Freedom of Spirit - Part 3 — Norman Grubb

Christ in Us Rather Than Christ Merely for Us

To have Christ in you, the whole of 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 of you left, because he's pretty big. Christ in you, not Christ for you, Christ in you.

The Hidden Mystery of Christ’s Glory and Completion

And Paul said, this is a hidden mystery. He said, the riches of the glory, of course, you've got Christ, you've got everything. The glory, you can't have more than the perfect God living in you, and expressing himself by you, you being the means by which other people can find him, as you found him.

You can't have more than that. So which is the glory of this mystery? It is Christ in you. And he went on saying, 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 says. 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 your profession lives in you into what you really are.

Now, if he lives in me, then what really am I? 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.

Christ Formed in Believers

Now I knew about taking Jesus Christ to the Africans, but then I found another scripture which started me on this pursuit, as you might say. But, of course, when you pursue the things of God, you find them.

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, for my travel in birth again, until I travel in birth to Christ be 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, travel in 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, I say, that's not much different for that person, except it means expressing Christ. I don't know that, I say. I say, I'm not even bringing that to Africans.

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

It's that we should be expressive of eternal life, which is Himself, and He's been re-expressing His eternal quality of life by us. I didn't understand that at that time. Formed in me. Especially for me, I didn't understand that.

Expressing Christ in Missionary Life

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, only eight or ten of us, and we had this huge Detroit forest, about a thousand 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 play together. And when we were together, he had a way of saying things sometimes.

One thing we would say was this, he says, Lord, I'm out here to see Jesus Christ running about inside black bodies. That's one way of putting it. See? Not Jesus Christ coming running about in, that's the same thing.

If Jesus Christ is running about in you, then that's all there is. Your black body, your white body, showing Him running about in you, that's all. Same idea. Now, I had to get some things through the Scripture into me, into focus, to get this in focus.

The Search for Greater Love, Power, and Victory

The first consequence was, like me, 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, I'd say, all right, God bless you, you'd better go to sleep.

If you don't feel you've got all you want to, then I can talk to you. If you feel you're forgiven, accepted in love, 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 of heart.

You can't say, no, 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 that could happen when I took Jesus to them. It wasn't like bouncing a ball against a 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, and I'm not 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 an inward person. I didn't mean out of search. I mean, all we missionaries, of course, talk about early morning time, the time with God.

We lived in bamboo mud huts like in Africa. In the early morning we talk about time with God alone, where we read the Bible, and pray, and commit. That's why I talk about time of search. Now in those times, I'd say, God, give me more.

Make me more loving. 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 understand my illusion then. I thought I could be improved.

I find the 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 victory.

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. It 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. But it's in the book, when the Spirit takes it, makes it real, the way it made it 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 says, God is love. And I say, love, universal love, the atoms love each other, the insects love each other, life's full of desire, love, desire, whatever form it takes, maybe self or whatever form, love.

He is love. So I 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 over there, He's both individual and universal. That's both there, but love's everywhere.

God as Universal Person, Love, and Power

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, back 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 for 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, as it were, to God, I need power.

And I found out, a scripture came to me, in one particular word, now Christ is the power, not has it. Christ is the power. Power's a person. Well, power's very 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 used of God. He's above all, and through all, and in all. So I've got to begin to find that God's a spirit, who's not just a person sitting and thrown up there or there.

Somehow God's constricted, He's a 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, 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 He's stolen a lot and left none for me. That was my, this gap. Of course, He was teaching me something about that. So there I was, I learned this, He's love, He's power, God is my peace.

God as All in All

It doesn't have peace, God's my peace. God is, the Bible says, God is 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 fits 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 where at the end, when the end comes, and it says, the last time He's been destroyed is death, this is in 1 Corinthians 15.

The thing finishes. What does it say? It says, Jesus Christ, the Son, the Son should 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 a created outer form, or maybe a person who can express it. All in all, isn't that the statement? Not some in all, all in all that is.

And when you have eyes, the spiritual eyes, you say,.