NEWS Inside Out
Christine and I are gearing up to record another record which we are calling "The Great Life." For the past five years, Sweetbird has been on a spiritual journey that has been unlike anything either one of us has experienced in our lives. The Cross has been the central part of our journey and easily the most painful. We have been dying together - each at our own pace, allowing the Lord to break and empty and ground us to powder. We both realize this is the only way God can get what He wants out of us. We both know that the Cross is the place where our hearts become transformed with His love and we become One with the Lord.
Outside of the work on the Cross, another difficult part of our spiritual regeneration has been dealing with the Christian community. We both sense in our hearts that something is profoundly wrong with Christianity today, and I have written many blogs on this subject over the past year. The fact that Christianity consists of approximately 38,000 denominations should tell you immediately that people have lost The Way. Christ is One. He is not divided.
The other problem with Christianity that the Lord has illuminated to me (thank you for the light, Lord!) is that His Spirit is lacking. This is the fundamental problem with Christianity today. It is lacking the spiritual dimension that connects our hearts with His heart. Nearly all of the people that call themselves Christians have not seen Christ and have not been blessed with His Spirit. You cannot follow the Lord unless you are blessed with the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that makes you a Christian and a follower of Christ. It is not something you do. It is something He does thorough you.
How do you receive the Holy Spirit? Well, that is the key question, and I'm still in the process of coming to a full understanding the dynamics associated with receiving the Spirit. Let's start with a simple question: Can we ask the Lord and pray for the Holy Spirit? Yes, we can, but that doesn't mean we will receive it upon asking.
In his writings, T. Austin-Sparks tells us that receiving the the Holy Spirit first requires a crisis in our lives. There must be a crisis - something that takes us down to our knees and crushes us (TAS had such a crisis when he was 28). The crisis, in turn, produces brokenness. Being broken is incredibly painful, but brokenness allows the Lord to open the eyes of your heart.
When the eyes of your heart are open, you now have the ability to see Christ. When you receive a revelation and see Christ, you enter another dimension - a spiritual realm. That's where He is. The moment your spirit is raised from the state of death, you receive the Holy Spirit (cf. Nee, "The Release of the Spirit.") You become joined or entangled with Him through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit takes over. It is the Spirit which gives life.
Blessed with the Holy Spirit, The Cross becomes central to your spiritual life. When the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, commands you to do something, you do it - even if it looks wrong to other people on the outside (Noah, why are you building that ark in the desert - have you lost your mind?) or it doesn't make sense at the time (Moses, why aren't we back in Egypt? It stinks out here in the wilderness!). You just do it!
It is clear to me that Christianity is largely devoid of the Holy Spirit and therein lies the crux of the problem. The earthly person cannot understand the spiritual person. Earthly Christians lack the faculty - the Holy Spirit - that allows them to connect with the Lord. What do you see when you have people that call themselves Christians but lack His Spirit. You get a situation exactly like the one Jesus experienced with Israel nearly 2,000 years ago!
If you go back and look at the experiences Jesus had on earth, you will see that the religion (Judaism) was there. The Old Testament and the prophets were read every Sabbath. They had the rituals, the tithes, the feasts, the offerings. The Jews were following the letter of the law.
But there was something profound missing - something missing on the inside that could not be perceived by human eyes. This is the message of all the prophets, including Jesus. God was telling the people through the prophets that their spiritual condition was wrong. Their hearts were not right. The outside may have been right, but the inside was very, very wrong. Christ wasn't in their hearts.
To God, the inside is everything. Recall what Jesus said to the religious leaders of Israel:
"Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also." (Matthew 23: 26)
This is precisely what has been happening to Christine and me over the past 5 years. The Lord is cleansing us from the inside. It doesn't look right on the outside to people - in fact, it looks completely wrong (akin to Noah building an ark in the desert). It's not pretty. But this process of allowing the Lord to clean out all the things that are not of Christ in our hearts is absolutely essential. That's what our extremely painful work on the Cross is all about - it allows the Lord to cleanse our hearts so that we are right with Him.
Inside --> Out
Cleanse the inside first - that is, get our hearts (our spiritual condition) right with the Lord - so that the outside may also be clean. That's the correct order of things in the Spiritual Realm. (Incidentally, "Inside Out" is the title of a wonderful song Christine received from the Spirit recently that will be on "The Great Life").
The Pharisees were looking right at Jesus - The Christ - the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords - but they could not see Him! They had their Scriptures, they had all the words of the prophets, they had their trials and tribulations of the past. But because their spiritual condition was not right - because the eyes of their hearts were not opened - they could not see Him.
