Freedom of Spirit - Part 3

To have Christ in you, there will be glory. See, if you have a total Christ in you, there's not much of anything else left. Christ in you, there's not much you left, because he's pretty big.

Christ in you, not Christ for you, Christ in you. And Paul said, this is a hidden mystery. He said, the riches are the glory.

Of course, it's everything, you've got Christ for everything. The glory, you can't have more than the perfect God living in you, and expressing himself by you, you being pleased about other people can find him as you found him. You can't have more than that.

So riches are the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you. And he went on to say, he went on in that scripture, warning every man, teaching every man that he may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. So this is completion.

Perfection is completion. I'm here to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, he said. Now, I saw that years ago.

At that time, you see, it wasn't real to me. I had to find that. I knew Christ for me.

I knew Christ as my Lord. But to say he lived permanently in me, in the real way, what lives in you is really what you are, like a professional lives in you into what you really are. Now, if he lives in me, then what I really am is he, I'm just a means by which this person is operating.

I didn't know that. I didn't know that Christ lived in you in that sense. I went to Africa, and I was taking Jesus Christ to the Africans, as I told you.

Now, I knew about taking Jesus Christ to the Africans, but then I found a scripture, another scripture, which got me, started me on this pursuit, as you might say. But, of course, when you pursue the things of God, it isn't pursuing and not finding, it's pursuing and finding. It really finds you, of course.

And what I found was a scripture in Galatians 4.19, where Paul spoke about converts. My little children from my travail and birth again, until I travelled about to Christ, he formed in you. Oh, I said that's different.

It's as if he lived, kind of, was talking kind of embryo language, birth language, family birth. It's as if an embryo Christ became a fully-formed Christ in you. Oh, I said that's different.

If Christ is a fully-formed Christ in a person's life, that's not much different to that person, except it means expressing Christ. I said, I didn't know that. I said, I'm not even bringing that to Africa.

I'm bringing Christ to the Africans, hoping they may get a thing called eternal life. But this is making a new kind of person. You see, I found the whole purpose of God isn't to give us a thing called eternal life.

It's to be, that we should be expressing eternal life, which is Himself. And He's been really expressing His eternal quality of life by us. I didn't understand that at that time.

Formed in me. Especially for Paul, he didn't understand that. I noticed it too.

We had a leader at that time, a man who followed our mission, a great soldier of Jesus called C.C. Stodd. He had his free way of saying things. We were very few in those days.

There was only 8 or 10 of us in this huge Detroit forest, about 1,000 miles of it. And then there were villages all around the forest. We'd go out in the villages and meet them.

Then we'd come together, of course, and have fellowship and pray together. And we were together. He had a way of saying things sometimes.

One thing he would say was this. He says, Lord, I'm out here to see Jesus Christ running about inside black bodies. Well, that's one way of putting it.

You see? Not Jesus Christ comes running about in, that's the same thing. If Jesus Christ's running about in, you say, that's all there is. Your black body, your white body, he's running about in you.

That's all. Say, my dear. Now, I had to get some things through the Scripture into me, in focus, to get this in focus.

The first consequence was, I didn't feel I had all I wanted to. Now, I'm talking to you like that. If you feel you've got all you want, all right, God bless you, you'd better go to sleep.

You'll never be here this afternoon. If you don't feel you've got all you want to, then I'll talk to you. If you feel you're forgiven, accepted, loved, but you haven't got all you want, the power of peace, the peace of satisfaction, so that all the bells ring, and joy unspeakable, and peace upon... You can't say, I know that, then I can talk to you, because I was like that.

So, there I was in Africa, but I felt I needed to be made better. I felt I needed a much greater quality of love, to identify myself with these simple Africans in their villages. I felt I needed a power.

Something could happen when I took Jesus to them. It wasn't like bouncing a ball against the wall and bouncing back at you. I felt I needed faith that something could happen.

They seemed so dark, because we're all dark, we know each other, but it seemed so dark. And then tensions with fellow missionaries, and judgmentalism, and negativism, and temptation of the flesh. I was a common human.

