Nothingness

Hi just want to let you guys know, hopefully it maybe a benefit to some.

Around 8 months ago I started attending online meetings for those seeking holiness. There are three guys and a woman who are helping those who are seeking others into the deeper work of the Spirit.

Something they said when I first attended and it annoyed me, it was you need to get to the place of being "nothing".

So I looked up a scripture about being nothing.

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing. John 15:5.

Okay I said to myself, let see where it goes from here.

6 months ago I became aware of the call of God on my life, it started during a Prayer for Scotland prayer meeting, I was overwhelmed with the desire to serve him and do his will all I could do was to sob and weep with so many tears flowing down my face it left my jeans sodden.

I don't know what the Church of Scotland Minister's that were at the meeting thought, but if God moves on you what can you do.

But how can I serve him in this ungodly condition, how can I serve my God, in this condition? As I sought him, seeking him I came to the point in prayer where I said, I can’t do it!

This thought has progressed to the point where I say in prayer, I have nothing to offer, I can’t do it, I will just make a mess of it and it eventually led me to say, I hopeless wretch. How can I preach and tell others about Victorious life when I am defeated.

I am nothing!

During the same time one of the guys said you need to look at the New Covenant and see the promises in it.

Around the same time I was listening to a Cater Conlon video message and he describes a time where he hit a wall in and sought God. Out of that message he went onto preach at message in times square church about it. David Wilkerson heard the message and look into it and wrote a book called "The New Covenant Unveiled"

So I ordered the book, because I want to find out more about the New Covenant and all the promises in it.

David describes a time in his life, where he came to the place of Nothingness. He says "It was while I was down in the Depth on Nothingness that God unveiled to me the meaning of the cross".

The cross is the place of helplessness, Father I have nothing to offer, I can't do it, I am hopeless, a unclean vessel compared to a Holy God, I need you, as I would just make as mess of the calling. Nothingness where no man can help.

Then the scripture started to pop.

I stumbled across the verse - 2 Cor 12:11

I have become a fool in boasting. You have compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for I am in no way inferior to the leading apostles, though I am nothing.

He was not inferior to the leading apostles - although he is nothing.

David's cry in Psalm 16:2

I said to the LORD, "Thou art my Lord; I have no good besides Thee.”

David declares he a was no good, he is saying that without God he is nothing.

These men had come to the same point as me...

Then hope came, in the Book "The New Covenant Unveiled" I read about the New Covenant, I see the New Covenant the promise.

I see it like; I have never seen it.

Ezekiel 36:25-27.

- I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you will be clean.
- I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all
your idols.
- I will give you a new heart.
- I will give you a new Spirit.
- I will give you a heart of flesh.
- I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My
statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

The new covenant and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

Gods has made an oath - "I will"

No one in his own strength has the power to live the overcoming life, free from Sin's power and dominion. You may grieve and shed rivers of tears - but with your will power and ability you cannot beat powerful Sin.

This where I am at ”“ I will believe and pray the New Covenant, I will believe that he alone can deliver me from every chain that binds, I believe he will convict me, lead me and empower me to overcome, believe that he causes me to obey his word and that he will never depart from me. I won’t limit the Spirit in me, I will wait on him, call on him and trust on him for I want to be Holy.

He alone can do it and he has promised "I will"

Brother I believe in a form of entire sanctification and perfection.

But at the same time don't wait to become perfect to go into ministry or do the work of the Lord if you feel he's called you to do that.

Tell people about the freedom that you have received and what he has done for you and how much sin he has set you free you from,

Minister from where you are in your walk with God unlessyou have obvious blatant sins that your practicing and rebellion that you know you shouldn't be living in like fornication adultery ectra.

I think even for fivefold ministers like the apostles on the day of Pentecost when they first started to minister in the power of the spirit had a lot of growing up to do still and there would have been still things in their heart that God was working on.

So part of the strength that you'll get to walk in holiness and to receive perfection will be through doing some ministry because it will be doing ministry whether it's feeding and helping the poor and praying for those on the street and sharing the gospel or whether it's exhorting and encouraging one another daily
Like the writer in Hebrews tells us to.

Weather It's using our gifts according to the measure of faith through the commands of the apostle Paul to the church and how we should function and edify one another.

Encourage and build up your brothers in Christ that is the ministry we all have.

It will also keep us out of idleness and in a place where temptation can come into our hearts and influence us.

