By Arthur J. Licursi

I’m writing pragmatically in this paper concerning what I call “God’s Unspoken Yes”. I refer to an understanding of how we, as the genuine, literal, birthed children of God, should have our daily walk in obedience to Christ’s indwelling, and yet live in absolute spontaneous freedom - quite apart from following outer religious laws or precepts (Rom 6:14). Paul tells us, in Gal 5:16, 25, that are to walk according to the indwelling Spirit of Christ’s life, not outer laws, and thereby to be free from sin’s power. We learn to walk by obeying the indwelling grace that we have by Christ in us, as our life, as we grow from children of God (Rom 8:16) to become the grown up sons of God (Rom 8:14).

Most Christians spend great deal of time and effort fretting and trying to determine God’s will for them in a particular decision they are about to make. Some wait for instruction from the Lord as to what they should do in a matter at hand. Time was that men of God did not have the indwelling Spirit of Christ and so they sought outer confirmation of God’s will. “But Now”, by the indwelling Christ (Col 1:26-27), I find that most often in my life, and I read in the lives of those giants of the faith who walk with the Lord, that He rarely tells us what He wants us to do, rather, most often, He faithfully lets us know what He does “not” want us to do. The affirmative doing is to be as of a natural inclination, while what we are “not” to do is known by an inward restraint that we have by His indwelling spirit, an inner knowledge that is similar to our conscience. His inward restraint is the “no” that we have within, such that we just “know” by as a inward sense; it may be a sense of limitation, a knot in our stomach that we sense as we consider doing this or that. Often the “no” is even be contrary to what we, in ourselves, would like to do in the matter – it is entirely a function of the indwelling sense that we have by Christ in us as our new life (Gal 2:20, John 2:20, 27).

I believe that Christians, as the birthed offspring of God their Father, are absolutely free to live, move and have their being in Christ, who is now their life (Col 3:4). We as believers are dead to our “old Adamic life”, so Christ is now our only genuine life (Rom. 6:4; Gal. 2:20, Col. 3:3-4). Our death, by our co-crucifixion in Christ (Rom 6:3), makes us free from sin’s power over our “old man” (Rom 6:6), permitting us now to spontaneously live by His resurrection life now resident in our spirit, as the life of our new man (2Cor. 5:17). 

We now, in fact, have Him as our life whether we succeed or fail in our doings from day to day. Allegorically, my own physical children are mine by my life in them, irrevocably, be they good or bad. We do have His life in this earthen vessel. So yes, at times we, “as” a so-called independent self, leave who we really are. We at times turn away from our Father’s life in Christ in our spirit, but we are still a child of our Father by His life, whether abiding with Him or apart from our Father; just as the prodigal son left his father, while still possessing his father’s life in his veins. Christ’s life in and one with our spirit is irrevocably our only life. At time, what we “do” may has nothing to do with who we are, since we may live beneath our true status in Him – we are a wok in progress so far as the renewing of our soul. Sometimes we choose to disobey and violate what we know (James 4:17) by the indwelling spirit of life; nevertheless we remain still His children, by a new birth – being born in spirit of His spiritual loins.  

My being birthed never physically was dependent upon anything I did. It was the result of the procreative work of my earthly father, Joe Licursi, and likewise my heavenly Father brought me to be who I am entirely by His work. All I did was receive Christ (John 1:12), the Father’s seed (sperma, 1Pet 1:23, Gal 3:16). When we turn away to disobey Him, we should ultimately come to learn that we are free also to return to abide our soul in Him who is our life (John 15:1-4), just as the prodigal ultimately came to himself and returned to his father. Our Father’s life in Christ is now in our spirit and that is where we return (John 14:23, Rom. 8:9a). We ultimately return to who we are at our core – birthed sons of God; in our spirit we enjoy Him as the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2) as our life (Gal 2:20). At our rebirth His indwelling Spirit swallowed up our human spirit, such that we are now “one spirit” (1Cor 6:17), which Paul very often refers to as “the spirit” (Rom. 1:9) - the one eternally mingled spirit. Imagine, God dwelling in us, as us! 

