The Revelation of Christ Within

One of the greatest needs that we have today is to have revealed to us a revelation of Christ within us. I understand that we all know that Christ is in us, and we even experience it more in these days than ever before. However, we still need a fuller, broader vision and revelation of what Christ is producing in the very center of our being. We must learn to identify with the Christ within us, rather than the Adam that is so predominantly prevailing in most of us even in this present day.

Unless we learn to not identify with Adam, and instead begin to turn and focus all our attention on Christ within, we will always be in a warfare with Adam. I don’t believe that battles are won by the typical warfare consciousness that we have been taught. And we certainly know that we cannot, with Adam, crucify our flesh.

I pray that God will impart to us a revealing of the Spirit of the Word. If we can just understand some of these basic, simple truths, our lives will change forever. We can begin to have a fuller experience of turning to the resurrected spirit of Christ that we all know is within us, and we can learn not to identify with Adam.

I was taught 30 years ago that the old man was crucified with Christ. We have had that knowledge for many years. Now that is not our experience, but that is the truth, and as God unveils and reveals to us the truth that our old man was crucified with Him, the struggles and the warfare are pretty much over.

One glimpse of the revelation that Adam no longer has dominion over us will bring a lot of freedom to our lives. There are so many distractions in the church, and we have been taught so many things that hinder our spiritual progress, our inward journey, and one of those teachings that has really caused a lot of confusion and has caused a lot of saints a horrendous amount of difficulty is the teaching about spiritual warfare.

We have taken one or two Scriptures and built the whole concept of spiritual warfare and fighting with devils and demons. For instance, we have been taught that there are principalities and powers, that there are demons over our cities. When I first came to the Northwest, I was told that the demonic principalities and powers in the Northwest are stronger than anywhere else in the United States, and that’s why there is such darkness prevailing in the Northwest. This teaching is predominant.

Have you ever attended spiritual warfare classes? I have. You are taught how to fight and how to do warfare with all these demonic influences, and I want to tell you, that is one of the greatest distractions that you can get into. The demonic influence in Christianity has been so perpetrated, that most Christians are always in a defeatist attitude, thinking that Satan is out to get them. For instance, we are taught that we must pray for our children before they go to school, we must bind all the demonic influence. We have built, in people’s consciousness, a God who is so limited and so powerless that we have to constantly be on guard and be in fear that the demons will get our children.

The biggest problem with spiritual warfare is this: We get our attention on an enemy that is outside of us, and we set our goals on praying and binding, and doing all of this warfare out in the airwaves, and we totally miss the enemy that is tearing us up on the inside. Your enemies are not devils in the airwaves. In fact, your enemy is not Satan himself. Your enemy is all of those things in your natural man, such as anger, bitterness, hatred, and lust. All of those things are your enemies. And so if you are taught spiritual warfare and all of your warfare and your prayer is toward an enemy outside of you, you can imagine what happens. The only place the enemy has any jurisdiction and control is right between our ears. That’s why Paul admonishes us to renew our minds.

The Treasure in the Earthen Vessel

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us" (2 Cor7. 4:6-7).

That’s a powerful statement. The treasure in the earthen vessel. I once read a statement that Watchman Nee made, and he said that there is no vessel so earthen that it cannot contain the treasure. Every one of us has the treasure, which is simply the Seed of God, and no matter how earthen we are, or no matter how earthen we see each other, we must know that in that earthen vessel is the treasure. We need to constantly minister to one another with the thought in mind of ministering to the treasure in the earthen vessel, that the power may be of God. The power to live godly is by the power of the Spirit of God. The power that we need to live the Christian life is simply the hidden treasure in the earthen vessel.

In the Seed of God is everything that you need to live godly. A friend of mine found some old seeds that had been around for a long time, but as soon as they were planted and watered, they began to grow. Some of us have had the Seed of God inside of us for many years, and we have been very religious, but we have not had a lot of spiritual growth. The moment that you begin to have an understanding of some of these simple things, that you have the treasure regardless of the earthiness of your vessel, you can then begin to learn to turn to God in the midst of any situation, and you don’t have to feel like it, you just have to do it, and you will find that the more you learn to turn to the treasure in your very own being, the treasure in you will begin to shine brighter and brighter.

