"The usual thing we say when a crisis hits us is, “God permitted it”. That means that God is up there and we are underneath. But God isn’t up there at all! He is within. I never lift my eyes one single time to heaven to try to find Him up there, do you? I don’t waste my breath, my sight, or anything else. Why should I waste my time trying to get a Person to come down when He lives within me? I can see Him where He is, in a common bit of human flesh redeemed in His precious blood, packed full of the Holy Spirit.
This makes my whole attitude to life different. Once I recognize that God is joined as one with me, I no longer try to find him or get him to come and rescue me." ~ Norman Grubb
"Friends, the cross is not the objective. Union is the objective. The cross is the gateway. It’s not the end. The Christ is the end and He is joined to me forever and I joined to Him forever." ~ Norman Grubb
8 comments:
Good stuff, hmmm,,, say,, looks like you've been hanging out with the piano man....
WOW!! I really like these quotes, Lyds. Thank you! :)
Those are some very profoundly simple quotes!
Makes so much sense!
Powerful words. I'm glad that I'm God's house. God's permanent residence.
Pianoman (Hi Leonard),back from the campsite.
Can I just share my honest feelings here? When I first encountered Norman's group and they were sharing along these lines, I had been in a church (Emsworth) where He had Presenced us in some powerful ways...along the line of some outstanding miraculous occurrences in and amongst worship and prayer together in meetings.So I wasn't going to backtrack on any of this. Rather I wanted to "fill out" what I already knew about approaching God in a corporate setting, with much more revelation of how His life works in in and around us all day long.
The fact remains that Norman's group were so much on this side of things that their corporate worship was ...well to say the least....pretty non-existant. A few 1940s timewarp Anglican campstyle songs at best, with great Norman lyrics. As a published songster of the 80s this all seemed pretty naff.
While I've been away, I've been ploughing further through Frank Viola's From Eternity to Here and I've got to the bit where he is describing God's need for a home, and comparing the Garden of Eden with Revelation, in particular The Tree of Life and The River of Life.And it was like a light went on again!!! It's like this.
In God there is a dry Life and wet Life, side by side. There is a Tree and there is a River.
The Tree always was the inworked Life of God. The Cross has become our tree which annhihilates the Old, and but also at the same time gives us access to God's very own imperishable Life.Christ in our form. Him living His Life as us.
But there is a wet life as well! And in all our internal wranglings over the true meaning of Romans and what God has done for us, we must not go back on the new things that God has been bringing into His Body again particularly in the last 100 years, which is more akin to the manifestation before people's very eyes of the River of God. When you put believing believer's in a room together, all focussed and moving from and in their Saviour, in love and praise and faith and victory, and declaration.... well things get very wet indeed!
As I've said to Lydia and Shawna several times, it seems like up to now you get either Spirit or Word.Either Tree or River. Either Exchanged Life or River Life of the experience of the outpoured Spirit.
Well in 1950 something changed. And as well as the healing revival which broke out at this time, there was also this other man- this American missionary in Argentina, who being so discouraged by not making any headway stubbornly refused to do another thing until he had met God. This was Ed Miller (book Thy God Reigneth, see book section in my blog).
He was one of the first men, like Norman, to press through in a rendering of the Psalm 24 verse of scripture...to seek the Face of the God of Jacob...this generation who are to seek God's Presence as did Jacob wrestling at Peniel, where he had his name changed.The charismatic Jacob, who could faith in speckled sheep and striped sheep, was finally irreparably damaged...and for the rest of history there has existed an ISRAEL. Which is the final God version 3.0 of Man connecting with His Father. Abraham v1.0, Isaac v2.0 then Jacob,now Israel v3.0!!
But what Ed Miller uncovered, and through a kind of quiet backdoor, this has now seeped right through the Body....was a new understanding of WET LIFE...of how the RIVER functions in practice.
Part 2
But what Ed Miller uncovered, and through a kind of quiet backdoor, this has now seeped right through the Body....was a new understanding of WET LIFE...of how the RIVER functions in practice. This is the understanding of how our Key of David meetings work...and to a greater and greater extent since Florida, how our main meetings now work.(See the links in This is Huuuuuge) It is certainly how Rob Rufus seeks to move, especially when he introduces people like Josh Mills. It is also how Rolland and Heidi Baker seek to move in their meetings.
The tabernacle is both a picture for us of how spiritual Life manifests...both in Tree format and in River format. In Spirit and in Word. But all in Truth!!
There's a brazen altar (dry) and a Laver (wet) there's the shewbread (dry) and the oil and lampstand(wet) and there's the hidden manna inside the Ark of the Covenant (dry) and the real Presence of God overhead between the Cherubim on top of the Ark (very definitely wet).
For centuries the devil has divided the wet from the dry, Tree huggers, from the River splashers. And in the same way that a battery does not work if the dry plates are not immersed in the wet acid...we've had a representation of Christ in the earth that is pretty poor and unconvincing. neither the plates nor the acid were wrong....but they need to be in proximity to work!!!!
Norman Grubb needs to be right next to Rolland and Heidi Baker. Rob Rufus needs to be right up against Paul Anderson Walsh!!
So do you understand where I am coming from?
And we know this stuff is powerful because in the 50s straight after Ed Miller's encounter, evangelist Tommy Hicks stormed into Peron’s office, prayed for his family, and out of that boldness was then given the freedom of every major stadium in Argentina....which were each piled high with crutches of those healed. And in a few short years Argentina went from being mostly Catholic to much nearer 50-50 Protestant and Catholic.
But the behind the scenes transactions had been done as Ed sought the face of the Lord and prevailed.
Ah yes Word and Spirit combined - hard to find! Chris I am mostly following you here, haha.........you have a lot to share, keep sharing!!
I just got an email notification about Frank Viola's latest book, called "Finding Organic Church". This sounds like a must read for me. The deep cry of my heart of late has been to find a local organic, word and spirit churh life to be involved in. Pray I find it!!!!
Peace to you!!!
For me the river came from the revelation of the tree. . . It seemed to be interconnected. Not really possible to be otherwise, is it?
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