May
14, 1988
Dear
Friends and Relatives in Christ,
Greetings
in Jesus from S. Carolina where it seems right for
me to write you again. Part of my calling and
gifting is to share with you in writing that which
the Lord gives me. Much of what God gives me arises
in response to personal encounters and
correspondence I have with certain of you. Sometimes
what He gives me from one of you I feel would
benefit many of you. Such is the case today.
One
of our brothers in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, wrote me
in response to my first circular letter last month,
specifically desiring to know and be known by all of
you. So that you can develop relationship with him,
I will quote an excerpt from his letter to me—and
then, after comments, will quote from my response to
him—things which I believe will profit you all:
Now this next thing I am
going to tell you will probably confuse you, so
get ready for this one. It seems that the Lord has
made a way for us to build a house on a piece of
land that my father gave me. It is about ten miles
from Dartmouth near the beach. The construction
would be of stone causing the structure to be
inexpensive to build and with very little
maintenance (also no money borrowed to do it.)
This is very strong on my heart, so I would like
you to pray that the Lord will move our hearts in
the right direction concerning this. I do not want
to be wasting my time doing something to satisfy
myself at the expense of my calling. As I was
saying earlier, this would be a step to enable us
to travel and not have money tied up in a place to
live…
So Chris, feel free to
speak into our lives what you see about these
things I’ve written.
P.S. This house would be
being built with the intent to accommodate
traveling Christians, and ministering in the area.
In
our brother’s letter, he mentioned that I might be
confused because the Lord was telling him to build a
house. He said this because he knows I have been
given the message from the Lord that world human
rebellion began when man started building with brick
and mortar, and God’s general word to the church in
North America today is that we ought to be looking
for ways to abandon fixed ways of living and
prepare for life-styles of mobility so we
can fulfil the Great Commission.
This
creates a seeming contradiction between God’s Word
to me for the overall body, and God’s personal word
to him. The following is an excerpt from my letter
to him where I deal with this apparent
contradiction. I believe this will also help you in
dealing with any situation where you know
what God’s general will for the Church is,
yet you feel God is telling you personally
to move in a direction that seems to contradict
his broader will for the Church. Here then
is my letter to him (with additions for clarity):
&&&&&&&&&&
If I don’t write you
anything else in this letter, I want to write you
about your house-building situation. Here is what I
want to tell you:
1.
The
bottom line of all we do is determined by what God
is telling us to do personally and specifically,
whether it lines up with our framework of
understanding God’s general pattern or not. but…
2.
God
has a general pattern, a general will, a general
progression and direction of His purpose for His
People ministered through a broad revelatory word
by His prophets.
The general revelation
serves as a framework against which the more
“fluid” personal revelation can be tested,
established, carried out (even as living flesh and
blood is established on a skeleton). The general
word provides discipline for establishing God’s
personal, specific word to you.
Otherwise, our personal
revelation only reinforces our overall lawless
ignorance concerning the purposes of God for His
People. We will use personal revelation to
reinforce our place in the world instead of
thrusting forward into God if we don’t test it
against the general word.
The Ice Cube Tray
Let me illustrate: To make
ice cubes, you need an ice cube tray. The tray
provides the shape for the cubes until the water
freezes and can stand on its own as a cube. Now, if
you just dump water into the freezer without the
tray—it will still freeze, but it will be in a
useless mass, conformed only to the shape of the
bottom of the freezer. You can’t put it in your
drink.
Now—the water represents
God’s specific, personal, living will for you of the
Spirit.
The ice cube tray represents
the general revelation that provides the framework
of God’s forward purposes for His People for supporting
His personal will until His personal will
can solidify in our lives according to the
shape of His purposes for His Body.
The freezer represents the
world and our ties to it. It is in the context
of the world’s atmosphere that God molds us by His
revelation—the freezing. But in speaking to us
amidst the world’s atmosphere, He intends for us to
become shaped according to the form of His Purposes
for His People (the ice cube tray), not
according to the shape of the world itself (the
freezer)!
Here’s the application: I
have issued a general revelation for the
disciplining of the body of Christ. In lawlessness,
the world says, “Build houses and settle in for
a long stay. Make yourself permanent here.” (This
is the shape of the freezer).
But the general revelation
says “No! Do Not Settle! Do not make houses to
yourself to reside permanently here.” This is
the general word to the body (the shape of the
ice-cube tray.)
Now comes the water—the
specific word and will of God to each person. Some
are told to build, others to move—all in specific
seasons. No one settles forever, no one moves
forever. There are fluid seasons of
both.
But the issue is—to which
shape is our specific word conforming us? To the
tray, or to the freezer itself? Without “ice
cube tray revelation” that says “Do not
settle,” those who receive the living fluid
word from God to build a house will build it
according to the world’s call to “make yourself
permanent.” They will reinforce their basic
evil tendency to settle with the world.