God Has Called Us Out of Darkness

"But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of him, who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9).

We saw in the earlier passage that He has caused the light to shine out of the darkness. The very light of His presence shines out of our darkness. And He has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. As long as we are having anything to do with Adam, we remain in the darkness. However, the moment we turn to the Spirit of Christ within, we begin to get light, we begin to sense the peace, we begin to sense the flowing of that light.

God has called us out of darkness. I started this series, Coming Out of Darkness, based on what Paul told the Ephesians, "This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart" (Eph. 4:17-18).

To walk in the vanity of our mind is to walk according to the Adamic nature, which is alienated from the life of God within us. Coming out of darkness is simply a matter of understanding the treasure in the earthen vessel and knowing that you, moment by moment, exercise yourself to turn away from Adam to the treasure within.

"For this cause we also since the day we heard it do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness" (Col. 1:9-14).

I always love to find verses that put the responsibility and the initiation upon God. It is His power that causes us to be godly. It is His power working in us that causes us to begin to walk in holiness. "Giving thanks unto the Father, which has made us able to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col. 1:12).

There is so much in Scripture about darkness and coming out of darkness and being filled with His light. Jesus said, "You don’t light a candle and put it under a bushel" (Matt. 5:15). I used to think that meant we had to go out and preach the gospel to everyone so that they could see our light, but no, the light of God just shines from us wherever we go. Without you ever preaching the gospel, people can sense the love of God. In a market, on the street, on the job, wherever you go, people sense the light of God.

I worked at NASA for about six years, and I used to go in about an hour before any of the other people got to work, and I never bound any devils, I never cast out any demons, I simply went there and began to release the anointing of God, the light of God. I used to walk up and down the hangar every day for about an hour, and I would just pray in the Spirit, and I can’t tell you the change that took place, first in me, but then even in the people that I worked with, without me ever preaching the gospel.

"Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son" (Col. 1:13). That’s a powerful statement. Do we really believe it? If we have been delivered from the power of darkness, then why do these demons in the airwaves have so much power over us? How can they subdue our cities? Do you know how that can be? If you get a group of people to strongly believe in anything, do you know what’s going to happen?

Whether we realize it or not, we are created in the image of God, and whatever you strongly believe in your heart and you confess with your mouth, that is going to become your experience. And if you are taught and you believe that the devil and the satanic influences have so much power over you, and you have to be in so much fear, then that is going to be your experience.

But the Scripture plainly says, "He has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son." I used to read that, and yet my experience was totally the opposite. However, I found out that believing is not faith. Believing is a choice, and when you find out the truth, you don’t have to feel that it’s the truth, but you can believe it and act accordingly. /*Experiencing God’s Word

I read some of these verses, that I had been translated out of the power of the darkness, and then I looked at my experience and it was totally opposite of that. I seemed to be full of all kinds of darkness. The truth is, that God, by the power of His Spirit, has quickened us, and we have been translated, transferred out of that kingdom of darkness and placed into the Kingdom of His Son. Now you can choose to believe that, or you can choose to believe your experience, and if you continually believe your experience, it will always be your experience, but if you choose to believe what the Scriptures say, and what God speaks to you, then you will experience His Word coming alive in you.

God has to speak these things to you. And if you really believe that this is God’s Word, and you read or He speaks to you, "You have been delivered from the power of the darkness," then faith comes in simply by choosing to believe what God has said, regardless of what you experience. You can know that your experience is a lie, and you can begin to believe, to meditate, and to walk and to talk according to what God has said. I have experienced this time and time again.

I have not, for years, had to fight a devil outside of myself. The devil gives me no problems. Absolutely none. The only problems I have are those areas in my flesh that still rise up. The only place the devil has in me is those areas in my soul that have not yet been transformed. The devil outside of you is not the problem. You overcome simply by believing and by talking to God, by confessing what God says (this is not the old name-it-and-claim-it, but in a sense it is, because what you believe, you are going to talk about, you are going to confess).