We Are Coming into the era of the ministry of the Saints and the ministry of the body of Christ where the body of Christ apart from the fivefold ministry will be raised up to function in anointing's and graces that have been given through the holy spirit by the five fold ministers.

We don't need to take on a mantle of a prophet or take on the mantle of apostle unless God of course has called you into that.

You will be led into fellowship and congregation and He will mantle you and you'll be recognized amongst the other ministers as having that mantle but until that happens do the ministry of the Saints if you feel called to evangelism do it because God works through vessels that are not mature and who still have imperfections .☺️✝️🙏✝️

Brother Colin, I know our heavenly Father works outside of us and within our individual circumstances differently as you very well know through what we see concerning our beloved prophets and apostles in our Father's precious Word! They were all different! He doesn't do cookie cutter children! This is why we need Spirit filled shepherds. The flowers are not all the same in Gods precious garden, they are varied, and He builds us each differently, with the result being Christ likeness! You keep looking to Christ, rebuke the demon of discouragement, and any other demons the Holy Spirit reveals to you in Jesus' name, that are attacking you through your thoughts brother! Our spiritual enemies are ever present, but you like Gideon gird your loins and keep pressing forward, repent, trust, and depend on our grace given through Christ, on the very life of Christ within you and you will receive your burning bush in the shape our Lord choses within your life! That bush varies from child to child. Love you through Christ brother! Keep the faith! Alot of times it is the spiritual battle stalling God's children from their advancement through Christ, Father's teaching us! Unfortunately, the spiritual side is little known, but God will teach! We must look past the physical into the spiritual through His Spirit. Brother Gary Amen, if God has called us, let us not shrink back but move forward through Him. God is the one who calls, prepares, and anoints through Christ and His Holy Spirit, least any man should boast! It is a work of God through and through. Let His Spirit lead you! Become the flower He choose you to be and blossom forth in that beautiful flower He creates, nurtures and grows, for His purposes, His glory, and His praise alone. Unless a seed die, it will never bring forth life.

BrotherGary

Thank you for concern; I am sharing this to help others.

What I am experiencing is a work of the Spirit in my life, the cross, a place of utter helplessness. When we are helpless Christ comes right on time.

At the point of my helplessness, help has come, I see the New Covenant in a new way, Billy in his post shared about the transformative power of the cross.

Crucified: "to have had self-put to death, and this by God Himself!”

What I sharing about is my reckoning, my reality the will of God for my life.

But there is hope, as I said when your helpless Christ comes.

I cant do it - God says "I can"
I am hopeless, a unclean vessel - God says "I will give you and make you clean"
I am not Holy - Gods says "I am"
I will just make a mess of it - Gods "I will not"
All I know is defeat - Gods says "all I know is victory"

There is the transformative power of the cross, it's not me or my strength (I am nothing) -

God has promised - "He will do it"

Billy thank for your concern, I am describing in my best words the deeper work of the cross as I am experiencing it, I am being as honest and open about my prayers, that I pray in secret, to help any others that God maybe bringing to the cross, at this time, or in the future, that may stumble across this post by chance.

I have been really excited over the last week as God is opening up the New Covenant in a way I have not seen before.

My prayers will be changing as the burden has changed.

I am nothing and I very happy to be nothing.

Thank God for the transformative power of the cross.

You're welcome Colin.
Your experience sounds very similar to what I went through in the past I was a very ardent proponent of calvinism even though I was still charismatic somewhat I was vehemently opposed to perfectionism and the idea of entire sanctification in any way shape or form.

Because at the time that seemed to line up better with my understanding of never really been free from sin and always having a consciousness of sin.

Also very doctrinally dogmatic and against much of the charismatic movement and so a lot of my religion was coming against false doctrine but as the years went on I realized to my shame and pain that what I had experienced during my new birth and an outpouring of the spirit that I considered baptism of the spirit was waning and waning and my passion for spiritual things started to dry up though I meditated on scripture every day I prayed every day in my own efforts I prayed many hours a day to God up to four to six hours of meditating on scripture on many a days yet still something wasn't right and this child like faith that I had in the beginning seemed to be disappearing I was smoking cigarettes and drinking to much wine in complete justification of it due to the calvinistic and the Spurgeon type of belief system that you could drink wine and Martin Luther drank wine and beer and you know how it is maybe you don't but a found myself with a very dry form of religion.

