Yes I Am by Norman Grubb
Chapter 44
FROM SPIRIT ACTION TO BODY ACTION
We have now seen how the Holy Spirit flows out of us in rivers on our fatherhood, or ascension, or royal priesthood level - Spirit through our spirit, by the launches of faith unlimited. Being on such a level means advancing from faith as the almost subconscious background of our life in Christ - and that is marvelous in itself - to faith consciously recognized and continuously used as the "Open sesame," the Aladdin’s lamp, to God’s unlimited treasure chamber. Not an incident or condition of life is outside its reach: "All things are possible to him that believeth." The word of faith may be applied to even the commonest daily incidents, such as the loss of a pin or the loss of a job, or to the salvation of the unsaved and the changing of a community. It is applicable not just to so-called religious activity, but extends to all of life, for we now know there’s really no difference between the secular and the spiritual.
Once the Spirit has revealed faith to us as the principle of achievement in all life, the key to the handling of all evil as well as good, we can say that life is never less than "the adventure of adversity" (as I called it in that little book Touching the Invisible). And it is. I would not be writing this if it were not so. But again I say it is conditioned on this third-level understanding of the word of faith as the weapon of our warfare by which we "fight the good fight of faith," and not works. From our new position in the heavenlies we are not being handled by life, but rather are handling it.
So we now move on to the other channel through which the river of the Spirit is flowing - our bodies. Here again there is what I would call the normal level of His working and the revealed "special level." The normal level is that from the moment the Holy Spirit takes possession of our bodies at the new birth, both as His temple and lighthouse, we cannot help ourselves. We are under a new drive! My body formerly was used for fleshly self-satisfaction; now it is for benefiting others. As one has just written me: "I’m learning the times I am fulfilled are when the Lord is using me for others."
From our new position in the heavenlies we are not being handled by life, but rather are handling it.
Precisely. The God of other-love has taken us over at our new birth. There is that something in us which gives us no rest until we share with others this priceless treasure which is now ours. We can’t help it. Knowing we once were on the road to eternal death, but now have eternal life! - we have to tell others. We cannot but speak of the things we have seen and heard. When Christ became real to me at the age of eighteen I was not yet a vigorous witness, but I had to write of it to my mother from my English boarding school, Marlborough College; and I had to tell my closest friend at school (now a bishop) what had happened to me. In those days, at our English "public schools," it was a rare thing to find a master or boy who had any living experience of Christ, and indeed when I told my friend what had happened, he commented, "If that is Christianity, none of us have it!"
So I’m saying the "normal" is that by some means or another we are witnesses. As Jesus said, men don’t light a lamp and put it under a bushel but on a lampstand, so that it lights the whole house. The Spirit in us compels us to be His witnesses by one means or another. Our bodies are used by Him so that by work or word, Jesus is reaching others.
Our witness is intensified as the Spirit is consciously given full control of our bodies. In my own young life, a few months after my new birth, His uncomfortable challenge came to me through a small booklet to break the one close friendship I had with a girl who did not want to go all the way for Jesus, but just remain "a good church girl." I knew God had spoken, and I wriggled this way and that for weeks. But the Spirit kept saying to me, "You can’t have Christ and anti-Christ in your heart."
this is really the beginning of the fatherhood level, for in actual fact, all levels are already in us in Christ.
So there are varying degrees of intensity in the Spirit’s use of our bodies to bring Christ to others, progressing from our new birth to our conscious body-commitment to Christ. Indeed, we cannot be born again by the Spirit of other-love and not have our first urgings to share Christ with others - and this is really the beginning of the fatherhood level, for in actual fact, all levels are already in us in Christ.
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