One day God said to me, "Gary, what do you believe?" I said, "Well, God, I believe you." He said, "No you don’t. Listen to how you talk." I used to say, "Lord, when you come back, I know I’ll still be doing this, I know I’ll never change." I used to tell people that I can’t do it, that I know I’ll never change. He said, "You don’t believe me, because if you did, you wouldn’t talk like that." This is why we need to be still. You need to take the time to be still, and God will begin to speak some things to you. And so He revealed to me that if I really believed Him, I would think and talk like it.

I stopped talking negative, and without feeling it, still having the problems and some of the habits, I started talking like this: "Father, I am so thankful that you have transferred me out of the Kingdom of darkness. God, I am so thankful that the power of your Spirit is operating in my life. No, I don’t see much yet, but I do believe, because belief is not a feeling; belief is a choice. Choose this day whom you will serve. It is not a feeling; it’s a choice. And so I say Lord, I choose to believe your Word."

That’s when He began to take me through Scripture and reveal some simple things that changed my life. We sometimes read the Word and it just kind of goes right over our head, because it is not our experience, and what is not our experience is very hard to relate to.

God Has an Inheritance In Us

The Apostle Paul says, "We cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints" (Eph. 1:16-23). What is the hope of His calling? The hope of His calling is that He might fill every area, every avenue of my thought and brain. God wants to totally possess me.

God has an inheritance in us. Paul told the Corinthians, "You are God’s husbandry." The word husbandry actually means a farm, a place to plant and to grow things. Paul said, "You are God’s husbandry. I planted, Apollos watered." We are simply a garden. Remember where Adam was placed in the very beginning? We are a garden within ourselves, and in our garden, God is producing all of the loveliness of His attributes. Everything that He is, He is producing from that Seed of His life. Everything is there in the Seed. It’s predestinated, and it’s pre-programmed to reproduce The Kingdom of God within us.

If you have a grain of corn, you can set it on a chair for 20 years, and then plant it, and it will grow. The only reason we haven’t grown is that we have been fed religion rather than life. We haven’t understood that we walk according to faith and not by sight. Faith is not a feeling. It will become a feeling. I have some wonderful feelings in the Spirit of God, but faith always precedes feelings. You don’t always feel like something in order to make the right choices and go for it.

"And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places" (Eph. 1:20).

Now again, these verses are telling us that we should know the exceeding greatness of His power, and it is the same power that He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. So what this is telling us is that when Jesus breathed on His disciples on the day of resurrection, and when He breathes upon us, we receive everything that He is, but it is in seed form. This is why Peter said that as newborn babes, we desire the milk of the Word, the pure nourishment of the Spirit.

"And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:22). I like the way the Amplified version says this. It says that the Church is His body, who fills everything, everywhere, with himself. Can you believe these verses? You can’t, if you keep looking at Adam. If I look at Adam in you, I’m not going to believe these verses, but there is a real key here. We have to stay in God’s presence until we see Christ in us, because until we do, we can’t see Him in anyone else.

Once you really see Christ in you, and you begin to walk in that experience of Christ not only being in you, but beginning to grow up, and you begin to sense the love that He has for humanity, then everyone you look at, you can see Christ in. You can see past Adam. God never looks at Adam. God has said some of the most beautiful things to me, such as, "I don’t see you where you are; I only see that which I am producing in you. I only see the garden in you that is growing all the lovely things of the Spirit." It is by His power; it is not by ours.

The Power of Christ’s Spirit In Us

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man" (Eph. 3:14-16).

That’s the key: His Spirit in the inner man. You will never experience the life of God in Adam. We have to stop identifying with that part of us that does not have anything to do with God. We must turn and look into the face of Jesus and meditate in His Word. The best thing that you can possibly do is to meditate on the words that He speaks to you. Stay in the quiet every day, and listen for His voice.