"We must get rid of this lunatic from Nazareth who says we are blind", said the Pharisees. "Crucify him!"
The spiritual condition of the Pharisees, much like many of the leaders of Christianity today, was nothing short of tragic!
The Holy Spirit is required - IT IS ESSENTIAL - to transition people from an earthly system to a spiritual or heavenly system. This transition is what T. Austin-Sparks calls "The Great Transition." In Chapter 7 of his book, "The Prophetic Ministry," Sparks describes the process of the The Great Transition. Here's what Sparks says (bold italics added for emphasis):
THE PROPHETS' ULTIMATE MEANING SPIRITUAL AND HEAVENLY Those referred to in Acts 13:27, or those of whom they were typical, had a kind of apprehension of the Scriptures. There was no doubt at all about their devotion to the Word of God. They were fundamentalists of a rabid kind, as far as the inspiration of the Scriptures was concerned. They stickled for the Scriptures; they dotted all the 'i's and crossed all the 't's. Many among them were particular about the smallest detail in the realm of outward observances, even to the point of fussy fastidiousness. Because the law ordained that a tithe of all the fruit of the land was the Lord's, they tithed meticulously even their mint and other herbs - but at the same time over-looked the things that were inward and which mattered much more to the Lord, such as judgment, mercy and faith (Matthew 23:23). That was their apprehension, their mentality, their position. They saw everything on the horizontal. It was a matter of the exact technique of Scripture. What was the result? Well, they were perpetuating an earthly system with the Word of God. Their 'church' was the 'church of Israel', the 'Israelitish church' - and you can put in the place of Israel any other denominational title that you like. That church had its own particular forms, its vestments, its ritual, its liturgy, and all according to the Scriptures. It had its reading of the prophets every Sabbath. It had the whole system; but it was right down here on this earth and as dead as anything could be. It was purely formal; it was not getting through to God's end at all. Scriptural, in a sense, though it was, it was failing to realise the eternal counsels of God. When the Holy Ghost came, He did not sweep away the prophets, the Old Testament. He took them up and showed that there was something more - something more than all that earthly, perfect technique of the Word of God, with all its accompaniments - without which all that other would have to be set aside. And it is going to be set aside. It fails to reach God's end, therefore it passes out; and that is the issue of the Book of the Acts - the great transition. There is a Divine meaning back of all that, and when you have the Divine meaning, you can dispense with the other - it can go. If you have the thing in the really spiritual sense and realm, in the living and heavenly way, it does not matter about the other; that just drops out and falls away. That is what happened in the Book of the Acts. You can hardly see the point at which it happened, but there is such a point. The Apostles did go on attending the temple and the synagogues for a little while, and then they ceased to do so. They were continuing for a time, but then it was as though they were steadily, quietly, moving out, and eventually they were out. Something had happened. They had come into the real thing and the initial thing had gone. The one led to the other, but it had served its purpose. They came into the heavenly good and meaning of it all; it was not a matter of technique now. There are many who will say about the fixed orders and rituals: 'Of course, we do not regard this as everything; it is only symbolic. We do remember that it implies and points to something else, and it is that something else we are thinking of.' Yes, but is it not true that, when the Holy Ghost comes, as He came then, and gets possession, and you go on with Him, more and more the emphasis of the merely outward and earthly and temporal aspects of Christianity fade away, and you become increasingly occupied with the glory of the reality? The Jesus of history gives full place to the Jesus of the Spirit, of heaven. That is exactly what is meant by "the voices of the prophets". *********************************
A friend of mine - a very spiritual man - told me not long ago that he thought Jesus could walk into most churches today and few people, if any, would recognize Him. In other words, things are no different today than they were when Jesus was blasting the religious leaders of Israel nearly 2,000 years ago (see Matthew 23).
How sad. After nearly 2,000 years, we have all these churches and all these things that go with them that we call Christianity, but Christ is not there. We've got it right on the outside, but things are completely wrong on the inside. This is the same condition Israel was in when the Lord was speaking through Isaiah :
"Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations-
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
Enough of the religion, says the Lord, give me your hearts!
And this is exactly what the Lord said through Ezekiel:
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them." (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
A new heart. That's what is required. The Cross is the place where a heart made of stone becomes of heart full of His love and Spiritual fruit - the heart of Christ. There is nothing more Divine in all the universe.
Looking at Christianity today, it is strange to realize that not much has changed since Jesus walked the earth. To be sure, there are hearts filled with the Holy Spirit, and this is a mighty and great thing. A MIGHTY AND GREAT THING!
But Spirit-filled hearts seem to be rare in Christianity today. This is a great mystery to me. I may never understand it, but I trust the Lord knows what He is doing. I believe His Spirit is the most powerful energy in the universe. And furthermore, I know in my heart that without His Spirit, it is impossible to follow Him.
