May 2019
MS/ 67 SlSp 15
The foundations of my religious house were radically shaken during those few months. The shaking was so drastic that I knew the house was crumbling to the ground. At the same time my faith was strengthened. My spirit was increasing. Living faith was replacing religious repression. The building of a new "house" was in process and I was not the builder. I was being renovated to become a comfortable place for the Father to dwell and work. From this "house" he would love everyone in my world, even those who would "crucify" me. Father was preparing me.
MS/ 68 SlSp/ 16 [15 Korea reports]
Our body is well cared for from the womb on. The soul receives training in our education system. Even religious training is focused on the soul-mind, seldom on the spirit. As a result, our spirit is malnourished and stunted while our soul is well fed and strong. Our focus on doctrines and external behavior builds a barrier between our human soul and our human spirit. We deceive ourselves into thinking we are spiritual because we recite the creed and behave properly in public. That is what Pharisees did. That "righteousness" is religious fig leaves!
MS/ 69 SlSp 17
The Holy Spirit had begun the process of "dividing soul and spirit" within me through the living and abiding word (Heb. 4:12). I had been "rightly dividing the word" using my mental faculty. My soul was well trained to "operate" on the biblical text. But the table was turned when the "Living Word" rose from my operating table and strapped me down. The Word began to do surgery on me. He removed several blockages that were hindering my spiritual growth. My life was being transformed into his image from one degree of glory to another (II Cor. 3:18).
MS/ 70 FoB/ 1
Another problem was exposed. Ever since Luther the focus of many has been on man's faith rather than the one who creates faith. The reformers began to equate faith with believing doctrines. Believing doctrines is a mental act and can be done without input from the Spirit. Paul indicated that a direct word (rhema) spoken to the human spirit creates faith (Rom. 10:17). Faith is a state of "being taken" by the one who speaks a "word" which makes you "his own" (Phil. 3:12). Faith is being apprehended by and drawn by God into God's agenda.
MS/ 71 FoB/ 2
I had been trained to approach the Bible as a collection of doctrinal statements to be believed even if it doesn't make sense logically. Logic is not the criterion for spiritual reality, but spiritual reality is logical. Believing doctrines does not create New Life but it does create many divisions in the church. That should tell us something. The "word that comes" to an individual and which is "received" by an individual creates faith. Faith is not a work of man; it is a work of God (Eph. 2:8). Breaking away from "believism" and coming to faith was a long, painful process for me.
MS/ 72 FoB/ 3
My struggle with the meaning of faith exposed the fact that I had not yet fully realized the truth in my experience of Jesus' speaking to me in my spirit. That was the beginning of my becoming aware of the mystery of "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). But it was only the beginning. Faith is a response to an act of Christ apprehending us by means of a rhema word. Without rhema, there is no faith. But I continued to try to figure it out with my intellect. Our human response, or lack of response, can limit or impede the benefit the rhema has in our life.
MS/ 73 FoB/ 4 SlSp/ 18
Previous posts show that there are two sides to the event of hearing a word (rhema) of Christ (Rom. 10:17). One side without the other defiles the nature of the experience. One side is the fact of Christ speaking a rhema to an individual. The other side is the individual receiving the word and allowing that word to influence his or her behavior. If Christ speaks and no one actively responds, the word has no effect. If a person does what he or she thinks Christ wants, but has no word has been spoken, it is human activity without the Presence of Christ.
MS/ 74 FoB/ 5
The problem in hearing the rhema is related to the fact that the rhema is spoken in and to the depths of our person, to our spirit. Since most people live in their "outer man", they never hear the word spoken into their depths. One cannot talk and drink at the same time. We are so busy talking (or thinking) about what we know that we never get a drink from the river of life. I knew many things, but I was not drinking of the flow from above until my "surface life" was so shaken that I could no longer pretend I knew anything. I learned to listen more than I talk.