Real prayer is really a quiet, peaceful listening. God has so many things that He wants to say to you, but if you have the concept that prayer is always vocalizing your wants and your needs and your desires to God, you will waste a lot of time. The only prayer God answers is the prayer He initiates within you. There are multitudes of people who spend an hour talking to God every day, and get up and leave without ever sitting in the quiet to see if God might have something to say to them. We have had a wrong concept of prayer.

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Eph. 3:17-19).

We are to become the fulness of Him who fills everything everywhere with himself. That’s why we have to stop looking at Adam, because it does not matter how bad Adam is, if you get a hold of what God is doing in your life. If you understand that the Spirit of the resurrected Christ lives within you, and if you will begin to make the right choices, then your experience will line up with the desires in your spirit. It won’t be a quick operation, it will be gradual. You will fail many times, but as you continue to forgive your mistakes and walk in the right direction, you will experience transformation.

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord"
(2 Cor. 3:18).

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen" (Eph. 3:20-21).

It is amazing how much emphasis, throughout the Word, is placed upon His power within us, His working in us, His Spirit in us. This whole deal is God’s; it has nothing to do with our effort. The only thing that we can do with our self-effort is prolong the working out of what God wants to do in our lives. We need to rest. We are so tired of being harassed by the flesh, and we need to rest. But you can’t rest as long as you are trying to make that ugly thing better. You need to rest and be quiet. "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). That is not a New Age teaching, that is the Word of God.

When we pastored a church in Oregon, we were there about three years, and we never promoted this, but there were times when we would come together as a church, and a hush, a silence, would come over us, and we would sometimes sit for 20 or 25 minutes in total silence, and it wasn’t boring. Sometimes people would begin to weep or laugh. We had the presence of God in our meetings in a marvelous way.

The organization we were with eventually sold that property to a couple that came up from California, looking for a place to retire. Our church and home were on five acres of beautiful property with a nice creek running through it. These people saw the For Sale sign and stopped, and bought the place. I still had some equipment there, so after they bought the place, I went back and the man let me in to the church building to get my equipment out, and I asked him how he happened to buy the place. He told me, "The moment I stepped on the property, I began to weep, and I told my wife, ‘We have to buy this place; God is here.’"

We heard that testimony time after time from people who would come into that assembly and walk onto that property. Why? Because a few people had learned the secret that Adam could not stop them from gaining God, unless they focused their attention on their failures and weaknesses. This is very difficult not to do. That’s why you have to make a choice. We are at a critical time in the Church, and we need to decide whether or not God is able to work in us His will, and if He isn’t, we may just as well give up. But if He is, if it is God that works in us, it is not something we have to do. His Word clearly reveals from Genesis to Revelation that He is doing a work. "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love" (Eph. 1:4).

How can that be? Because you have the Seed. His covenant is with the Seed. God had a covenant with you before you ever came to this earth, that the Seed would be brought into maturity.

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Eph. 3:20). If we discover this power, if we really understand that we have been delivered from the power of darkness, and we are now in the Kingdom of His Son, you won’t have to worry about demons. You won’t even have to pray over your children out of fear that the devil is going to get them. I’m not saying not to pray for them, but you have to understand where I am coming from. God is able to keep us. God is able to keep our children. When they walk out the door, all we have to do is have a thankful heart to God. "I’m so thankful, Father, that you are guiding and directing my children." We don’t have to chase demons off of them.

"For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him" (Col. 1:16-17).

We need to spend time meditating on these verses. All of the principalities and power, all things in heaven, all things in earth were created by Him and for Him. God does not have an arch-enemy. He has a tool that He uses to perfect the saints, but He doesn’t have any enemies. He created all things, and all things are for Him, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.

Walking In Christ–Right Now

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him" (Col. 2:6). How did you receive Him? Walking in Him is so easy, you can’t believe it if you haven’t experienced it. How do you walk in God? There is only one time in which you can do that, and that is right now, in this present moment. Right now, in this present moment, you can live, move, and walk in the Spirit. You can’t do it yesterday; you can’t do it tomorrow; but you can do it right now.

