1
John 2:12-14 I
write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his
name's sake. 13I write unto you,
fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto
you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you,
little children, because ye have known the Father. 14I
have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the
beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and
the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.
We
know that 1, 2, and 3John are written to the Jews in the tribulation
relating to their life in the long promised kingdom on earth. But we can
learn from the entire scripture as being written for us in this age of
grace, so long as the issue does not conflict with our current dispensation
relationship in truth, taking anything from it or adding anything to it.
In this scripture I see
three stages of our understanding and relationship with Him. Looking back
upon my life it seems as though when I was first saved that, I still felt
responsible to drive the vehicle of my life and had no idea that He was
actually or literally indwelling me, let alone vitally concerned with my
life on earth. Oh yes, I said I had received the Lord as my personal savior
but I really did not know all that came with such a salvation. I only knew
that someday I could cash in my voucher and then receive eternal life, going
to heaven. It is only by the several crisis of my life that I’ve begun to
seek and see Him operating in my life such that I might come to know Him and
the salvation (Rom 5:10, saved, in Greek is “sozo”, meaning
“completed”) in my yet unrenewed soul.
It is was in the crisis
of life that I hit the wall and asked Jesus to help me, change me or change
my situation. Its as though I was inviting Him into the vehicle of my life
as into a car where I was doing the driving but in need of a little
guidance. Being younger then, He graciously obliged to meet me on that level
of understanding, for a time.
Finally, after more than
25 years as a Christian, I hit the great wall, recognizing that I could not
even drive my life’s car, even with His help. I could not make my life
work in a way that I might have peace and rest. I now see that peace
and rest is the gold standard of the Christian life. It is the unmistakable
marker of whether or not we are really living in and abiding in union with
Him. Oh yes, outwardly all seemed quite fine – job, money, family, etc.,
but there was an unfulfilled drive in me that never permitted me to have
rest. Hitting the wall at various times brought me to see that I not only
lacked peace and rest in my life but that the goodness that I thought I had
achieved was really that which came out of self-interest and self-love and
self-effort – and I was helpless to change that by my effort.
Now I had arrived where
I realized that my driver’s license had to be surrendered. First I had not
been aware that He was in my car at all, then I invited Him to assist me
from the passenger seat and now I see that He must be in the driver’s seat
- with the steering wheel out of my reach. He must drive (govern) every area
of my living.
Ah ha, could my becoming
detached from responsibility for the things of this world be the source of
rest I had sought – my being reduced to simply relying upon Him doing it
all and my going along with Him? Yes, that’s it.
The
question then is do I trust Him?
Can
I continue to trust Him?
Will
I like where He takes me in my life?
The answer is often I do
not yet entirely trust Him an area of life in which He is dealing with me.
Since it is He who is at work in my life by all the things that come my way,
then He is using the unpleasant daily circumstances of life to retrain my
appreciation for what is real satisfaction and for what is real joy.
My liking anything is
not the issue – I often have a fallen, distorted desire I my yet unrenewed
soul. I’ve had to see that He is not only God, but more than that, He is
my most loving and caring Father – He loves me as I am, and as He has
always known me in the most minute detail, in word and deed. Can I trust His
unconditional love and caring for me? I now see why it is that the Apostle
Paul prayed so many times for the saints to KNOW Him and all things as He is
related to us. The word “know”, most often in this regard, in the Greek
is the word “ginosko”, meaning, “to come to know by experience”.
It’s only in this kind of knowing, that we gain through our failure and
seeing His unconditional love, that we arrive at having a trusting
relationship, only then can His love blossom in our heart. Who can fall in
love with someone they do not know?
We must come to know
these items regarding our relationship with God, as Father.
- Know
the love of God,
- Know
the mystery plan that God would send His Son as LIFE, to be God’s life
in us, as the Spirit of life, to forever dwell in and with our spirit,
- Know
that there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ – as we
live in a new and rarified atmosphere of unconditional loving
acceptance,
- Know
that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
- Then
we note Paul’s focused prayers that the saints might know the riches
of the glorious inheritance within the saints,
- Know
that we are dead in Christ to the negative formerly associated with our
old man, … correspondingly then to come to know that we are alive by
Christ indwelling our spirit as our only life.
I see the above items as
necessary in order to come to enjoy and rest in a more intimate union with
Him. We’ll then find that the funny thing is He was there all the time;
but we just did not KNOW Him and His love for us.
We seem to grow through
3 stages as seen in 1John 2:12-14. Each stage is marked with a different
understanding or knowledge regarding our relationship with Him.
Stage#1 – the Christ FOR
you stage:
“I write unto you, little
children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.
… I write unto you, little
children, because ye have known the Father.”
Stage #2 – the Christ IN
you stage
I write unto you, young
men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.
… I have written unto you,
young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in
you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.”
Stage #3 – The Christ AS
you – Christ living in place of you stage.
13I
write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the
beginning 14I have written
unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.
