JohnGavazzoni
THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS
By John Gavazzoni
As we are being prepared to rule and reign with Him, we are often reminded by scripture that we shall reign with Him if we suffer WITH Him (II Tim. 2:12), that is, in the Spirit of Christ, we suffer in the way that He suffered, willingly and obediently, permitting the attack knowing that it is the way to the throne. How quick we are to call upon the God of power and authority to come and deliver us from our hardships. We do not pause to consider that there is a season of whatever duration where Christ in us will, with majestic sovereignty, yield to the hardship awaiting in faith the precise moment of the Father's choosing to deliver us. This is the kingdom in action. It's action does not begin with deliverance, it is in force even before the deliverance. This dimension of our walk with God plays itself out not only in the very obvious high-profile times of testing but also in the everyday relationships with those around us and particularly those closest to us. We are often the object of the anger that issues forth from the hurt of those with whom we rub elbows everyday as they give vent to their frustration that God has left them with unfilled hearts. We are always dealing with one another out of a need to have our needs met and we either passively or aggressively take out our resentments toward God on one another.
Recently, as I became aware once again of this syndrome, I suddenly understood the marvelous opportunity in all of those instances of human interplay, to not refuse the violence directed at me but to patiently endure it with Christ and bear, with Him, the sin that is a result of alienation from His love. You know, dear saint, that you are called upon to bear the sins of others in union with Him and that this is the kingdom of God in action. In each of the moments that seem to be the antithesis of kingdom ruling we are actually being prepared to enter the next level of ruling with Him.
"And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence .....". From its annunciation to its manifestation, it is the nature of the kingdom and the nature of those who make up that kingdom to permit assault. The verse goes on to say, "....and violent men take it by force." We, with violence in our hearts, take matters into our own hands because it seems obvious to us that things are out of control and we must act to save the situation. And though we do it in the guise of prayer and affirmations of kingdom authority we are actually seizing the kingdom by force for our purposes and to make God do our bidding. Those who would be co-deliverers with Christ will know both how to yield and how to attack. We must yield to the Father as it pleases Him to bruise us and when we are perfected by the things that we suffer we will be able to go to the attack mode in our perfected priesthood and exercise the kind of authority and power against which the gates of hell shall not prevail and to declare deliverance to the captives of sin and Hades.
The sister passage in Lk 16:16 tells us that "everyone is forcing his way into it" (the kingdom). God's way into His kingdom is by rebirth and that by grace, but in the same sense that Jesus spoke of the thief and robber who enters the sheepfold, not through the door as the true shepherd does, but by climbing up some other way (interesting choice of words by the Lord, "climbing up," self exertion and assertion for it's own purposes of theft). So there is a sense in which, paradoxically, though one can only truly enter the kingdom by being born from above there are those who enter the kingdom in its present appearance by their own force and for their own thieving gain.
Historically, in the Church's expression of the kingdom, we have the classic example of Emperor Constantine forcing his way into the kingdom, in spite of what some may claim, to seize it for His own purposes and to mix it with heathen religion so as to give himself a firmer base of rule by attempting to unite two forces; the spiritual power of the early church and the superstitious needs of pagan subjects of the Roman Empire. In so forcing himself into the kingdom, to the degree that he was successful, the organism ceased really to be the kingdom and became the spiritual hybrid that still exists today in Christianity. The high priest who asserted the necessity of crucifying Christ did so in order to save the Jewish nation and did so with prophecy on his lips (Jn. 11:50-51). Judas forced his way into the kingdom for his own purposes by arranging for our Lord's capture (doing the work of the kingdom at each step) and in all, the kingdom of God ruled and does rule today even as it permitted and permits such acts of perfidy.
May the Lord bless us with the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death.
Excerpts from SEIZING THE KINGDOM
LEGISLATIVE DEMAND or FULFILLING GRACE
By John Gavazzoni
What did God mean when He said that He didn't come to destroy the law but, to fulfill it? (Matt. 5:17) He meant that the perfection of the law had come to them in His Person, not as legislative demand, but as fulfilling grace. The grace of God had interwoven even in the demands of the law, promises, that would be fulfilled in Christ. As my good friend, Jan Antonsson has said, the law was God's concession to the fallen (legalized) mind of man. It was God's way of contact with men until He could lead them out of it.
I find it absolutely enthralling, that the Apostle Paul, who by the Spirit was the master of this subject, had as his old testament frame of reference, God's dealing with Abraham, which preceded and preempted the law. For the law was interjected until Christ would come (Gal. 3:16,19,24). But with Abraham we see, not an interjection but, a line of relationship that leads one directly to the new covenant which fully discloses the heart of God, so much so that the Lord calls Abraham our father (Rom. 4: 12,16). What is so enthralling to me (and I had known the Lord and something of His grace for many years before seeing this) is that, when God came to Abraham, to give him those wonderful promises, He never mentions anything about a sin problem. No mention of any failure to live up to some moral standard, which at that point would have existed subjectively in Abraham before the formal giving of the law. The Lord simply comes to the man and tells him that He's going to bless him out of his socks (Gen. 22:17; 26:3; Heb. 6:14). There is no mention of a sin problem that would have to be addressed before God could even think of blessing him. God made promises to be indulgently good to Abe; Abe believed God, and it was reckoned unto Him as righteousness (Rom. 4:3: Gal. 3:6). Later on, as God, by His grace, brought Abraham to the point where He could sacrifice his son Isaac, the Lord told him he was ready for even greater promises since He had come to commune with God in the pain of slaying his Son of promise (Gen. 22:12, 16). Many have imagined that stage of relationship with Abraham as being conditioned on his willingness to obey. But, they fail to realize that it was God who brought him to that place not some superior willing of obedience that lay in Abraham. God's relationship with Abraham was the exact opposite of the law. God's first posture toward him establishes the relationship and says in effect, "I'm going to bless you because I choose to and neither any sin in you or any righteousness in you is a determining factor" (Heb. 6:13-14). When God says to Abraham, "because you have done this, I will bless you further still," the mature expositor of the Word knows that God is the "Because." He is the "Unconditional" behind every condition.
When Christ died for us He was not paying dues to the law but, with love beyond measure, meeting us where we were in our mentality that said, "We demand justice. You let the serpent in the garden. You penned us all up in disobedience. The buck stops at your desk. You should pay" (Rom. 11:32). And pay He did.
"But none of the ransomed ever knew
how deep were the waters crossed,
nor how dark was the night
that the Lord passed through
ere He found His sheep that was lost."
We were lost in the darkness of our own minds at a level of subconscious despair much deeper that any psychologist has ever dreamed. Yet, He has delivered from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son (Col. 1:13).
Lord, renew our minds till every vestige of spiritual adultery is purged from us. We have been betrothed to Christ. Deliver us from returning to our former husband concerning whom we have died in Christ (Rom. 7:2-3). That former husband of bondage which we carried within ourselves has been nailed to the tree with us. The certificate of debt has been canceled for we have the mind of Christ, not the mind of legal indebtedness.
Excerpts from A LEGAL MENTALITY