This is an example of how I walk in the Spirit now. "Father, I am so thankful, right now, that I have the blood of the covenant. I am so thankful that right now I stand in your presence without any sense of guilt, and without any sense of shame, I can come boldly right now into your presence. I don’t have to look at my failures or shortcomings or habits. I don’t have to look at Adam, because I have the blood of Jesus. Father, I am so thankful that even as your Word says, as far as the east is from the west, you have removed the transgressions of your people. And I believe that not only for myself, but I believe it for the human race. I so strongly believe that Jesus is the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world. I am so thankful that right now, in this present moment, I can enjoy you, I can walk in you and fellowship with you. I can sense the flowing of your life."

Right now. That’s the only time you can do it. And if you fall, in the next instant you can start fellowshipping with God again. That’s how easy it is. But the moment you fall, and you look at Adam, the more you concentrate on the fall, the bigger it becomes and the more it will happen. You have to stop looking at Adam. There was a time when God said to me, "Gary, stop confessing your sin to me." And I’m very well aware of Scriptures and what they say, but God said to me, "Gary, if you really believe my Word, stop confessing your sin. I don’t look at it. I don’t see it. I only see the preciousness of my life that I have placed within you. And I’m going to feed you, I’m going to nourish you. Yes, I’m going to raise up the fiery trials that will bring you through, but don’t continually come into my presence confessing something that has already been dealt with and put away." I found that when I stopped confessing my failures and focusing on them, they started leaving, just like a vapor.

You see, we are fighting with a dead enemy. Adam is dead, and we don’t know it. He is only alive because we, being created in the image of God, keep him alive with our belief. Whatever we believe, is real to us. That’s why we have to have our minds renewed. We have to understand that at the Cross, Adam was taken into death, and the more we see that and the more we choose to walk in that direction and not look at Adam, the quicker he will fade away. You will never be able to deal with him. Please, stop it. You don’t have to deal with Adam, but you do need to be very, very intimate with the Christ within.

"According to my earnest expectation, and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be life or death. For to me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:19-20).

This wasn’t just for the apostle Paul. For you to live is Christ. For me to walk on this earth is Christ. You have to see this for yourself. What does Christ means? Christ means "the anointing". The Spirit of God is the anointing. For me to live is the anointing of God, to be loosed in the earth. For me to live is Christ to be revealed to the world. And the more you choose to believe what God is doing, rather than your experience in Adam, the more you will experience Christ arising within you.

The people of God have been failing for 2,000 years. We have not been able to see that what Adam does is to no avail, because religion is ingrained in us; it’s in our DNA. Every religion in the world was created out of man’s desire to get back to God. That’s why I say it doesn’t matter what you believe intellectually, what matters is that you have a heart that seeks after God.

If you don’t hear anything that I am saying, yet you have a heart for God, you will spend time in His presence. And as you spend time in His presence, seeking Him, He will reveal these things to you. That’s why I say it doesn’t matter where you are. Anywhere in the world, in any culture that you may be in, if you have a desire for God, and you cry out from the depths of your being, God will quicken His Seed within you.

I use the illustration of a man in India who has experienced God. There is a hunger for God within him, and he knows that there must be something greater than he is, so he cries out to God, and God quickens his spirit. And the same thing happens to that man in India that happens to you in the United States. This man in India has never heard the name of Jesus, and he knows nothing of our doctrines, he knows nothing of the Crucifixion, he knows nothing, but his heart cries out for God, and God meets the cry of a hungry heart.

Would you believe that God is not insulted if you don’t know His name? Yet this man in India, after he meets God, he might meet a Buddhist monk, or a Hindu, and that Hindu will then introduce him to the Hindu religion. And so this man will become a very confused man, and may spend the rest of his life in the Hindu religion and never get to know the God that has quickened his spirit.

This type of thing happens in our country day after day after day. People meet the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they start going to church, and they are taught religion instead of following Christ by a living guidance within their very own being.