In
Stage #1 – In the Christ FOR you stage - we are as little children and all
we know is that He is our Father God and what He has done for us
(sending Jesus to die in our stead), that our sins are
forgiven, the gulf bridged and He is our Father. These provisions are
objectively given for every human being ever created
- so long as they receive it. Christ dies once for all and to as many
as received Him – they are God’s children.
In
Stage #2 – In the Christ IN you stage - we are as young men. We have the
word of God (Christ is the word) abiding in us. Here we
have Christ in His fullness, but actually Christ does not yet have us.
Frankly. This is where we “use” Christ for our own reputation or glory
– to be someone in the church or in others eyes.
Yes, we love the Lord, but we still love ourselves much more. It’s
a sort of tithe – 10% for Him and 90% for ME. In this stage we have a
sense of strength given to us to do the work of God. We may do great
exploits and overcome the wicked one. For me it was a stage of casting out
demons and commanding the hand of the Lord in healing, etc. while being
somebody in others eyes. Great public prayers are spoken in this stage so as
to be recognized, gain approval and reputation. So this stage is marked by
arrogance, self-reliance and lawlessness toward the law of the Spirit of
life within. Yet, in His grace
He often met me in my ignorance, until He brought me onto a more intimate
union with Him.
In
Stage #3 – The Christ AS you – is Christ living in place of you. It is
here, after enough suffering, that we arrive at a knowing that is based on
the eternicity and all sufficiency of the “I AM” – and his elusive
rest that we have always unknowingly sought. It is here that we may enter a
rest never tasted by us before – it is the rest that remains for some,
those who have given up their works, even works they did for God. These were
works done out of self-love and ignorance. These are works done lawlessly
– not in accord with His divine life flowing through us. These are works
done out of our own sense of what God wants, by vain imagination. These are
works done while being separated from the intimate guiding life and light of
the indwelling life of the One who is from the beginning. Hebrews 6 calls
this dead works.
Now,
after many years His child, waning in me is the desire to be strong in
myself – insisting upon my way. In fact, I dare not trust myself. My
desire is that He will bring me to utter dependence upon my union with Him,
no longer depending on me, not attempting to lawlessly misuse His precious
life in me for my own objectives. The cost appears very great to one who
wants to be somebody in his or her self, but loss of control is the lot of
one who is crucified with Christ that He may be our life. I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by
the faith of (“of” Gk., ek, meaning out from and with) the Son of
God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20
If
we truly believed that we are crucified with Him and that now Christ is now
operating in us through all the pleasant and unpleasant circumstances of
life on earth, as our Father’s very best for us, then we would have a
irrepressible desire for His will at any cost, Then, why don’t we desire
His will? The fly in the ointment is our self-seeking. It is only in letting
go, ceasing our operation as an independent self, that we may enter His
rest. We may either carry the load (out of our self-seeking motives),
circumventing His effectual life in us or, we can deny our self-seeking that
He may carry the load and us where He wills, while we rest in Him. Most
often, we only let go and cease independent operation of our self by His
permitting us to “hit the wall” – something that we cannot fix or
change, which shatters our self-reliance.
These
three stages are the evolution of the decline or fall of self, now
permitting of Him to be all – as He is. Isn’t it true that a child is
the epitome of egocentricity – everything is for me? Everything relates to
me. We are full of ourselves. As we become young men and women we then add
some half-truth bible knowledge and half-baked teaching to our wonderful and
strong opinion of our born-again self. We embrace a take-charge state of
working to fix and recover the earth for God. Fortunately God knows the
thoughts and intents of our hearts even when we do not. He sees that we are
in that state which is incompatible with our union with Him – so He stands
off until we burn out in frustration and failure. Crisis is the only thing
that will cause us to give up our self-godhood, and will bring us humbly to
Him to a dependence upon Him who is all.
So
we see the progression is from being self-centered children and young men
“having it all” (we think), (we think), to being hopelessly needy of a
life that really can do it all – Christ’s very life. We finally give up
and turn to Him who has dwelt within our spirit all that time, but now He is
permitted to live through us – we are made fit for His use. It never
depended upon us – it always depended upon Him who loved us from before
the world began – from the beginning without a beginning.
Oh
the love of God. He must smile as He sees us in these stages with so much
flutter and getting nowhere. The organized church flutters over and over
with such pitiful results – all because they do not know and won’t let
go of their self-interest, to trust Him as the all-sufficient One. He knows
that the circumstances of our life will sooner or later turn us to Him. As
we run out of what it is that we think we have in ourselves, decreasing; not
because we decided to be humble, but because we have been brought low by our
loving Father to where we can drink the living water in the valleys of life.
Yes, it flows from its only source, the ascended resurrection mountain life
of Christ, but we will only avail ourselves of Him in the valleys. Hence the
land of our habitation is one of hills and valleys – that we might drink
of Him whose life flows out from our innermost being. <End>
