Freedom of Spirit - Part 2 — Norman Grubb

Humanly, you do it with your hands. Here's food, all right. You say, that's good food, I desire it, I'll take it. Now, humanly, you take it. Then it takes you. The taker's took it, and you have to have the alpha sensor or whatever necessary to put things right inside.

Faith Takes Hold of the Believer

See, faith always is a thing you take, takes you. And in other words, you probably do it with your car. You take coming here, and here you are. You take food, bring your food, here it is, take a chair.

So all faith is operating, moving into something available, because it's there, and you desire it. As you move into it, it becomes a fact to you. Now, if you're born again, you've moved into the real substance of faith, which is, you took a person you can't see.

On the basis of God's Word, a person who's risen again, you see it. What happens? He receives you. If you're born again, the Spirit came back to you and says, yes, he is your Savior. God is your Father.

You are forgiven. And there's come into you peace. Well, I don't know how, but Jesus is my Savior. God is my Father. I remember his family. And what is still more wonderful, really, is you couldn't help but gain love.

New Birth, Peace with God, and the Holy Spirit

The Bible says when you're born again, Romans 5, when you have peace with God, peace is, it's that selfish in a way, oh, that fear's gone, those sins are gone, that judgment in hell is gone, I've got peace with God.

That's wonderful. But that's just a personal matter. But then the Bible goes on to say, when the Spirit of God makes it real to you that Jesus is your Savior, the love of God is shed upon your hearts.

That's Romans 5. By the Holy Ghost, not your love, the love of God is given you by the Holy Ghost. The love of God is shed upon your hearts by the Holy Ghost and given unto you. And you begin to love.

Becoming an Expression of God's Love

Now, that's when you've really begun to be a new person. You've begun to be an expression of God. See, God is love. And when you're born again, you think you love him. When I first, at 18 years of age, took Jesus, well, he'd been no interest to me before.

I was more interested in football than Jesus Christ. I thought I was a lost sinner. And then I went to him as a lost sinner. Oh, that's why he died to me. I fell in love. Oh, he shed his blood to save me from hell.

I fell in love. That wasn't my love. His Spirit of love began to live in me. That meant God began to live my life, you see. I didn't know it then. The Spirit of God, whose Spirit is love, began to operate in me and express his other love.

That's the first time in my life I've loved somebody else more than myself. If you're born again, you've begun to love somebody else more than yourself. That is Jesus Christ, and Father, and other people.

The Eternal Spirit Family and Life Beyond Matter

This is new birth. So I'm talking to you, taking you already have a member of the Spirit family. And Spirit is more real to you than matter. You now say, oh, this is just passing stuff. It's temple. It's just made of a bunch of atoms that run about and disappear again.

There's nothing much to it. Things are not seen eternal. I'm talking to you, I'm taking you, no, the eternal is the living God, the living Son, the living Spirit, and you, and you, and you. And you're part of a living person.

I don't think it's just fiddling with things that came out of him. That's why you've got faith, you get more. If you've got faith in him, you get a broken chair, then you share. Because you take from the universe.

He's the universal person. He's an invisible person. Father, Son, Spirit, you're part of him now. You've been made a member of his family. So Spirit, Jesus and God, Father, more real to you than these things.

Taking Christ by Faith and Growing in Assurance

You've been to operate faith on this level. And the first step of faith you took was that one, when you'd use your faith to get your food, and get your chair, and get so-and-so, and get things, and then got yourself.

This time in your need, you couldn't get Jesus Christ. He was out to you. By faith, you said, I'll take you. And then the Spirit came back, and in fact, he said, yes, he's taken you. Yes, he has got, he is your Savior.

You do belong, you are saved indeed. You have the Heavenly Father, and so on. I'm talking to you as such. Now, I'm talking about those, you have got that. Yet, you can't say you're totally satisfied. You can't say you can handle all life.

From External Christ to Christ Within

See, this life is not being handled by life, it's handling life. You're not life on top of you, you're on top of it. This life isn't sinking in the waters, it's walking on the waters. This life is gaiety and complete.

When you've got what you want, your life's fun to me. I live by fun. If I didn't find fun in Christianity, I'd try atheism instead. I like fun. Fun's all that's it, that's it. So, life isn't, it's all that's it.