The Living Star

One of my favorite verses is 1 John 2:27, "But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie." We haven’t been taught that we don’t need anything but God. Remember the story of the wise men from the east? Isn’t it funny? They would have been considered Gentiles or heathen by the Jews. The wise men from the east saw the star, and came to worship Jesus. The star guided them, but when they got to Jerusalem, instead of following the star, they got into their minds, and they knew that Jerusalem was a place where His people were, so they went into Jerusalem, and that caused an awful stir. And the result of that was a horrible slaughter. But the moment the wise men left Jerusalem, the moment they left religion, the star went before them again. You can read the account in Matthew 2:1-9.

When you meet Jesus, you experience that living star. You experience a feeling that you can’t explain; a living guidance has been turned on inside of you. And if you are like I was, the only thing I knew to do was to go to church, because that is what I had been taught all of my life. And the moment I went into church, I lost that living guidance, and I was fed all the doctrines, and got into the mind trip, and into gleaning all the knowledge I could get, thinking that was going to make me godly. And the moment I understood what the problem was, and I came out of all that confusion, guess what happened? The living star began to appear within me again.

A lot of people don’t like this kind of teaching, but you do not need anyone to teach you. We all need to fellowship together, and it is wonderful to have teachers and listen to them, but what you need is teachers to teach you that you can hear God for yourself. I love to listen to the great teachers of today. They have and still do help me tremendously. The Kingdom teachers we have today are the best ever, but none of them are building their own kingdom. I sometimes sit for a couple of hours with J. Preston Eby’s Kingdom Bible Studies and get ministered to richly. When I read the Kingdom ministers I am not fed from man’s carnal theology.

You need people who can help impart to you the truth that you, just in the quietness of your meditations with God, can sense that living star. You do not need anyone but the living guidance of the living Christ. And He will guide and direct your life. We need to learn to listen to our intuition. How many times do you go to do something, maybe something very good, and you will just have that sense, "Maybe I shouldn’t." This is your living guidance, and you can learn to be very, very precise and perceptive of that living guidance. You know, when God first started teaching me these things, I thought it was the devil, because He would reveal things to me that the church absolutely could not handle. We haven’t been taught to listen.

People are so afraid today of getting into deception, because in the last days, seducing spirits will come. Listen, the only way that you can stay in deception is if you can’t hear God speak to you. If you can’t learn to follow and trust the anointing that is within you, you will always get into deception.

You know, it’s not a matter of being deceived. For 2,000 years, most of the Church has been in deception. We are coming out of deception. We are coming out of that falling away, and we are coming into that glorious light of the wonderful gospel and manifestation of His presence within us. God will speak to every one of us. The most important thing that you can have is a heart that wants nothing but Him, and if you don’t have it, God will give it to you.

Focusing On Christ Within

There have been times in my life when I got so tired of fighting with Adam that I just felt I didn’t have a heart for God any more. I used to drive out in the desert in Lancaster, and I would say, "God, I just don’t even have a desire for you any more. I need help." And guess what would happen? The desire would come back.

His whole design, intent, and purpose is to fill us with Himself. The very purpose for bringing you into being was so you could be filled with His life and His character and His nature. Our world is in such a mess, and people, especially Christians, are so disappointed and so heart-sick. Multitudes of Christians have hearts that have been shipwrecked. We have something to offer them that they have never heard. We have a gospel that is so far surpassing anything that they have ever heard, that they just absolutely love the revelation of the love of God, who loved so much that He included all of creation in His redemption.

If you could only be in my office. We get phone calls and letters every day from people who are so excited, because God has been speaking these things to them. We are reaching a lot of people who have never heard this message before, and they are so excited because they can say, "We knew this was true. God had been saying some of these things, but we just couldn’t believe that we had been hearing right." It is so wonderful, preaching the gospel of good news. And the only thing that is going to keep any of us from that is if we focus our attention on Adam rather than Christ.

Christ is in you. Everything that He is, all of His attributes, all of His loveliness, His kindness, His longsuffering, you have everything that He is in the Seed of His life within you. And by sitting in His presence and feasting at His table in the midst of your enemies, you will discover the greatness of His power that is in you. Paul said that the same power that resurrected Christ from among the dead dwells within us. "If the spirit of him that raised Jesus from the dead dwell in us, he that raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies" (Rom. 8:11).

