YOUR LIFE-GIVING FAITH

A sincere deputy principal told the assembly at the school at which I as teaching, that what they needed was a ‘faith’. I wondered about that. Is it ok to believe in a flat earth or place you faith for a better life in a Donald Trump. As a Christian is it ok to make a faith out of a gospel that is ‘no gospel at all’? There are those for whom atheism is a faith. There are Christian communities who have made-up a faith and accommodated themselves to it as though it is truth – when it is arguably scarcely Christian.

In the early days of Australia’s exploration some wanted to believe that there was an inland sea in the interior of Australia. But there wasn’t and believing there was did not make it so.

A FAITH..
What we call our faith, maybe all of it, may be an intellectual assent to beliefs about God, the salvation we have in Him and who we are becoming as a result of our comprehension of these things. ‘Our Faith’ may also include things we do to spread this faith, ways in which we live and our apprehension of the self as a ‘Godly person.’ If Christ is our life and we embrace His coming in our flesh by the Spirit, we will be life-givers in all we do because we are alive with Christ’s life. This is a faith of substance over fantasy. Then again, our faith may be an illusion because it is a corruption of the Gospel of Jesus and the apostles.

THE I AM THAT IS GOD IS THE GOD WITH WHOM WE HAVE COMMUNION
We can possess a better faith than the idea of ‘receiving Christ.’ Some reflection might reveal that this orientation is pretty much a function of us and our self-perception of doing Christianity. It comes under the heading of religion. Religion is not bad as a package, but it is the package and not the substance. As such religion is not the inheritance we have in Christ. It’s the container. Any form of works/self-effort is an externality. Real life for us is Christ expressed directly as us. That’s the faith of Christ and the apostles. Not some subverted gospel that is a version of the knowledge of good and evil.

SOUND DOCTRINE/FAITH
Oneness with God is our inheritance as the Lord’s Table indicates. WE HAVE DIRECT COMMUNION WITH THE LORD. IT’S OUR INHERITANCE as life-givers with Christ. This is the pearl of great price.

HIS STEPS
‘Steps to Christ’ is a misnomer, given that Christ has taken steps to know you and bring you into His life. You are in His Communion. Live where you have been placed. You do not have to earn Jesus. Jesus has earned you. In His Living Way you will be an imparter of life in everything you do.

MISGUIDED HARANGUING OF SINNERS
Jesus presented Himself as the Way, the Truth and the Life because he is these things. Jesus Himself is the Door to life, the door to fellowship with Himself, our grace in person and the means of our fellowship with Father and Holy Spirit. Jesus never posed as a religion and did not berate sinners. He did not promote moralism but He did promote Himself as life.  Jesus is the Door to life in Himself and your life in union with the triune God. Jesus is all the things that are alive. In Him your projects become ignited with His life that is in you.

We can be active in good works and not be alive in our spirit. Jesus urged, ‘Realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.’ John 14.20. He’s not talking about practising a religion or a faith. He’s taking about practising what you already have: Union with Himself. In Christ your life you can be alive rather than undead.

YOU BELONG NOW
The truth is that a deeper reality is ours when we realize that it’s less about us receiving Christ and more about us having BEEN RECEIVED INTO HIS LIFE. The first orientation might be compared to having the bones and the latter orientation to the body. This is apt as we become persons and sons/daughters rather than moral placards when Jesus is expressed as us.

The condemnation of sinners is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Should we live in Christ as our Reality in the way that Paul states that Reality is Christ and that Christ is our life, we will begin to enjoy what Jesus has accomplished for us in undoing the fall. We will enter that state of being that is called oneness with God. Oneness is what we lost. Oneness is what we have back. We call agreeing with this oneness in Christ, being ‘born again’. If you are intent on living the good life, this is the way – the living way by which Christ is realised in your being.

YOUR REALITY
Jesus urged us to, ‘Realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you’ John 14.20. We realize this is so that we can step into this reality as our reality in everyday life. Living in this ‘oneness’ is a deep faith rather than a superficial faith that has more to do with ‘the letter’ than it does with our incorporation into the Being of God.

This kind of living is oneness rather than ‘doing oneness.’

PARADE OF BLIND NICODEMUSES
Davis Marshall observes that, “The vast majority of people ignore Oneness. They dismiss it as nothing (which is ironically exactly what non-oneness is!) Faith pays attention to this consciousness, even when its appearance is as tiny as a mustard seed. When attention is paid to Oneness, one’s awareness of it grows. Faith trusts that this seemingly insignificant mode of perception is real. Faith believes it is true, even though the mind wants to dismiss it. Faith sees beyond the mind (the literal meaning of the Greek word for repentance “metanoia.”) Faith surrenders to the Unknown and Unknowable, which is Spirit.” (1) In this Living Way we become living fruit rather than a dead branch.

WHY REVIVALS FADE
Relax in the truth of Christ’s incarnation in you. And be yourselves in Christ. This is the meaning of Christ our life. It’s life in the Spirit and the soil of the anointing and the gifts. The neglect of this reality is the reason why after much talk of the gifts, the anointing and Holy Spirit, Kingdom growth can come to nothing. Nothing because efforts were not based on the ground of our being which is oneness with Christ.*

WAY OF COMMUNION
Marshall has distinguished between the wide way and the narrow way. The wide way may not lead to destruction. The subtlety of the delusion is that it does not lead to life; to the Kingdom Jesus began because it is not life in the Spirit. The latter is not the gifts bolted on to the law and certain specificities touted by sects. The Kingdom is Christ’s life as you and as us. His being with us is direct. It’s not mediated by other things but by Himself. There is one mediator between God and man. When Godly people share life with the less mature Believer, they are sharing the life of Jesus through themselves.

Get yourself at least one friend who lives genuinely in the Spirit, meaning in oneness with God – a oneness not insulated by the law and cultural baggage. Live in this direct communion with God yourself – not by doing things but by agreeing that the oneness with God Jesus gained for you is yours now and always. This makes you a conduit of Christ’s life. You make Kingdom Fruit.

* It may be objected that this is a given. But any attachment to the law separates us from oneness with God.
(1) Davis, Marshall. Experiencing God Directly: The Way of Christian Non-duality (p. 46). Marshall Davis. Kindle Edition.