But— if you pour God’s word to
you for building into the tray that says “Don’t
settle”—if you test your fluid word against
the disciplinary word, and it still remains in
your heart—then you
know it is from God—you know you are
not satisfying your worldly lust to settle like the
world, and you can be confident that your house will
be a useful ice cube in the plan of God to set
others free from their disobedient settling!
That is how God works.
Sometimes we employ the
things of the world to gain freedom from the world
system itself. Under such conditions, it is all
right to be involved with something of the world—but only
under such conditions.
The general revelation I
have issued about forsaking brick and mortar is a
hard word. It is given to a disobedient
Body-at-large who is building to settle in the
world.
But to those who are obedient
already—whose hearts are not settled in the
world—but who use the things of the world to get
free from it—this lawful
revelation has no application.
(Remember—the law is only for lawbreakers,
I Tim. 1:9).
So if they build, it is out
of higher obedience to the will of God for
them—their hearts are not attached to the house,
they’re ready to leave it at a moment’s word. Their
only purpose in building is to help someone else get
free from building or settling. But they are not
reinforcing their lust to settle.
Most of the Church (99.9%)
is lawless and disobedient concerning this word Do not settle.
That’s why the word has been issued—to set before
the body a standard that may expose their
disobedience.
But once they act to change
their hearts, to confess their sin, renounce their
settling—then they are obedient. The word of law
no longer applies. Should God yet tell them to
build, they can be sure it is God, not them—for now,
for them to build is governed by their awareness
that they are not to settle and it is no longer a
reinforcement of their lust to settle…. (Review
the secttion about Law and Grace in my manuscript
Labour Not for the Meat That
Perishes).
Does this help you
understand your relationship to whether you should
build a house? I hope so. Although this word against
settling is directed to the disobediently settled
body of Christ in N. America, if you know in your
heart that your desire is to be obedient to this
word form God, yet you have tested it and still
heard God telling you to build a house, and you have
established as your motive for building the purpose
of setting others free from disobedient
settling—then BUILD!—
And when you build—do so
discreetly, ie, do so with regard to the word you
know against settling. Build in such a way that
prepares you to leave it at a moment’s notice. Be
not seduced out of your pure motivation for
building.
And if it is an area of
struggle for you, expect God to test you in this
as you go. (Expect spiritual fire drills!) He will
challenge you to lay it down like Isaac to be sure
it is really of Him. Then, in all other things,
build in such a way as to hear testimony to all
who see your house that it is a place that does
not promote settling! (One good way to see
to this is to be sure your house is always open to
traveling pilgrims! He. 13:2)…
The Ladder
Everything I’ve had to say
here really boils down to one principle. It is not
that having or not having something in this world is
inherently right or wrong—but that in all things,
our goal in whatever we do have is to get
free from our heart attachments in the world
and to free others. Whatever we do have, we are to
use toward the goal of freeing ourselves from having
to have anything.
Let me give you another
illustration. To get from the ground to the roof of
a high building, we need two things: 1. a
ladder, 2. force of upward energy to climb it.
The ladder is not an end in itself, but a means to a
higher end. At the same time, energy alone without
the latter is not enough. The building is too high
to jump. We need the ladder’s help.
Application: The ground
represents our fleshly attachments to the world. The
roof represents our complete perfection in
God—totally free from all earthly attachments. The
ladder represents our continuing involvement with
earthly things in this life. It represents our use
of them (but not attachment to them.) Our
inner physical energy to climb represents our faith.
Our upward progress represents our faithful
forsaking of earthly attachments to come up into God
Himself—living by faith.
Now here’s the point. To get
to the roof, we still need the ladder of involvement
with earthly things. Our faith isn’t strong enough
to leap to the top, but must be exercised up the
ladder of involvement with earthly things. That’s
why we are left in earthly bodies to deal with
earthly possessions—until our faith is developed to
the point we can break out of these earthly bodies
altogether and indeed come into God.
At the same time, though,
the ladder of earthly things is no end in itself.
But by our involvement, we find that each rung helps
us leave the ground behind—ie, our attachment
to anything. Each rung provides a
point for upward thrust, helping us leave earth
itself behind.
Earthly ladder rungs serve
to nullify our relationship to earth altogether!
They serve to their own undoing. But they are
necessary. They help our developing faith. But we don’t
use the ladder to reinforce our attachment to the
ground. We don’t use earthly possessions to
reinforce our attachment to earth. We don’t “camp
out” on any rung. In reaching for a higher rung, we
are already determined to leave it before we get
there.
We use each rung just long
enough to gain stability and then we push off it
with our faith. So we climb ever upward.
All this is to show the true
place of possessions and involvements in this life
as we pursue God—not to clutch them, not to build
for ourselves a more secure place in this life—but
as helps to our faith to be disposed of eventually
until we finally “attain unto the resurrection”—our
high calling (Phil 3:11-14). This is the ultimate
goal of all our faith and prayer for earthly things.
Without them, we can’t get there. But they are not
the end toward which we strive.
