Rite of Passage

Today, I listened to a message by Art Katz called [u]Sons & Daughters of God[/u]. This is about the 5th time I've listened to this message over the past 2 years. I just felt led by Holy Spirit to listen to it again. You see, I have been through the darkest spiritual time of my life for the past year, and I have reached a point of absolute despair, in that the girl I was has died and who I am to be has not yet emerged from the tomb. It's frightening. It's very dark when you die and you're laying in the tomb. Dead people are dead. They can do nothing to raise themselves.

I've thought alot about the time when Jesus lay in the tomb. Did he do have anything to do in his own resurrection? I know he invested his complete faith in God the Father throughout his earthly life, but in those moments when he was dead, what could he do? Didn't he simply have to lay there dead until God sent power from on high to raise him? And didn't an angel have to roll the stone away?

Here are some excerpts from Art's message:

Notes On Sons & Daughters of God
By Art Katz

Art says, “I’m on a one man campaign to restore the credibility of resurrection to the church, who only thought that they had to endorse it as a correct doctrine and had no obligation to know it as the basis for their life and being.”

Do you know how to obtain that (resurrection life)? Are you willing for the mortification through which the lesson is learned? Are you willing to pull the plug in that place where you have so long excelled by your own ability and shut it off and be dead and hid with Christ in God until His life be revealed in you?

The issue of a Son is not getting by and avoiding humiliation. The issue is a willingness to experience the death of humiliation, if only thereby, God might be glorified.

So long as you are suffused with a concern for yourself and your getting by and your being found acceptable as preacher, as secretary, as business executive, as professional…so long as that is your criteria and that is your concern, you forfeit any possibility of priestly distinction and blessing at all!

The true priest and son is a fool for Christ’s sake.

I tell you how ambitious I am…I am not content that you should be “blessed” in any way in which we have used that word till now. I will only be content if the word that has come to you tonite constitutes an event that will never let you go.

A word has come, it has lodged in your spirit and it will haunt you! And whenever you are unrighteous in your thinking, your secret thoughts, or your conduct, falling short of the resurrection , when you know you could have opted for it (the resurrection life), the Lord will remind you of the word that has come and call you up to this high standard. That’s what I’m (Art Katz) shooting for…And no man can have that for his intention and succeed on the basis of his own natural or religious ability. It can only be the result of a resurrection strength or not at all!

Has this day come for you, when God, in recognition of your adoption as a son, seeing your maturity, seeing your selfless heart, that your whole purpose for being is the jealousy for the glory of God the Father…that you’ll not speak your own words or do your own thing or seek your own pleasure, and that you’ll not seek to fulfill the requirements of God on the basis of your own natural or religious ability, God will say, “This day have I begotten thee.” And the powers of darkness will hear it!

Those who are being called to sonship will sense something in their hearts and be willing to submit themselves to the process by which they are made sons.
(End of excerpt)

This very last paragraph...this is what I have been doing for the past 2 years. Sometimes I forget that it's a process called "Mortification". Sometimes I just think I can't live through it. :-? Don't laugh. I'm dying here. But...I'm glad Art reminded me today, why. Love, Dian.

I should probably just have entitled this thread Diary of a Mad White Woman. You all don't have to read it if you don't want to.

Today I read in My Utmost For His Highest:
"The greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute; until we get there our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us if we think we are sufficient of ourselves, we have to enter into His Kingdom through the door of destitution...The gift of the essential nature of God is made effectual in us by the Holy Spirit, He imparts to us the quickening life of Jesus, which puts "the beyond" within, and immediately "the beyond" has come within, it rises up to "the above," and we are lifted into the domain where Jesus lives."

All I have to say about that is, [i][b]HALLELUJAH![/b][/i]

What kind of a God is this!!!!!!!!!!!!!That he should condescend to us???????????I love Him!

This very last paragraph...this is what I have been doing for the past 2 years. Sometimes I forget that it's a process called "Mortification". Sometimes I just think I can't live through it. Don't laugh. I'm dying here. But...I'm glad Art reminded me today, why. Love, Dian.