Now, I'm sort of saying to you, you probably wouldn't be here, I take it from Paul again, maybe you are, but you can't say you're wholly satisfied. You can't say you've got all the victory you ought to have, all the peace, and all the full meaning of life you ought to have.

That's something that isn't quite in focus yet. Now, that's what I'm talking about these days. Now, as we go on, you'll find the reason is, you have a relationship to the outside Christ, and you haven't yet had it replaced by a relationship to an inside Christ.

See, when you're saved, you're a lost person, you hear your sins. When you read about Jesus Christ, there he was, he died, he rose again, you see him up there with the Father in heaven and the Holy Spirit, and you're related to an outside Christ, well, he's your Savior, hopefully more than he's your Lord, your Father, but it's this kind of relationship.

You don't live by this correlation, you live by this correlation. You live by being, not by bad coming. You don't live by keeping getting something. You live by something that's got you, and you live it.

It's you, it's you, it's you. You live by being yourself. It's the same principle as how you get a profession. You work a profession to get you. You don't operate your profession by getting it, do you?

How What Possesses Us Becomes What We Express

If you're a nurse, or a teacher, or a doctor, or a cook, you say, it's got you. Oh, I know my medicine. I know my carpentry. I know my cooking. I know my teaching. Something's got you. Now, oh, that's fine.

I like to do my carpentry, I know my stuff. You operate your stuff. Oh, I like to cook. I know my cooking. Your poor husband may be, but I hope you do anyhow. Oh, I like to do medicine. Because something's got you, it's part of you, and you operate it.

That's what humans are. Now, something that gets you, operates you. Now, I got that language. Well, I remember the struggle I had when I first heard Bangla language. Oh, not the sounds. I'd never get them.

You know, kind of gibberish. But I must get it. Faith must get it, because I had to get the people, but I hadn't known the language to get to them. I remember the day. Not so long. It wasn't a difficult language.

Maybe after some months, I began to talk it, and it got me. Now, that's years ago. I can waste your time talking the language. Now, it's part of me. Now, which is it? The language or me? The language has got me inside, and I can talk Bangla.

I talk it. Which is it? I am the language. You see, all life is being caught up by something, and you operate it. See? That's what it is. Now, the real truth of being a person is you're caught up by God, and God lives in you, and you operate Him.

And you're expressing God. You're expressing His nature, expressing His love, expressing Himself. And you have an inner consciousness. I'm not I. I'm Christ. In me, operating above me. Like, I'm not, that language is part of me.

I speak it. It's inside me. I operate the language. You've got your pressure. You've got carpentry. I operate carpentry. You've got cooking. I operate cooking. Which is it? You are the cooking. Which is it, you see?

Complete in Christ Through His Indwelling Life

So, humans are made. So, we're managing and expressing something which isn't, it is us, but it's got us. And faith is the thing by which this thing gets you, a profession gets you. Now, we're talking about the profession, of course, that we humans are made, that the living, the person in the universe, the person who's all, of all the wisdom, all the power, all the...

It's really you, and you know Him. And He lives in you, and you live. It isn't really you living, and you speak. It isn't really you speaking. It's really He, and yet it's you. And, of course, when you've got Him, you've got the whole lot.

If you've got Him, you've got all the power, you've got all the wisdom, you've got all the peace, you've got all the necessary for life. You're complete. Complete in Him. But to be complete in Him, it's because He's complete in you.

And then you express it. Now, that's what I'm talking about. I saw it in Paul's great word in Colossians, where I found he had two ministries. It struck me as a young man. If you read Colossians, he says, I have a ministry, first, to take the gospel to the world.

Paul's Two Ministries: Proclaiming and Fulfilling the Word

Now, like, through the scriptures, that's where I spent my life doing that. Take the gospel to the world. Take the saving Lord Jesus Christ to the world and come to us. Now, he says, I do that. Then he went on.

He says, but I have a second ministry. He says, a second ministry, he said, that is to fulfill the word of God, to fulfill it. It's as if you gave part of it to the gospel, now to fulfill it. So you read it.

He says, my first ministry is, I take the gospel to the world. Then I have a second ministry, he says, it's gospel, he tells me to do it, to the church, which is his body, he says. That is to fulfill the word of God.

As if part of it was the gospel. Now, this is the fullness. And then he said, what is the fullness? He says, the fullness is, in one simple term,.