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As my mind became quiet these words came to mind.
“To come to
the knowledge of the truth.”
So I looked up this verse:
“who
desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1
Timothy 2:4
God doesn’t just want us to be saved but come
to the knowledge of the truth- to live in it, understand it, and hence- be
empowered by it! God’s truth is
not just some words on a page but guided empowered by the Holy Spirit liberate
soul from all that is in the world, others, and ourselves.
They usher us into a new way of seeing day
to day.
In paraphrasing what Pastor Antonio recently
shared with me from Mexico, “God is manifesting goodness in our life, not by
the limitations and strings of our conscious mind, but beyond.”
For me I was presented with a
picture. Our understanding is a
hallway of doors. Doors we have
opened, experienced and lived by.
But when we come to the end ourselves we are presented with a DOOR that
surpasses all the others doors of our understanding. And when this DOOR opens and by the grace of God- this
magnificent light floods our soul. It takes the blinders off, cleans,
clarifies, unshackles, and makes new what has been exposed to the elements of
this corrupted world. We desire
not the old doors but the ONE in which the light is pouring forth, the DOOR
that gave us something much more satisfying and liberating then all the other
doors that are were futile and ineffective. This is the DOOR in which we desire.
“I
know all the things you do, and I have opened a door for you that no one can
shut. You have little strength,
yet you have obeyed my word and did not deny me.” Revelation 3:8
I am reminded of this verse.
“May
you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully
understand it. Then you will be
filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians 3:19
Just as the miracle of our salvation
cannot be fully understood when we surrendered our life to Jesus Christ so it
is when we continue to surrender to God daily (sanctification). After all it is not we, (our strength,
our might, or our intelligence that was so easily enticed by the flawed and
fallen understanding) but the knowledge of truth working in our lives that
comes only by surrendering to Christ.
It is God and in God alone.
1
Thessalonians 5:23-24 says “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you
completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.”
C. S. Lewis wrote:
Let us picture a woman thrown into a
dungeon. There she bears and rears a son. He grows
up seeing nothing but the dungeon
walls, the straw on the floor, and a little patch of the
sky seen through the grating, which
is too high up to show anything except sky. This
unfortunate woman was an artist, and
when they imprisoned her she managed to bring
with her a drawing pad and a box of
pencils. As she never loses the hope of deliverance she
is constantly teaching her son about
that outer world which he has never seen. She does
it very largely by drawing him
pictures. With her pencil she attempts to show him what
fields, rivers, mountains, cities
and waves on a beach are like. He is a dutiful boy and he
does his best to believe her when
she tells him that that outer world is far more interesting
and glorious than anything in the
dungeon. At times he succeeds. On the whole he gets on
tolerably well until, one day, he
says something that gives his mother pause. For a minute
or two they are at cross-purposes.
Finally it dawns on her that he has, all these years, lived
under a misconception. ‘But,’ she
gasps, ‘you didn’t think that the real world was full of
lines drawn in lead pencil?’ ‘What?’
says the boy. ‘No pencil marks there?’ And instantly,
his whole notion of the outer world
becomes a blank. For the lines, by which alone he was
imagining it, have now been denied
of it. He has no idea of that which will exclude and
dispense with the lines, that of
which the lines were merely a transposition—the waving
treetops, the light dancing on the
weir, the colored three-dimensional realities which are
not enclosed in lines but define
their own shapes at every moment with a delicacy and
multiplicity which no drawing could
ever achieve. The child will get the idea that the real
world is somehow less visible than
his mother’s pictures. In reality it lacks lines because it is
incomparably more visible…. Our natural experiences (sensory,
emotional, imaginative) are
only like the drawing, like penciled
lines on flat paper. If they vanish in the risen life, they
will vanish only as pencil lines
vanish from the real landscape; not as a candle flame that is
put out but as a candle flame which
becomes invisible because someone has pulled up the
blind, thrown open the shutters, and
let in the blaze of the risen sun.
Living in
the knowledge of the truth is living beyond the dungeon walls of what we know
or understand. What made sense in
the dungeon walls no longer makes sense when we are exposed to the living
knowledge of the truth. Though we
live in the walls of this world, our reality is no longer curtailed to the
understanding of the world.
"If you belonged to the world, it
would love you as it’s own. As it
is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” John
15:19
Wisdom
“Happy is a person
who finds wisdom and gains understanding.