I think it is important to understand along with this is that our death is a result of the cross having been applied to our lives. When we are 'IN' Jesus Christ what was true in Him becomes true in us. His death at Calvary becomes our history (as it were) and it is because we are in Him that we are dead not only to the things Art mentions in this and many other places, but to our old man, Sin, the Law, and anything else that would hold us in bondage. Resurrection comes as a result of the Spirit entering; but those who are in Christ have the Spirit already.

I think sometimes we also run the risk of taking hold of 'truths' and getting way bogged down and ineffective for God waiting on them to materialize. The real question here is not just death but LORDSHIP. You're dead when He is truly Lord. When He can ask you anything and you will do it. When the voice of His Spirit in the 'sails' of your ship leads you into battle (as it were) or to a place you would rather not go- then you find whether or not you are 'dead' and He is Lord. Will you furl the sails? Will you allow Him to keep that wind in and take you into places you had rather not have gone?

Many days are easy to allow the Lord to be Lord. But at times the Lord brings us to aplace when we say as the songwriter:

[i]I see now that you are asking for much more than I first bargained for... and here I stand once more at the beginning of it all.[/i]

Like coming to the altar to repent and be save all over again we are faced with a choice, "Will I be Lord in this situation?" "Am I Lord of your life?" "Will you obey me as you have committed to do?" And this is that place where we see if we are really dead or not and He is truly Lord. If we say yes and go on with Him then we take another STEP in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit was easy perhaps up to this point, but today the Lord did the unexpected. Will I take the next step of obedience or not? This is a dynamic. This is motion and movement. This is walking in the Spirit. this is where we decide if we are dead and He is alive. There can be only one King in our lives- will it be us or will it be Him? Life offers many chances to answer that question. every day. At home, at school, at work, in the marketplace.

If we are in Him we [i]are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God[/i]. And so long as we abide in Him we will remain such. When we decide that what He is asking is too much and that we did not bargain for what He wants to do in our lives- we will furl the sails and as Hebrews says- 'draw back' and His soul will have no pleasure in us. But praise be the Lord we are not of them that draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10).

Thank you for sharing this Dian. I'm finding in my own spirit this crucification of self process to be ugly but I know that Jesus is behind it and my heart leaps with joy, amidst the painful dealings of God as He digs deep into my heart to remove this heart of stone.

In our fellowship, we would call this as Wesley did "entire sanctification" which is crucification of the sinful nature in our hearts and the impartation of his righteousness into our spirit and his liquid love.

Here's a prayer from John Wesley that I pray would encourage your heart today...

I am no longer my own but Yours
Put me to what You will
Put me to doing,
Put me to suffering,

Let me be employed for You,
Or laid aside for You,
Exalted for You,
Or Brought low for You,

Let me be full,
Let me be empty,
Let me have all things,
Let me have nothing,

I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal,
And now glorious and Blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

You are mine and I am yours,
So be it,
And this covenant now made on earth,
Let it be satisfied in Heaven.

Amen!

And this is that place where we see if we are really dead or not and He is truly Lord. If we say yes and go on with Him then we take another STEP in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit was easy perhaps up to this point, but today the Lord did the unexpected. Will I take the next step of obedience or not?

Since I began by quoting Art Katz, let me go there again: He says something to the effect, "what if 9 out of 10 times God asks something of you and you happen to agree with him? It's the 1 out of 10 that reveals whether or not he is Lord."

You speak with great eloquence, Robert. Thanks. Dian.

It's the 1 out of 10 that reveals whether or not he is Lord."

Yes. It is that '1' out of 10 that gets us into controversy with God. G.W. North has a wonderful message called 'shipwreck'. In part it deals with the consequenses of disobedience through the story of Paul's shipwreck on way to Rome. Paul was the 'Oracle' of God (as it were) and represented the voice of God on board the ship. The ships leaders chose to ignore what God was saying and the result was horrific. Dark nights freezing not knowing if they would live to see morning. No way to navigate the ship- they were just carried along. They did all they could and were near to give up hope when God broke the silence. He sent word to Paul again and the people obeyed. But what a heavy pricetag for that initial disobedience!