To a point where I started to get desperate and I started to look into Wesleyan holiness teachings which I was against and something in me wanted it to be true because this living in half of victory and still being in what would be sin it seemed.

This was not the state that I wanted to live in for the rest of my Christian walk, the desperation grew in the sight of my own wretchedness,Romans seven, I felt like I was in there living that wretched lifestyle seeing my worthlessness and other inability to live the Christian life that I saw in the scripture and the called
To holiness and sanctified, living that seems so far away from me everything I tried failed.

It got To such a point where I thought to myself Lord you would be better off taking me home because I don't want to live like this I could see the scripture that said be perfect be holy I could see the scripture that talked about the fruits of the spirit the chapters of love and these verses were so foreign even though I thought I knew these verses in the beginning of my walk.

I prayed sometimes for hours a day and yet I couldn't get into that place of joy and that place of awe that I was in in the beginning and slowly but surely fishing and hunting and general hobbies started to take away that pain which only made it worse because I knew that these things were getting in the road of a prayer life that I never had anymore or a passion in prayer that I never had anymore.

Long story short then the trials and tribulations came a complete turning upside down of life. My wife was given a death sentence from the doctor with incurable tumor and cancer through her body.

My Mother died our finances were ripped apart the dream of buying the house and living on the farm and growing our vegetables was completely torn away and I was left lonely not knowing when my wife was going to die in a total state of desperation and also the consciousness that I wasn't right with God even though I cried and wept in prayer but the verse kept coming back to me (whom the son sets free will be free indeed).

Going through trial that I wouldn't wish upon my enemies no other description other than I felt like I was under a curse.

The Book of Job became a reality and a comfort.

Seeing the verses in the scripture that I was always afraid of that talked about suffering for Christ I realized that this was the thing that I had always been afraid of that I would have to suffer and God would rip away every crutch that I leaned on and left me open bare.

This trial period is something I'm still going through but it waned for a period of time when my wife got healed miraculously.

But I had severed depression and anxiety for the first time in my life and I started to understand what that was like for people and I also started to drink and smoke cigarettes because I refused to go to the doctor for medication because I didn't believe that a Christian should have to do that because of the peace that passes all understanding and the joy that's available but I kept saying no the lord will heal eventually.

And as weak as what my trust in with God was I knew he was still there and he hadn't let us go and that gave me comfort to know that I will still alive and so was my wife and we had a Destiny obviously that God had planned for us and I held God to that one verse whom the son sets free will be free indeed.

I said in my heart and in my prayers you must set me free because your words says so and you don't lie and I can't set myself free I held on to that verse and refuse to let it go.

And then one day completely out of the blue I woke up and the holy spirit had filled the room and it's cast out my depression and anxiety , cigarettes alcohol basically broke off in that experience and on that same day my friend who I was living with who was a back slidden Lutheran with bipolar the spirit came upon him as well and he started to have a fresh experience with the holy spirit and on that same day the holy spirit touched my wife who was living 2000 kilometers or more away at the time.

I knew that this is what I had been waiting for and I'd received a prophecy ten years beforehand that this was going to happen and it finally happened and that kicked off a 40-day fast that I never ever had the strength to even think about performing and this entire sanctification this was I believe the power of the holy spirit to release us from all sin it happened and I experienced it.

But I'll be very plain that this experience was then followed up with warfare in the spirit and temptations after about two to three months of complete bliss and freedom the trials started and then temptation spiritual warfare began and I realized that this entire sanctification it's not something that will stay automatically one has to wage the good warfare according to the prophecies that have been spoken like the Apostle Paul said to Timothy and we have to pray and watch and submit and yield to the spirit so that we can remain in that state and even battle on .

The experience was a consciousness of brokenness and absolute peace, helplessness,Joy unspeakable and consciousness of the holiness of God all at once.

The complete and utter knowing that God sanctified me unlike I'd ever experienced before.

Now I know the Pentecostal movement talked about three blessings the original classic pentecostalism and for me it turns out to be something similar to that but my understanding and belief is that there's going to be another wave of the holy spirit coming and I'm waiting for that to come and praying and believing for it like I did for the 10 years previous.

God was completely trustworthy in answering that prayer and cry of the heart but it took 10 years.

And more than 7 years of very uncomfortable and sometimes extremely painful trials.