So, I said, I'm not the adequate person I ought to be. I'm not the adequate representative of Jesus Christ I ought to be to those people. I'm partial, and I'm quite satisfied.

I have tensions, and fears, and difficulties. I have a lot of handling. So, I thought I needed more, not that the Africans needed more, I needed more.

So, I set out on a search. I'm talking, I'm an English person. I didn't mean out to search.

I mean, all we missionaries, of course, tired of early morning time, the time with God. We lived in bamboo mud huts like the Africans. In the early morning, we had time with God alone, where we read the Bible, and pray, and commit.

That's what I'm talking about, time of search. Now, in those times, I'd say, God, give me more. Make me more lovely.

Make me more powerful. Make me more victorious. More released.

Make me a better kind of person. Now, I didn't know I was under big illusion. I didn't under semi-illusion then.

I thought I could be improved. I find a human self can never be improved. Oh, I didn't know that one.

I'll tell you why I knew that. I didn't know that then. I thought, He must improve me.

I must have more. I must have more victorious. I must have all this stuff.

So, in my quiet time, of course, I'd be taking it to Him. And then one day, He startled me with a very simple word. As I say, the Bible comes out from the Bible.

The Spirit makes it real to you. It comes alive to you. He took a very simple word from Scripture and made it alive to me.

The word was, God is love. Well, we all know that, don't we? Three words. God is love.

It's in the book. When the Spirit takes it, makes it real. Why it made it real is, oh, if God is love, He loves a person.

It doesn't say God has love. I thought love was a power that God had and put me in here. I'd be loving.

It suddenly said, God is love. And I said, love, universal love. Atoms love each other.

Insects love each other. Life's full of desire, love, desire. Whatever form it takes.

Maybe it's self or whatever form. Love. He is love.

So it said, love's a person. I said, He's a universal person. So I had to get a new concept of God.

Not just a person up there. He's both individual and universal. That's both there, but love's everywhere.

But it's a person, a person, a person. It's as if God said to me, love isn't a thing I give you, because love isn't a thing. I am that love.

Wasn't my name always I am? In Moses' days? I am, I am, not I have. Well, I said, sitting in my hut as it were. That's what I was selfish of.

You've got the lot and left none to me. You're the lot and poor me. What about poor me? I need some love too.

You know the way you talk. Just between yourselves. I said, well, to God, I need power.

And I found out a scripture came to me. In 1 Corinthians 1. Now, Christ is the power, not has it. Christ is the power.

Power's a person. Well, power's only universal. Atomic's a power.

Power's universal. Christ is the power. So power's a person.

So I began to get a new fact that God's a universal person. Now, it's very difficult to see, first of all, because we're so used to seeing, because we got separated through the fall, that God's up there. Well, He is up there.

It says He's above all and through all and in all. That's what the phrase is due to God. He's above all and through all and in all.

So I've got to find the God who's spirit, who's not just a person sitting and thrown up there or out there. Somehow God's constructed. He's universal.

He is. He is. And you'll find Him anywhere, everywhere.

He's there. He's there. He's the love.

He's the power. But you see, probably it meant to me, I thought I had the power. I must have the power.

I must have the faith. I must have the victory. I must have it.

And it seems to me, still there's a lot left now to me. There's this gap. Of course, He was teaching me something about that.

So there I was. I learned this. He is love.

He is power. God is my peace. He doesn't have peace.

God's my peace. God's my joy. God's my joy.

It's not a thing. God's the joy. God's the peace.

And then I finally find the Scripture, which puts the whole lot together. The first Scripture, in the beginning, God. That's all there is then.

In the beginning, God. That's Genesis 1. And way at the end, when the end comes, and it says, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. This is in 1 Corinthians 15.

The thing finishes. What does it say? It says, Jesus Christ the Son, the Son, to render up the kingdom of the Father, that God may be all in all. Well, what more, if He's all He is in some.

If He's all in all, He is all in all His forms. So actually, that's true now, you see. Everything is really a form of Him.

Maybe it's created out of form, or maybe a person who can express it. All in all, isn't that sacred? Not some in all. All in all, that is.

And when you have eyes, the spiritual eyes, you see everything.