MS/ 75 FoB/6 TD 1
Resistance to going deeper into the things of God is normal. The depth looks like an abyss inhabited by hostile creatures. Nightmares are reflections of this abyss. That's why it takes such courage to pursue a deeper life. Surface life is more comfortable. My "outer man" wanted to remain in the deceptive security of my religious upbringing. But when your house crumbles from the earthquake of approaching revelation, you either despair or bravely face the demons blocking the way to spiritual maturity. I chose courage and encourage you to do the same.
MS/ 76 FoB/ 7 TD 2
Is it possible that the hostile "creatures" blocking our way to a deeper experience are more a matter of our perception than the nature of the problem? It may be that God himself in his holiness is insisting we deal with some issues before we enter this deeper place in him. "Our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29). An approach to this Holy God will annihilate that which is impure in our thinking and in our action. Perhaps we interpret God's resistance as demonic. Our concept of God as a "teddy bear" needs to be adjusted to include his terrifying holiness.
MS/ 77 FoB 8
There was another student who became my teacher. He was against all forms of authority, especially God. He took my Old Testament class because he wanted to argue with God, and I was God's representative. He disrupted every class he attended. His mantra: "How can a God of Love require bloodshed?" It bothered me that I was not able to touch him with intellectual answers. He continued his ranting the next semester. I lovingly rebuked him, and he backed down. That gentle, loving rebuke brought him to his knees accepting Jesus a few weeks later.
MS/ 78 FoB/ 9
The experience with the angry student (yesterday's post) showed that the issue of life is more about loving than providing doctrinal answers. Faith is "being held captive by Love" to such a degree that we love even when it is dangerous to love. That young man could've taken me out with one blow. He was a boxer and enjoyed beating people's face in. He was not drawn to a doctrine; he was drawn into a relationship with the God who is love. Faith is "being drawn into Father's embrace" rather than adopting a belief system. That became clear in this encounter.
MS/ 79 FoB/ 10 SlSp 18
The depth of Father's love dawned on me when that angry student was gripped by God's Love. Something in my spirit cracked open and was liberated from the domination of my analytical mind. Jesus said, "If you abide in (live by) my word... you will know the truth and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31:32). One is not free until his spirit is free from his dominating soul. You cannot think your way into freedom. The freedom I experienced did not come from believing propositional statements. It came through an encounter with Father's Love.
MS/ 80 TD/ 3
In those intense transitional times, I remembered that in my younger days I had thought, "How fortunate I am to be born into a family which is part of the only true church with a true understanding of the Bible." I began to realize that there is a feeling of safety in standing on doctrines. It is a false safety embraced by those who have not yet found freedom from the bondage of Law. It feels free but it is a demonic bondage because it is blind to its own predicament. Walking out of this bondage feels like moving into dangerous territory. It is.
MS/ 81 TD/ 4
The "Jesus revival" on the campus began to mushroom. Students were being saved, filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues. They were praying for healing and driving out demons in the dormitories. I was uneasy with the speaking in tongues, but I was traumatized by the demonic manifestations. I thought demons were all driven out in the first century. One of my graduate students came into my office. As I was talking to him, he slithered out of his chair and began writhing and hissing like a snake. The Spirit began "surgery" again, digging deeper into me.
MS/ 82 TD/ 5
The experience of the "slithering snake" catapulted me into a ministry to troubled people. Dick Sorenson and I had become friends. He had experience in deliverance, so he took me "under his wing" to train me in deliverance. The rabbinical saying, "the teacher by his student is taught," became a reality for me again. I was anxious about what we were doing because I knew what the church board would think. But my commitment to loving the students kept me on task. I was no longer focused on accurate information; I was focused on ministering life and freedom.
MS/ 83 TD/ 6
Yesterday I mentioned my commitment to love the students. Many of the students (and some of my colleagues) were not sympathetic to what I was embracing. My love for them failed to have its intended effect. I came to realize that the failure of others to receive love does not indicate the love is not real. God loves the whole world; the whole world has not received his love. God's love is measured by itself, not by its reception. Human love, even mixed love, is measured by itself, not whether it is received by others. We owe all men love (Rom. 13:8).
