto a fervent (sincere, pure, overflowing) love of the brethren. He explained that we have these great and precious promises "so that we may become partakers of the divine nature". The seed grows as we water it, walking in the Spirit. There are people who believe that the scriptures were written as separate revelations for different groups of people. I believe the scriptures are One Unfolding Revelation bringing all people into One Unified Reality. Yet they are only useful when opened by the one spirit of the one Lord. Whatever changes is growth from seed to stalk to full flowering and harvest. There IS truth and there IS deception. There IS light and there IS darkness. There IS peace and there IS war. Eventually though, all will be light, and God will be all in all, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things."
Jesus said the Spirit would take what was His and give it to us. This is a great key in moving from confusion to understanding and from frustration to fulfillment. Sharing a place of being as partakers of the divine nature through the Spirit of grace. Experiencing the pouring out as a manifestation of Christ in you the hope of glory, a fountain springing up from the deep, the Spirit of reconciliation.
As Jesus said, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Growing from seedlings to oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord; from babes to mature sons; is about love first, then the wisdom and the power follow by the Spirit. Love is the key that opens the fountain so that the Spirit flows up and out, not just as revelation, but as the manifestation of the divine nature. This is something worth digging for; worth pressing into; worth intercession and supplication.
Eph 3:14-21 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.