Begin to focus on Christ within. If you try sitting in the quiet and you fall asleep, so what? Keep doing it. God will deal with you in your sleep. The main thing is that our heart’s desire is to know Him.

If there was any advice that I could give anyone, it would be to learn to sit in the quiet. Sing songs to Him, worship Him, but by all means, sit in the quiet, and just see if He doesn’t start speaking to you. And you know what? Here is a real key: In His speaking is the ability to do that which He speaks.

Several times, my wife and I have experienced hearing Him and doing the impossible, yet having Him meet our needs. When He speaks to you, in His speaking, His authority, His power, and even His willingness are imparted to you, to do that which He wants you to do.

Everything hinges upon you hearing God. Many people tell me that they have never heard God speak. They may have been a Christian for 40, 50, or 60 years, and never heard God speak. How do you hear God speak? The number one thing is time. We have to have time in our busy schedules to worship God and to listen to what He has to say.

I often feel sorry for people who get caught up in spiritual warfare, because the more you do it, the more real it becomes. I took a spiritual warfare class, and I have literally fought demons. I’m not saying that there is no such thing. I know what it is like to get into spiritual warfare, but I also know that it is not necessary, because there is no demon in hell that has any power or authority over God’s children. None. But because we believe they do, and even get into combat with them, they become a distraction. There is no such thing as demonic power overpowering God’s people. Not if the Scriptures are true. Not if we have been taken out the kingdom of darkness and placed into the Kingdom of light, in the Kingdom of His Son. If that has truly happened, then we are not under the authority of any demon, and neither can any demon harass us.

If we are having problems, we can’t blame it on the devil. It doesn’t work. The problem is right between our ears. That’s the only problem we have. And that’s why we need the Scriptures. We need the time in worship, and we need to hear God speak. That will renew the mind.

I used to get up every morning, thinking, "Oh God, another day to live in defeat and failure." And now I get up in the morning and I don’t even think about it. I don’t even think about trying to live godly today, it’s totally effortless. Am I perfect? No. Do I still have problems? Absolutely. Do I still sin? Yes I do, but I never get up in the morning with a consciousness of "Oh God, another day of failure."

It is wonderful to get up with the awareness that God in you is sufficient to meet anything that comes your way in the day, and we can only have that as we begin to focus on Christ within. Take the time to discover the treasure that is in your earthen vessel, and you will find that He is really there, and He will absolutely fill every area, every avenue of our thought and brain. Every cell of our body is being permeated with the Spirit, and when that happens totally, Christ will appear within us. Hallelujah! 

The following questions were asked after this message was given and we thought it would be good to include them.

Question: I believe what God told you: Don’t confess your sin any more. Then help me understand 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Answer: You only need to do that once, and if you do it, and you believe that you are forgiven, and don’t count your experience as the truth, you don’t need to do it more than once. "If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:1-2). So yes, the ideal is that you don’t sin, and that’s what we all want, but He says that if you do sin, remember that you have an advocate. And so, when we sin, we know that we have already been forgiven. You are not forgiven when you confess, you have been forgiven for 2,000 years. That’s what we need to realize, and that’s what we need to confess. I’ll tell you what I do. When I sin, I look away from it, and I know the power in the blood.

You see, if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, that means that we are totally exposed and transparent. It doesn’t mean that we are perfect and have no sin. However, if we are walking in the light and we are fellowshipping with Him, we can see all of the things in us that are not of God, but the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all unrighteousness. To walk in the light means that we don’t run from the light when we sin, we stay in the light. We are exposed to the light, and His blood cleanses us. You have to also understand what Paul says in Romans 7, that when you sin, it is not you doing it. We do have a scapegoat. It is not us. I, the new creation man, do not sin.

 

Question: So when I do something I know is not like Him, then I simply need to acknowledge, "Father, I see, that was Adam. Thank you that you are reigning now, you are ruling in my heart."