May the eyes of your heart be opened so you can see Him, receive Him, and follow Him.
Agape,
Steve
Outside of the work on the Cross, another difficult part of our spiritual regeneration has been dealing with the Christian community. We both sense in our hearts that something is profoundly wrong with Christianity today, and I have written many blogs on this subject over the past year. The fact that Christianity consists of approximately 38,000 denominations should tell you immediately that people have lost The Way. Christ is One. He is not divided.
The other problem with Christianity that the Lord has illuminated to me (thank you for the light, Lord!) is that His Spirit is lacking. This is the fundamental problem with Christianity today. It is lacking the spiritual dimension that connects our hearts with His heart. Nearly all of the people that call themselves Christians have not seen Christ and have not been blessed with His Spirit. You cannot follow the Lord unless you are blessed with the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that makes you a Christian and a follower of Christ. It is not something you do. It is something He does thorough you.
How do you receive the Holy Spirit? Well, that is the key question, and I'm still in the process of coming to a full understanding the dynamics associated with receiving the Spirit. Let's start with a simple question: Can we ask the Lord and pray for the Holy Spirit? Yes, we can, but that doesn't mean we will receive it upon asking.
In his writings, T. Austin-Sparks tells us that receiving the the Holy Spirit first requires a crisis in our lives. There must be a crisis - something that takes us down to our knees and crushes us (TAS had such a crisis when he was 28). The crisis, in turn, produces brokenness. Being broken is incredibly painful, but brokenness allows the Lord to open the eyes of your heart.
When the eyes of your heart are open, you now have the ability to see Christ. When you receive a revelation and see Christ, you enter another dimension - a spiritual realm. That's where He is. The moment your spirit is raised from the state of death, you receive the Holy Spirit (cf. Nee, "The Release of the Spirit.") You become joined or entangled with Him through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit takes over. It is the Spirit which gives life.
Blessed with the Holy Spirit, The Cross becomes central to your spiritual life. When the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, commands you to do something, you do it - even if it looks wrong to other people on the outside (Noah, why are you building that ark in the desert - have you lost your mind?) or it doesn't make sense at the time (Moses, why aren't we back in Egypt? It stinks out here in the wilderness!). You just do it!
It is clear to me that Christianity is largely devoid of the Holy Spirit and therein lies the crux of the problem. The earthly person cannot understand the spiritual person. Earthly Christians lack the faculty - the Holy Spirit - that allows them to connect with the Lord. What do you see when you have people that call themselves Christians but lack His Spirit. You get a situation exactly like the one Jesus experienced with Israel nearly 2,000 years ago!
If you go back and look at the experiences Jesus had on earth, you will see that the religion (Judaism) was there. The Old Testament and the prophets were read every Sabbath. They had the rituals, the tithes, the feasts, the offerings. The Jews were following the letter of the law.
But there was something profound missing - something missing on the inside that could not be perceived by human eyes. This is the message of all the prophets, including Jesus. God was telling the people through the prophets that their spiritual condition was wrong. Their hearts were not right. The outside may have been right, but the inside was very, very wrong. Christ wasn't in their hearts.
To God, the inside is everything. Recall what Jesus said to the religious leaders of Israel:
"Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also." (Matthew 23: 26)
This is precisely what has been happening to Christine and me over the past 5 years. The Lord is cleansing us from the inside. It doesn't look right on the outside to people - in fact, it looks completely wrong (akin to Noah building an ark in the desert). It's not pretty. But this process of allowing the Lord to clean out all the things that are not of Christ in our hearts is absolutely essential. That's what our extremely painful work on the Cross is all about - it allows the Lord to cleanse our hearts so that we are right with Him.
Inside --> Out
Cleanse the inside first - that is, get our hearts (our spiritual condition) right with the Lord - so that the outside may also be clean. That's the correct order of things in the Spiritual Realm. (Incidentally, "Inside Out" is the title of a wonderful song Christine received from the Spirit recently that will be on "The Great Life").
The Pharisees were looking right at Jesus - The Christ - the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords - but they could not see Him! They had their Scriptures, they had all the words of the prophets, they had their trials and tribulations of the past. But because their spiritual condition was not right - because the eyes of their hearts were not opened - they could not see Him.
"We must get rid of this lunatic from Nazareth who says we are blind", said the Pharisees. "Crucify him!"
The spiritual condition of the Pharisees, much like many of the leaders of Christianity today, was nothing short of tragic!