For the profit of wisdom is better than silver, and her wages are better
than gold. Wisdom is more precious
than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. She offers you life in
her right hand, and riches and honor in her left. She will guide you down delightful paths; happy are those
who hold her tightly. By wisdom
the LORD founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens. By his knowledge the deep
fountains of earth burst forth, and the clouds poured down rain.” Proverbs 3:14-20
Wisdom, how opposite it is of what most of
us think. It is not some old hardened
well- educated chap that has seen, heard, and experienced it all.
For wisdom is a child, you come by her
through the Gate (Jesus Christ), and she grabs your hand and pulls you in- to green
hills and lush green forests to the left.
You discover as you step through the Gate, you are no longer your age
but a child. Energy and a gleeful delight
fills your soul and bubbles up as you both run like the wind. Oh the joy of those who find wisdom and
take hold of her.
Jesus said to his disciples,
“Truly I tell you, unless you change
and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:3
I would say as we mature as children of
God our reality has no place to sleep and rest on the things of this world but
in God alone. And there the
banquets of fruit are produced and fill the tables of heaven.
The foxes that spoil the vine, the things
of the fallen world and fallen understanding, are caught and they are seen/exposed
for what they are- they are things that ruin what God wants to grow and prosper
in our lives.
Every single day of this life we stand at a door, knowingly
or unknowingly, where God asks, “Are you going to come in? Are you going to
allow me to show you a better way to live?”
Jesus said,” The thief cometh not, but for to steal,
and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they
might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10
The thief is the master of trickery…
Who would think by letting go of your life you would save it
or even find it but the thief wants you to keep it -that you might save it
but you know what Jesus says,
“If
you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me,
you will find it.” Matthew 10:39
As I thought about this I wondered how often does our
understandings often collides with God’s will in our life because we haven’t
surrendered it to Him fully.
Later I was reminded of a one of the books in my bed stand.
It’s a book written by Thomas a Kempis, called “The imitation of Christ”.
I looked at the table contents where I saw the title, “Pure
and Entire Resignation of Self to Obtain Freedom of Heart”.
I turned there (page 98)
The Voice of Christ
My Child, renounce self and you shall find Me. Give up your own self-will, your
possessions, and you shall always gain.
For once you resign yourself irrevocably, greater grace will be given
you.
The Disciple
How often, Lord, shall I resign myself? And in what shall I
forsake myself?
The Voice of Christ
Always, at every hour, in small matters as well as great- I
except nothing. In all things I
wish you be stripped of self. How
otherwise can you be mine or I be yours unless you be despoiled of (deprived/ relieved)
of your own will (disposition, bias, preference, partiality) both inwardly and
outwardly? The sooner you do this the better it will be for you, and the more
fully and sincerely you do it the more you will please Me and the greater gain
you will merit. Some there are who resign themselves, but with certain
reservation; they do not trust fully in God and therefore they will try to
provide for themselves. Others,
again, at first offer all, but afterward are assailed by temptation and return
to what they have renounced, thereby making no progress in virtue (morality,
integrity, righteousness, purity, goodness). These will not reach the true liberty of a pure heart nor
the grace of happy friendship with Me unless they first make a full resignation
and daily sacrifice of themselves.
Without this no fruitful notion lasts nor will last. I have said to you very often, and now
I say again: forsake yourself, renounce yourself, and you shall enjoy great
inward peace. Give all for
all. Ask nothing, demand nothing
in return. Trust purely and
without hesitation in Me, and you shall possess Me. You will be free of heart and the darkness will not
overwhelm you. Strive for this, pray for this, desire this- to be stripped of
all selfishness and naked to follow the naked Jesus, to die to self and live
forever for Me. Then all
vain imaginations, all wicked disturbances and superfluous cares will
vanish. Then also immoderate
(heavy, unrestrained, reckless, unwarranted, unbridled) fear will leave you and
inordinate (excessive care for self which causes unrestrained feelings or
behavior) love will die.
To come/live in the knowledge of the truth we must let go/resign/surrender
ourselves completely to the LORD in all matters in life that we might exist/abide/live-
liberated in CHRIST JESUS (who is the way, the truth and the life) – John 14:6.
Nothing exists without Him, no power, no peace, no life, no knowledge of the truth, no
liberation, no resurrection, no fullness of life, nothing satisfying
exists without Him.
No wonder why John wrote;
“ In him was
life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ” John
1:4-5