 

Answer: Absolutely. You have got it. It is not you. Oh, if Christians could hear that message. Paul says it so plainly; it’s not you, it’s that sin principle that is still operating in Adam. You are that new creation. God said to me, "You are perfect, but Adam is not." As Paul said, "I delight in the inner man." That inner man is perfect, in heart and attitude. You have to hear these things in the Spirit. Your mind cannot grasp this, it is spiritually revealed. A lot of people hear reconciliation in their mind and they just go have a good time, but we can’t withhold truth just because someone is not going to comprehend it. God wants the truth revealed, and He will deal with those people anyway. Their fires of tribulation will probably be hotter than yours, but He is going to deal with them. We have so many Scriptures, such as, "He works all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:11).

Since about 1982, I have been going through the Bible, grouping verses like this together that deal with these kind of things, darkness or whatever, and that is what I meditate on and that is what I talk like, and that is what I believe. And whatever I do in the flesh, I don’t look at it, because when you look at it, it gets worse. If you try to deal with it, it gets worse, and you don’t have the liberty to keep doing it, but you have to focus on Christ in you, knowing that He is working and He is able to save you to the uttermost. Our flesh will get out of line, but I tell you what, God has the fires. That’s what they are for.

Focusing on the problem creates fear. These understandings can really help a marriage, because when marriages get into problems, we start focusing on the problems, and if we would focus on Christ together, and stay in fellowship together, and pray together and worship together, we would not have divorce. But we focus on the problem, and the more we focus on the problem, the bigger it becomes. And that is true with anything.

If you want to go on a diet, then decide to go on a diet, and watch what happens. God can speak to you, and He can tell you to do certain things and eat certain things, but if He is telling you that, then with the speaking comes the ability to do it. It is not hard; it is easy. Like the day He spoke to me after 13 years, and He said, "You won’t smoke any more." I put them on the dresser, I didn’t even throw them away, and I left them there for weeks and never had a desire to smoke. And yet for years, I would throw them in the trash, and before the day was over I would be digging around in the trash to get them out.

 

Question: How do you answer the people in the church and the well-meaning people who genuinely care about you, when you quote 1 John 2:27 and they say, "Yes, but God established a five-fold ministry"?

 

Answer: Of course He did, but what was that for? They were to build up the saints, to equip them to do the work of the ministry, not to control their lives, not to be their mediator between God and man, but to simply teach them and build them up so that they can do the work of the ministry. You will find that the ministers today who are carrying this word are not building the traditional church system. The ministry is so rich, and we are all gleaning from all of these ministries, but if you were sitting under just one man, you might get a lot, but you would miss so much.

 

Question: When you start talking about ultimate reconciliation, you immediately get back, "You are just giving people a license to sin." How can you respond to this?

 

Answer: I had a lady who had this reaction in one of our meetings about three months ago. She heard the message of reconciliation and she asked me all of the typical questions like, "Well, why would we even preach the gospel then, and what about all of these people who hear this and then just want to go live their life any way they want? You would be responsible for them going to hell." But what she did was pick up the Coming Out of Darkness books and some other writings that we had, and she called me just last week, in tears, and she was so thankful for this revelation that God had given her on reconciliation. So, God has to do it. God has to open the eyes.

They say you are giving people a license to sin. People don’t need a license—they are already doing it. No one had to give me a license for Adam to sin. He was well able to do it, he didn’t need a license. What we need is to give people peace and rest, and you do that by letting them know that it is O.K. Wherever you are today, it is O.K. God knew, when He called you, what you would be doing even today. He knows the end from the beginning, and He is the author and the finisher of your faith, so you need to rest, knowing that God is sufficient to deal with your carnal nature, but if you focus on it, it takes much longer to be transformed. You can’t focus on the negative, you have to focus on God and His Word. We read verses like "All things work together for good to those who love God," and then something happens, and we think that is the one thing that doesn’t work together for good.

This is the true dividing asunder of soul and spirit. You have to see both Adam and Christ, but you focus on Christ, you don’t focus on Adam. We are all recovering Adamites. The day that you walk in the presence of God and walk in the light of God, and see no more Adam, no one will see you again. Adam will be gone, they will only see Christ. Then death will be swallowed up by life.

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To Be Continued . . .

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