Yes I Am
by Norman Percy Grubb
FOREWORD
It is over forty years since I was led, I believe by the Holy Spirit, to write the first of this series of books on the one reality which has absorbed me all these years: Paul’s mystery, now made manifest, of "Christ in you, the hope of glory."
The first book, The Law of Faith, was followed by The Liberating Secret, The Deep Things of God, The Spontaneous You, God Unlimited, and Who Am I? I have had many evidences that the inner truth I’ve sought to share has, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, become that same reality in many.
Like a fiddle with one string, I still write about this reality, which I boldly call Total Truth. My "textbook," my authority, has always been solely the Bible, and still is - the Bible inwardly illuminated and made the sole key to life by the Holy Spirit; just as Jesus said, "The words I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."
I call this book YES, I AM because I would not write it if it were not, by great grace, a personally experienced reality to me, even as it is to many others of you. For as Jesus said, "We speak what we do know and testify to what we have seen."
I sought in my earlier years, as a missionary in the Congo with C. T. Studd, the key to what I call Total Living - complete satisfaction, complete enabling - and the Holy Spirit turned that key in the lock for me in a crisis of faith which became, though often with stumbling steps, my inner knowing of this "mystery" word of Paul’s.
From that time the inner knowing has increased and stabilized through the years, until I could "teach others also" and was better able to define what Paul, Peter, James, and John explain in their letters. This has been the sole heartbeat of my books.
There is a joy unspeakable and full of glory, a peace that passeth understanding, and an all-sufficiency in all things by which we are able to abound unto every good work. Though we are always only the earthen vessels in which "the excellency of the power is of God, and not of us," there is a reigning in life by Christ, a bearing of the good fruit of the Spirit, an overcoming in all things. There is a self-release from bondage into liberty, an overflowing of the rivers of the Spirit, and a counting and experiencing of temptations and trials as "all joy" instead of miseries to be avoided or endured. Because all is centered in the one Reality, our Lord Jesus Christ - crucified, risen, ascended, who now lives His life in His body members - we experience life as adventure, zest, thrill, and gaiety at the heart of a desperate seriousness. Immersed in meeting the needs of others, travailing in birth until Christ is formed in them as in us, we are privileged to bear about in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus, so that "death works in us, but life in you."
If you have already read any of my other books, I would say to you that you will find here a repetition of the great foundational facts of our Total Truth, starting with God Himself. I could not build without a sure foundation. If you will go along with me, I am bold to say that God has now given me many new clarifications. These include some startling even to me, ranging from and including the fall of man, what man’s real nature is, and our two-fold redemption: not only through the blood, but also through the body of our Christ. Then, at last, a clarity has come to me on those vital Romans 6 to 8 chapters which I have dug into a thousand times, which I can therefore now more clearly share with others. Finally, I go right on to new clarifications of ourselves as the free men in Christ we’ve been redeemed to be. So we now can say, in accord with the title of this book, "Yes, I am" and we are learning to live positively in the perfect love that casts out fear instead of in the bondage of negative believing. We see where temptation becomes adventure. The endless problems and frustrations in life, including personality clashes, are seen to be the necessary negatives by which He, the Positive, can reveal Himself; and we enjoy the process with Him. We move right on to the simplicity and constant use of the "word of faith" in our prayer life, and to the highest of all, the life of intercession, in which we are given a privileged and effective place in meeting the world’s needs.
If you have not read any of these books before, please be patient if the first chapters seem rather detached from our own pressing life situations. We shall surely get there, if you will follow through.
I have been wonderfully helped in producing this book. I have a job in deciphering my own scribble, and so several who are linked with us in fellowship in Washington and Alexandria have sacrificed their time to type while I have dictated. For this and other vital help I especially wish to thank Dick and Laurie Hills, Dart Cox, Maggie O’Bannion, Nancy Robinette, Lannelle Campbell, Tony and Bette Ketcham, Kay Krattli, and Sylvia Audi; also my son Daniel, a Ph.D. Professor of English Literature, who gave my manuscript a thorough going-over. And my editor at CLC, Robert Delancy. How wonderful the love of God is when dear ones volunteer their labors for Him in our oneness in Christ. My thanks and love to all of them.
This book has its background in the sixty years since Pauline, my precious wife, and I married and went to the Congo together, to take our share in bringing the gospel to our brother Africans, with her father, C. T. Studd. I give some details of this in the book. Pauline, though now physically weak and unable to get about, lies in bed resting in the Lord. Where should I have been without her through these many years? She is now lovingly cared for by one of our Worldwide Evangelization Crusade family, Susie Wheeler, while my daughter Priscilla cares for me.
In the course of the book I often refer to my years with the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade founded by C. T. Studd, and the Christian Literature Crusade, born out of it, and my great joy all those years in taking my share in the outreach of the Crusades. More recently, the message God has given me to share in these pages has taken more public form in a magazine called Union Life, begun five years ago by Bill Volkman, a lawyer, to whom "Christ in you" became a living reality. Quite a company of us are now linked with its increasing circulation, with many evidences of the seal of the Spirit. Various ones of us share what God has made real to us as we receive invitations to homes, house groups, and churches, both here and abroad.
I am thankful to the Christian Literature Crusade, which in cooperation with the Lutterworth Press in Britain has published all the previous books, and now is producing this one.
Finally, as one who years back translated the New Testament from the King James Version, helped by the Greek, into a Congolese language, Bangala, I am used to the King James version and like its accuracy, so my quotations are basically from it. I will, however, capitalize the pronouns for Deity.
My greetings and love in Christ to all who read this. May the Lord refresh and illuminate us by His Word and Spirit.
Norman Grubb
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