Freedom of Spirit - Part 1 — Norman Grubb

The Spirit as the Complete Person

So I'm sharing with you what I find through the Scriptures, and by the Spirit, what it is to be a real person, a completed person. And I wouldn't share if it wasn't what I, by the grace of God, know myself.

Humanity as Knowers, Lovers, and Choosers

And knowing is inside you, because we're spirits. Jesus said God's a spirit. Spirit's the person, therefore the person in you is a spirit. A spirit's a knower, a lover, and a chooser. That's all we are, as He fathered our spirits.

He created our souls and bodies. Our souls are a means of expressing ourselves, and our bodies express ourselves. We are spirit. He's spirit, we're spirit. That's why you light with Him. Like father, like son.

Things aren't spirits, we are. Spirits are knower. Paul said, what man knows the things of man, said the Spirit of Mary Jesus said, knower is you. I know, I know, I know. That's you. You operate because you know.

You're comfortable in this room because you know it's a room. You live by knowing, and you live by desiring. Love, all life, of course, is teeming with desire from the atomic power upwards. Everything's a mass of desire, which is love.

It depends on the way love goes. We want to satisfy our fathers, love. So, a person compiled of knowing, and loving, and then choosing. Choosing is what we nowadays call faith, or the Bible calls faith, putting yourself in something.

Faith as Commitment Rather Than Theory

Faith isn't theorizing about something, it's committing yourself to something. Now that's how you came here tonight, or this afternoon. You knew you could come. You desired to come. You may be a little regretful a little later on, but at least you started to desire to come.

So you know you could come, you go, I'll come. That's a person. And your car or your feet, only about the I come here, the I comes you. The I am in you. It's expressed through your emotions, that's your soul.

Expressed through your reason, your rational faculty, that's your soul. Expressed through your body. But you are the knower, and the desirer, and the chooser, which puts you in something, which is the faith.

That's all you are. That's all God is. That's all man is. And that's how we operate. And therefore, to be a person, to know who I am, and then function as who I am. Now, of course, what the Bible teaches us, a real I am is a union of the I am and my I am.

Union With God as One Spirit

Oh, it's a union. The Bible says he, as he's joined to the Lord, is one spirit. One, not two. That's in 1 Corinthians 6, 17. It's your spirit. Get spirit isn't a kind of spook, it's a person. Because he's a spirit.

Jesus said God is spirit. So the person in the universe, all this is part of the person, isn't it? In the beginning, he, it's all come up from him. It's manifestations of him in a variety of forms. You can't see him in a thing.

You can see a form of him in a thing. Everything is marvelous. You can see him in a person. That's why he has persons. He can reproduce himself in persons, because he's a person. So we're spirits, as he is.

Everything expresses him. Manifests his glory, and you can see him. I see through everything and see his wonder, glory, beauty, everything. But that's not he. But persons is a form of him. And the Bible says he, we humans, sinners saved by grace, joy to the Lord, are one spirit.

So a real person is a person who's a person. He's really God as a person. And you notice he isn't really he. He's really the living God, and he's expressing the living God. He's the real person in him, he's the living God, and he's expressing the living God.

That's big talk. That's what the Bible says. So I'm talking about how to find out who we are. I find out who we are through the book, but the book must be interpreted by the spirit. The book's no good outside you.

Scripture, Spirit, and the New Birth

It's got to come inside you. Oh, that's what I know. It's got to come out. That's why Jesus said, the words I speak unto you, they're spirit. Spirit's inside you. So they dissolve from being the book and become you.

Oh, that's it, that's I. Now, I take it. I'm speaking to those who've begun that relationship. I can't say to the audience this size, but I must take it you're born again. That's a fundamental matter.

And if you're born again, it means you knew you were wrong. That was a very great thing. You are not a right person, you're a wrong person. And the spirit of God operated on you through the law and through the gospel, because I'm a wrong person.

So wrong I'm under a curse, I'm under condemnation, I'm going to hell, I'm lost. That made you mostly dissatisfied with yourself. And was there a way out? Could you be back to God? Could you get right with God?

Could you go to heaven instead of hell? Could you be forgiven? Could you have eternal life and so on? You became dissatisfied with yourself. And you found outside you, in a book, certain things were said.

You can't live by an outside book. It's got to come inside you. And the outside book told you about God, loved like this, and he loves about his own person, his own son. He came and himself took upon what you come to us, took our sins on him, went to death, went to hell on our behalf, where we can go.

And rose again to wipe out that condemnation and that guilt and that wrath and that destiny in hell. That's outside you. But because you've become dissatisfied enough, if you've been born again, you've been a dissatisfied person before you're a satisfied person.

Dissatisfied with the old life where you tried to be satisfied. And you're dissatisfied. You could have been satisfied. I want peace. I want forgiveness. I want to get rid of those wrong things in my life.

I want power. I want God. I want heaven. I want hope and so on. You can't live by wanting. You live by having. I'm not a wanter. I'm a haver. I'm an iser. Life isn't getting. It's a being. It isn't a getting.

It's a being. When you're a getter, you haven't got there yet. When you're a beerer, you have got there. Be a an iser. Now, you were a wanter then. But I hope you're not on that level, not a wanter now.

Freedom, Choice, and the Obedience of Faith

But what happened was this. Because you're a free person. Now, this is a great thing. God's free. He only re-expresses by freedom, you see. The person does re-express God. People can see the living God through persons.

Therefore, you must be free because the person's free. In our freedom, we make our choices. And therefore, if you're born again, there came a moment when knowing first by the witness of God your disillusioned condition, not condition, hearing about this, you can't live by what you hear.

It's got to be inside you. Hearing about it and being attracted by it, God, love, like that, and it says Jesus died like that, and it says he rose again and is alive now, and that all this past is wiped out, and you enter the family of God and have eternal life, and God becomes your Father and Jesus your Savior.

You hear that. Now, you're a free person. You chose. Choose means you said, All right, Lord, I'll take that as fact. It's the obedience of faith. See, obedience isn't doing a lot of things. Obedience isn't praying more, reading more.

It's believing more. The Bible word, it's a word Paul used in the first chapter of Romans in the last chapter of Romans, that's his great letter. First chapter says, The obedience of faith. The last chapter, last verse, almost, says the obedience of faith.

What's faith? Believe what God says. Prayer comes by hearing. Hearing by the word of God. Believe what God says. How do you believe? All right, you're an inside person. That believing is your will. All right, I'll do it.

You don't do anything, but inside you say, Okay, I'll believe that. And what it means, when he says that he died, that he's arisen, he's alive, I can't see him, but I take a bigger leap, I'm going to believe him, I believe he did die, he did rise, I'm going to accept him and believe him, and he becomes my savior, and I believe him, my sins will be washed out, and I shall find I'm a child of God, and a family of God, and so on.

And if you're born again, you did that. And then you had the first experience of the true product of faith. See, everything's done by faith, because faith is choice. But on earth, you fulfill your own choices.

Faith Makes Hope Substantial

The Bible word on faith is faith is the substance of things hoped for. That's Hebrews chapter one. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. A thing hoped for isn't substantial to you. It's insubstantial.

Where is it? I hope for it, I hope for it. Faith makes it fact to you. Faith makes a hoped-for thing a fact to you. Faith gives substance. Now, you always do that. I couldn't prove this chair would hold me until I put faith in it.

I had to commit myself to it. Looking, I didn't prove it to me. I said, what's happened? It holds me. I'm not holding up the chair, it's holding up me. So you put your faith in something, it comes back and says it's real to you.