The Holy Spirit is required - IT IS ESSENTIAL - to transition people from an earthly system to a spiritual or heavenly system. This transition is what T. Austin-Sparks calls "The Great Transition." In Chapter 7 of his book, "The Prophetic Ministry," Sparks describes the process of the The Great Transition. Here's what Sparks says (bold italics added for emphasis):
THE PROPHETS' ULTIMATE MEANING SPIRITUAL AND HEAVENLY Those referred to in Acts 13:27, or those of whom they were typical, had a kind of apprehension of the Scriptures. There was no doubt at all about their devotion to the Word of God. They were fundamentalists of a rabid kind, as far as the inspiration of the Scriptures was concerned. They stickled for the Scriptures; they dotted all the 'i's and crossed all the 't's. Many among them were particular about the smallest detail in the realm of outward observances, even to the point of fussy fastidiousness. Because the law ordained that a tithe of all the fruit of the land was the Lord's, they tithed meticulously even their mint and other herbs - but at the same time over-looked the things that were inward and which mattered much more to the Lord, such as judgment, mercy and faith (Matthew 23:23). That was their apprehension, their mentality, their position. They saw everything on the horizontal. It was a matter of the exact technique of Scripture. What was the result? Well, they were perpetuating an earthly system with the Word of God. Their 'church' was the 'church of Israel', the 'Israelitish church' - and you can put in the place of Israel any other denominational title that you like. That church had its own particular forms, its vestments, its ritual, its liturgy, and all according to the Scriptures. It had its reading of the prophets every Sabbath. It had the whole system; but it was right down here on this earth and as dead as anything could be. It was purely formal; it was not getting through to God's end at all. Scriptural, in a sense, though it was, it was failing to realise the eternal counsels of God. When the Holy Ghost came, He did not sweep away the prophets, the Old Testament. He took them up and showed that there was something more - something more than all that earthly, perfect technique of the Word of God, with all its accompaniments - without which all that other would have to be set aside. And it is going to be set aside. It fails to reach God's end, therefore it passes out; and that is the issue of the Book of the Acts - the great transition. There is a Divine meaning back of all that, and when you have the Divine meaning, you can dispense with the other - it can go. If you have the thing in the really spiritual sense and realm, in the living and heavenly way, it does not matter about the other; that just drops out and falls away. That is what happened in the Book of the Acts. You can hardly see the point at which it happened, but there is such a point. The Apostles did go on attending the temple and the synagogues for a little while, and then they ceased to do so. They were continuing for a time, but then it was as though they were steadily, quietly, moving out, and eventually they were out. Something had happened. They had come into the real thing and the initial thing had gone. The one led to the other, but it had served its purpose. They came into the heavenly good and meaning of it all; it was not a matter of technique now. There are many who will say about the fixed orders and rituals: 'Of course, we do not regard this as everything; it is only symbolic. We do remember that it implies and points to something else, and it is that something else we are thinking of.' Yes, but is it not true that, when the Holy Ghost comes, as He came then, and gets possession, and you go on with Him, more and more the emphasis of the merely outward and earthly and temporal aspects of Christianity fade away, and you become increasingly occupied with the glory of the reality? The Jesus of history gives full place to the Jesus of the Spirit, of heaven. That is exactly what is meant by "the voices of the prophets". *********************************
A friend of mine - a very spiritual man - told me not long ago that he thought Jesus could walk into most churches today and few people, if any, would recognize Him. In other words, things are no different today than they were when Jesus was blasting the religious leaders of Israel nearly 2,000 years ago (see Matthew 23).
How sad. After nearly 2,000 years, we have all these churches and all these things that go with them that we call Christianity, but Christ is not there. We've got it right on the outside, but things are completely wrong on the inside. This is the same condition Israel was in when the Lord was speaking through Isaiah :
"Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations-
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;"
Enough of the religion, says the Lord, give me your hearts!
And this is exactly what the Lord said through Ezekiel:
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them." (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
A new heart. That's what is required. The Cross is the place where a heart made of stone becomes of heart full of His love and Spiritual fruit - the heart of Christ. There is nothing more Divine in all the universe.
Looking at Christianity today, it is strange to realize that not much has changed since Jesus walked the earth. To be sure, there are hearts filled with the Holy Spirit, and this is a mighty and great thing. A MIGHTY AND GREAT THING!
But Spirit-filled hearts seem to be rare in Christianity today. This is a great mystery to me. I may never understand it, but I trust the Lord knows what He is doing. I believe His Spirit is the most powerful energy in the universe. And furthermore, I know in my heart that without His Spirit, it is impossible to follow Him.
May the eyes of your heart be opened so you can see Him, receive Him, and follow Him.
Agape,
Steve
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