MS/ 84 TD/ 7
Divine knowledge and divine love are two sides of the same thing. God sees deeply what's there and loves anyway. "God so loved the world" full well knowing what he was looking at and knowing he could fix it. We fall in love and later discover things we didn't see in the person. Then we "fall out of love." Father fully knew what he was loving when he sent Jesus. When I began to "see" the demonic in others, I did not reject the persons; I said, "We can fix that." I was participating in God's love. I was abiding in God who is love as God was abiding in me.
MS/ 85 TD/ 8
One time while Dick was addressing a demon in someone, something crawled up inside me from below. It looked at Dick through my eyes. I sensed the words, "Does Dick see me?" issuing from this "thing." That freaked me out. I had become comfortable with the idea that others had demons, but I was not ready to face my own. This experience brought me to a more serious attitude toward the demonic world. I began to "see" demons behind every tree. I learned later that this is a common experience when one is first exposed to the demonic.
MS/ 86 TD/ 9
I was reading Watchman Nee's controversial book "The Latent Power of the Soul" at that time. He suggested that man was endowed with the psychic powers needed to fulfill his vocation of dominion. The word psychic threatens many, but it simply means "having to do with the psyche" (Greek for soul). The person (soul) who misuses that endowment invites the demonic. The person (soul) who submits that endowment to the Holy Spirit brings wholeness to those who receive his ministry. Some of the manifestations of that latent power we call miracles.
MS/ 87 TD/ 10 LS/ 1
Sacrifice is a part of life whether you are religious or not. We sacrifice one potential success for one that is more appealing. I could have become an actor or a musician. I have the potential for both. I sacrificed those potentialities to embrace a teaching career. But here I was resisting the call to receive a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit because I wanted to maintain my relationship with the denomination of my childhood. The inclination to reject a deeper walk with God for the sake of a superficial relationship with men is a sacrifice to the demonic world.
MS/ 88 TD/ 11 LS/ 2
Idolatry can be defined as sacrificing something of eternal value for something of temporary value. When we value anything above the true God, we invite demonic influence into our space. I was placing my relationship with church leaders above my relationship with Father who came to me in 1957. If I had continued entertaining that demonic tendency, I may have come under its power more than I already was. The tormenting anxiety I was experiencing was related to the demonic presence I had allowed. I did not yet see the source of that anxiety.
MS/ 89 TD/ 12 LS/ 3
It is easy to say we love God and desire his will until that commitment requires us to sacrifice what we hold dear. With me it was prestige of position and pride in my knowledge (among other things). With many of the students it was a desire for freedom from authority. With others it was the desire for freedom from responsibility. They wanted to blame others for the trouble they caused themselves. "Saving face" is a major opening for demonic strongholds. Our enemy does not care what we place before God as long as we place something there.
MS/ 90 LS/ 4 OA/ 1
Anxiety is a function of the awareness that we are temporary here and that we are powerless to change that. That anxiety urges us to look for some way of securing our historical place. I felt like time was closing in on me. I did not want to lose the "feeling" of security of my position (place) in the social religious structure. Jesus had courage to accept his limited time here and the fact that his popularity would be taken away from him. He knew his time was up, but he was secure in his Father. For our sake he sacrificed his right to maintain his life of popularity.
MS/ 91 LS/ 5 OA/ 2
I was anxious over losing my place in the society which had been my "home" from childhood and over my time coming to an end in the move of God in that place. I was trying to save my soul-life. Our time here is limited and our "place" here is never secure; there are many things that threaten our existence. The threat is experienced as the abyss, the valley of the shadow of death. If we have not learned to be aware of his presence with us in that valley the anxiety will overwhelm us. I knew I must be willing to sacrifice my right to a place in that society.