God’s life is spontaneous, innate, and intuitive and our spirit is now alive according as our automatic, new nature, with the “unspoken yes” of our Father. We are free to live, as our spirit permits us. Life always flows spontaneously, or it’s not life. A tree lacking the flow of sap is dead. Likewise, Christ is now our only life, He flows in us spontaneously. We’ll ultimately learn to know and not question this living, inner, intuitive sense that we have by His indwelling. It may in fact be contrary to the logic of our mind; after all, it’s of a life that’s deeper than our mind – It’s Christ alive in us. It’s the impulse of Him within our spirit. We have an anointing of His life that abides within us, by which we know and which teaches us and is the truth (read 1John 2:20, 27). We simply abide in His living unspoken yes by abiding in accord with (staying obedient to) His life flowing in us (Rom 8:4).

We simply love God our Father and His indwelling Son; and we freely live according to our love relationship with Him. “God’s No” however, is a spoken NO. He speaks NO first by the inner sense of His life attempting to restrain or suppress us from within. We are free to live according to the freedom we have in our spirit, so long as He does not restrain us by His spoken NO. So, we are not free to do as we will. Christ’s yes in us automatic by a sense of okayness, normalcy, but His NO, is known to us by a sense of distress within. We all must come to know and heed His spoken No within. How often I’ve ridden roughshod over His NO only to suffer the consequences. This is part of “learning Christ” (Eph. 4:20). The only Christ you can come to learn or know is the Christ who lives within you.  

Allegorically, our awareness of His unspoken yes within is much the same as when we are physically healthy, we are not conscious of any restraint in our body, we simply move spontaneously; but when we are ill or injured we feel a limiting sense of discomfort or restraint in body. Likewise, God’s unspoken yes is most often without a conscious sense; but His spoken No is known to us by a consciousness (Gk. suneidesis – meaning, a co-perception) of a sense within – perhaps a feeling of heaviness, a knot in our gut, or simply a inner restraint whereby we just know that we should not …”. Ours then, is to obey this living Word (Christ) speaking within us, whose will is best for us. 

If we neglect to heed His inner speaking of restraint as His No, God will be faithful to speak louder, perhaps by the words of others in our path of life of life, or by our circumstances that may be clearly saying, No! He is faithful to speak His inward spoken No to us, even by the mouth of two or three (2Cor. 13:1). If we still do not heed His inner restraint or His outer speaking, we are left to learn by bearing the consequences of our refusal to listen and obey. He will allow us to reap what we sow. 

I see it this way; the Father has made us absolutely free to live and learn Christ as our only life, by placing us in His God-ordained, large, protective pen of our life. Within its perimeter we can learn to live and move spontaneously in freedom in Christ. In the pen we will mostly learn by our mistakes, but we are never condemned (Rom 8:1) and these failings will not destroy us. While a young child is free to move about and is safe in a protective penned area, he may skin his knee but not be killed. If, however, we insist on jumping the perimeter fence, by refusing to heed His restraining inward No and the outer No, we will bear the consequences, as may a child who jumps the fence and runs into oncoming traffic. The consequences of free will choices may harm or even destroy the child in this earthly realm of living. All the while, whether in or out of the pen, He is still our loving Father and Christ remains the loving life within us.  

Examples of jumping the fence would be when we may refuse to heed Him by insisting on our own selfish way or seeking self-fulfillment by marrying a partner whom God has not chosen for us, and which may then ultimately results in abuse. Consider the child of God who, against God’s spoken No, partners in business with someone God has not chosen, only to wind up in prison together. Consider a child of God who will not listen to His inner No or outer No, and then puts a needle of drugs in his arm only to get HIV. This all leads to unnecessary harm and quite possibly a premature physical death. To this, Paul says the following.

“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 18Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart (a heart that only sees what it loves - self): 19Who being past feeling (ignoring the inner sense) have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness (covetousness for self). 20But ye have not so learned Christ; 21If so be that ye have heard him (learning comes by hearing Him), and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22That ye put off concerning the former conversation (behavior of) the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephes. 4:17-24, authors emphasis added in brackets). 

Thus, we are absolutely free to live spontaneously in God’s protective pen of life. We’re also however cautioned to heed His inward spoken No, that is to deny or put off our soulish self-desire, which is our old man’s habits of the unrenewed mindset of self-interest. This we do by heeding His inward spoken No; thereby we return and yield to Him within, abiding in His resurrection life in us, as our new man. <End> 3/12/04