And I would say in comparison to my early walk, my first 18 years of Christianity was nothing like this and The trials were just very easy to handle.

I would hope that God would take over my free will and completely utterly possessed me and not allow me to ever fall back into sin again and he would force me to keep his commandments but in reality that's not how it is though I could wish it was, we have to endure to the end and we have to fight off demonic attacks at times through different seasons and so falling into sin is still a very real possibility and experience and more then likely because it's still growth in maturity, we still have to grow in Grace.

What I hold hope for Colin is the prophecies that I've received which God has been kind to fulfill so far talks about a time when he will raise up his bride and mantle her in his glory and she will have made herself ready this will be a maturing on a corporate level and a holiness that will come upon the many in church before christ comes back and that I believe is something to look forward to I've got no reason to believe that he will not do that and it'll be all about Grace it'll be all about God's power God's holiness becoming our own.

Nothing but Mercy upon mercy Grace upon Grace and it'll be received by a broken heart yielded to his purposes not through the efforts of the flesh or not through man's will.

Not by might and it's not by power but it's but by my spirit says the Lord.

It Really will be according to what Paul said it's not of him who wills nor him who runs but Of God who shows mercy, all the way until Christ comes all the way untill we are built up and matured to the perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

It will Be a part of the fulfillment of us being living stones being built up and matured into the holy corporate temple of God and God will manifest his glory in and over that temple as he did in the time of King Solomon.☺️🙏✝️🙏

Gary when I wrote this short testimony, I knew you would reply and it's good to hear about your walk so far.

I don't understand why we are allowed to be "sifted", but it does bring you into a deeper walk with God, it was in Job that I saw he went from hear God with his ears, to seeing God. Which lets me know there was purification of the vessel that came out of the sifting.

For me I was feeling the full weight of responsibility for the call of God on my life, it was something that I can't carry in my own strength.

That burden has been lifted, know I will go ahead from a different outlook seeing that it is him that has promised to do it. So I will pray looking to him and reminding him of his word and that he has said "he will do it"

Letting go and letting God do it.

Amen . Thanks for you testimony 🙏

In retrospect this is how it was for me; I see it could be different per brother or sister in Christ. I might be one of the harder headed brethren. Facepalm, He knows what we each need, He knows us each better than we know ourselves. Discipline is His tender love to mature us.

Being sifted awakens us! During such a time it feels like the darkness is trying to engulf us! Nothing else matters but God. Divine discipline hurts, but it brings forth the fruit of endurance to those who learn from it. We drop everything else looking to Him alone through Christ. Caring no more what man think of us. Everything else we held highly is burnt up within a time of sifting like a puff of smoke. Peter went though it to. It's a humbling, painful, disciplinary love directing our bottoms to drop everything else and fully bow and acknowledge our Creator and Sustainer! It's an awakening, the seed seemingly bursting open, and in God's mercy we walk away from it humbled and knowing Him more intimately and feel His greater control over our life through His Spirit within us. Knowing He is with us all throughout the day. Since walking out of it I keep a necklace with a cross on it on me as a reminder though I should never need one. Christ is all and through Him I have life alone.

When I went through a similar working (of what seemed to be protracted series of misfortunes upon my family), Job also came to my mind. I could not think of a sin I could ascribe the said misfortunes to and yet they were at hand. I tried hard to put things back to place (to the BEST of my knowledge and power) without success.

As hell seemed to continue to break loose thus, I prayed "God, I did not get us into this, and now know I cannot get us out".

P.S: At one point my wife said: "It is as though we are cursed."

When relief finally came, it was almost as what Paul said in Romans 8:28

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God"

All seemed to work towards our altimate relief. I had a few follow up questions/remarks on the given accounts but it seems they are not necessary here - lest I mar the (essentially a) picture of golden apples on a silver background. "Nothingness"

I was just reminded that reaching the state of nothingness may be short lived unless the Lord leave us with atleast one thorn (unremoved) so that we may be able to remain thus in state. This was so with Paul (he continued with a thorn). Yes this may be necessary only for some Christians (Especially for those in public ministry or so).

The awareness of me being "nothing" is where you are utterly helpless to do the things that I am called to do.

So it was a turning point a deliverance if you like. It was there that the New Covenant was opened up. A weight has been lifted off of me, joy has replaced the burden of the "I can't do it" as "there is nothing good in me".

Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

At work they speak about "chronic unease" be vigilant something could go wrong at any moment. The "chronic unease" that I felt prior has been replaced as I now rest (believe) on the promises of God.

Jesus said in John 5:30

"I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

Christ himself said that he can do nothing on his own, because he wasn't seeking his own will, but the will of him who sent me.

What I saw in the New Covenant is that God promises that "I will do it" Moving forward as I seek to God will for my life, as he gets ready to send me to do what he has called me to do. I will rest (believe) on the promises of God.

Myself I think I understand. Unless if I missed something, I believe the application may differ based of the circustances of each one of us's calling. May his grace abound as you thus embark on what you believe to be a God given assignment.

I am led to the blessed conviction, I am nothing, my holiness is nothing, my resolutions are nothing, my faith is nothing, my energies are nothing, I stand barren and stripped naked of everything, I fling myself into the merciful arms of the Father. There is all the difference in the world between searching for evidence of my Sonship and seeking to get the conviction of God's fatherhood. There is one in an endless, profitless, self-tormenting task. The other is the light and liberty, the glorious liberty of the children of God. I

We can live incessantly tormented by trying to search out evidences that prove our Sonship, or we can seek to truly understand, how do we do so? By this spirit bearing witness with our spirit, that we are the Sons of God. We can therefore then seek to get the true understanding of the fatherhood of God with regard to our soul. That how can we say, God, you are our father, because, as Romans 8 just said, we have him dwelling in us, crying out, Abba, Father, and confirming by such a mutual bearing witness to our soul that our soul may come into a mutual agreement and concurrence with the spirit that we are the Sons of God and live as those who enjoy the relationship that God has wrought in us instead of attempting by whatever means we manufacture to establish one of our own.

Vern - I found this

Alexander MacLaren :: The Witness of the Spirit (Romans 8:16)

Ah, brethren! expand this thought of the conviction that God is my Father, as being the basis of all my confidence that I am His child, into its widest and grandest form, and it leads us up to the blessed old conviction, I am nothing, my holiness is nothing, my resolutions are nothing, my faith is nothing, my energies are nothing; I stand stripped, and barren, and naked of everything, and I fling myself out of myself into the merciful arms of my Father in heaven!

There is all the difference in the world between searching for evidence of my sonship, and seeking to get the conviction of God's Fatherhood. The one is an endless, profitless, self-tormenting task; the other is the light and liberty, the glorious liberty, of the children of God.

I like how he says:- the blessed old conviction - "I am nothing" but it's true when we are stripped and barren we do throw ourselves into the merciful arms of the Father.

There was, 'I am nothing””Thou art everything: I bring myself and my emptiness unto Thy great fullness: fill it and make me blessed!'

Alexander MacLaren :: The Dying Thief (Luke 23:42)

God is all, and I am nothing.

Luther often said to people, when they came troubling him about difficulties, "Do let God be God."

Oh, give God His place. And what is that place? "That God may be all in all." Let God be all in all every day, from morning to evening. God to rule and I to obey.

Ah, the blessedness of saying, "God and I!" What a privilege that I have such a partner! God first, and then I! And yet there might be secret self-exaltation in associating God with myself.

And I find in the Bible a more precious word still. It is, "God and not I." It is not, "God first, and I second."

God is all, and I am nothing. Paul said, "I labored more abundantly than they all; though I be nothing."

Andrew Murray That God May Be All In All

Norman Grubb signed all of his forwards (he wrote a forward for Andrew Murray interestingly), "Not God first, but God only".

This post is timely as I just reread a testimony from one of Grubbs books that deals with this exact thing -

"For me to live is Christ" - not some of Him and some of me, but all of Him, "not I, but Christ living in me", "hid with Christ in God".

Here is something to ponder.

If we are aware of the nothing we have become, we are in fact not "nothing". To truly be nothing, is to be completely unaware of self, even unaware of the unawareness - right and left hands never meet - unconscious and spontaneous holiness as the outworking of Jesus within.

If we are aware of our "nothingness" than we still esteem ourselves to highly.

The idea of Nothingness, can come dangerously close to the transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self, and the subject is released from the effects of karma and the cycle of death and rebirth. It represents the final goal of Buddhism.

Col 2:10 however, tells us that "ye are complete in Him."

It comes I believe from the mistaken idea that self is to be crucified with Christ. No. Self is to be denied:

Luke 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.