So again—it’s not wrong to
have certain things or build a house. These are
necessary in their season to set us free from other
dependencies—But just so long as we remember what
they are for!
The big problem in the
Church is that we camp our on certain rungs of the
ladder. We insist we have to have certain things,
taking the blessings God meant for our liberation
from the world to reinforce our slavery to the
world! And of course, in this part of the world
where material life is good, the Church has the
greatest problem with this. Instead of using what we
have as a means to get free, we use it to retrench
our commitment to building the world’s systems and
our own personal empires—all in the Name of Jesus.
(By the way, everything
I have said here about earthly possessions also
applies to spiritual knowledge and understanding.
All we understand of doctrine or revelational
knowledge by any means is as rungs on this same
ladder. We use it only to get free from our
dependence on understanding and come into the
Lord’s personal fullness! It is not for us to camp
on our knowledge and exalt ourselves through our
books.)
The Simplicity of Church
These are the things I
wanted to share with you. I hope they make enough
sense to set you free from them! As for your
comments on George Warnock’s book “Feed My Sheep”—I
concur. His words are well put and worth meditating
over. How simple
Jesus meant Church life to be. The first apostles
started with life
and then gave definition to it as they went—giving
us understanding of offices and callings, etc. But
we do the opposite. We try to start with their
definitions and then produce life
—and it doesn’t work. We major on defining offices
and callings and ministry and then try to bring
about life.
If we want to truly be New
Testament, we need to start with life
wherever we have it and then let it define
itself through us.
All of us have specific
calling from God. Our job should be to come into our
calling and thereby help others come into their
calling. But what do we have? We discover our
calling, then we build a big house of organized
wood, hay and stubble around it—then we try
to get everybody else into our house! (This is
how all television ministry
functions).
What would happen if we
instead devoted what we have learned of our calling
to invest it in helping others find their
calling? Then you would really see the
grassroots Church catch fire and come alive all over
N. America. Well-mark it down. The end of the
big-time centralized ministry is at hand. No more
getting everybody else to build our calling (Through
their checks and Visa/Mastercard
pledges!)
We’re going to get back to
simplicity. I will be me—and you will be you—and I
will take what I learn of my calling to help you
find yours. Simple relationship—no
more emphasis on offices, etc…. And that is what the
next revival will be all about. That is the stuff it
will be made of. No more faces of big name preachers
prostituted over magazine covers, glossy literature,
and public airwaves. The real fame that will come to
anybody will be as it was with Jesus—by word of
mouth, ie, testimony, according to the
personal works of the Spirit through them.
[end
of excerpt]
Recap
And
now in closing, I turn to all of you to say: Don’t
miss the two lessons you have just read about in my
letter to our friend—the “ice cube tray: and also
“the ladder.” If you didn’t understand them the
first time, go back and study them til you do, for
they are universal and you will be learning to live
by them as long as you remain in your present body.
Don’t
forget the
“ice cube tray.” There
are two kinds of revelation over a varying spectrum.
There is “hard”
revelation
and “soft”
or “fluid” revelation.
Hard revelation
represents all revelation that has gone before you
(like Scripture), revelation that applies to you
generally (like a general prophetic word to the
church), or any other
soft revelation
that has already become part of your being (like
God’s earlier revealed persona will for you).
Soft revelation
is the immediate personal revelation of God to you today—His living
Word
to you
(“daily bread”).
It may or
may not appear
to agree with
hard revelation
of some form, but in any case needs to be
established by it. If it agrees right away, good.
If the soft revelation
appears to disagree with the hard revelation, be
sure first
of your obedient spirit to the hard revelation.
That spirit releases you from the requirement of the hard revelation (“law”) so
you can move by
faith according
to the soft
revelation,
insuring you are moving by the
higher
obedience of
grace, not in rebellion against the
hard revelation. (Study
acts 10)
And
don’t miss the lesson of the “ladder.” All your
life you will be dealing with created things
(inside you and outside you). But the end of your
dealing with them all is to lead you into the
Creator Himself. None of them are ends in
themselves.
Now
you do need them. You can’t come to God
without coming over your successful dealing with
these things. (He’s just too high!) But
God is
the end, not the things, not the
vision, not the ministry, not the
answered prayer and manifestation of your faith.
Never use
the creation to reinforce your heart’s ties to this
world with its systems, Never
to settle. Its purpose is to undo
your relationship to natural life and bring you in
to union with the Father.
Everything
from building a house to God’s mystical revelation
for your life is a means,
not and end—it
is a means to bring you into God Himself. Use
it that way! (I Cor. 7:31) You must
use it (There’s no “holier” way around
it). But only use it. And so fulfil
John’s admonition, “Little children, keep
yourselves from idols.”
Every
time you embark upon and engage a new turn in your
life here, whether to build a house like our friend,
or to leave a house; whether to enter a
Spirit-anointed miracle ministry, or to leave one—Remember
this word, and you will survive to stand
before the Lord and obtain His Praise!
Let’s
make every mortally-perceived awareness count!