Today I'm having a di-alog-along with Graham Cooke.
Two and a half years ago, I was destitute in spirit. I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to live, either. I was at a low place, thinking every day about killing myself, and while I didn't want to end like that and was trying my best to bootstrap up out of this cloud of suicidal sadness, I was also certain that there was a limit to my resolution, and that there was going to come a day, eventually, where I wouldn't be able to reason up a reason to not end it all. And that would be my last day.
In the midst of this darkness, this snippet of scripture was echoing over and over in my head: Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Mysterious and high-minded.
What did it mean? That Christ was in Jesus? Like, He was the specially anointed One? No, the "you" in this verse is lower case. I'm the "you."
I'd never gotten a handle on that verse in all my years of reading or studying the Bible. My hope of glory was dying - to actually die. Then I'd be over on the other side, in heaven, without all these problems. Heaven was glory, right.
But that didn't seem like what the verse conveys. Christ in me - present tense. The hope of glory must be present tense too. What could it mean? This Christ in me, bringing some sort of glory? And what glory?
- from Graham Cooke, Overcoming Life - Undermining the Enemy:
The … thing is Christ is in us. We are a habitation of God by the Spirit. We're in the New Testament, we're not in the Old one. We don't have a visitational relationship with God, so we're not waiting around for something that will never happen - like revival- which is the biggest religious myth that I know of. Why are we pinning our hopes upon an event, when we have the indwelling presence of God that causes us to rise up?
I think everytime we focus on revival, our focus is taken off the indwelling Christ and the power of Who He is in each one of us.
You know, when you read all the stuff on revival and revivalists, you realize that many of those great men and women didn't know they were revivalists at the time. They were just living in the fulness of Jesus. And so they were like, Gulliver in Lilliput. They were like Gandalf surrounded by hobbits - people who put more faith in the revivalist than in the One Who actually revived them.
That seems a little weerd. But that's religious christianity for you. It's always looking for a superstar because Jesus, apparently, isn't ever enough.
Well, we're turning the tables on that. Because revival is not mentioned in the Bible, not once. But fulness in Jesus, it never stops talking about. The abundance of God, the favor of God, the fulness of God, the life of Christ, Christ in us, the expectation of glory. The language is so rich about our relationship with God and His relationship with us. That's where the real issues of the Kingdom are.
The reality of Christ within. So, we are provoked by that. We want to see a community of believers raised up in this country and around the world that are absolutely provoked the magesty, the sovereignty, the supremacy, the beauty, the magnificence of Who God is. And who are willing to get caught up in that to extraordiary lengths. So that wherever we go, we light fires. We kindle something. Majesty pours out of us.
Like Caleb, we can take territory. Becasue, in the fulness of Christ, you know, He's designated a piece of territory for all of us. There's territory out there that's got your name on it. It might be your place of work, it might be where you live. It might be your subdivision, it might be your city, it might be your region, whatever. There's territory out there that's got your name on it.
And the Lord is calling you up, making you fit that territory that He wants you to have.
And so we're learning in the business of life just who we get to be in Him. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in us, us in Christ. There's a mystery and a majesty attached to our story and our journey. And we are a people who are going to explore that for all we are worth. We're explorers.
I'm no longer sad or depressed. God lifted that off of me. I've spent the last couple of years rising up in of this concept of Christ in me, the hope of glory. Rising up in my ability to wrap my mind around it. Rising up internally, to freely receive love and to freely give love. To accept. To worship. Rising up as I move through my world, to speak and seal and to heal. Moving vertically through levels of glory to levels of glory. Giving God glory, being more glorious as I house the Holy Spirit.
This is what I was promised, what we were all promised. God would come and live inside of you because of Jesus, and everything would be different. But somewhere along the line, the messaging got to be about lingering sin, and the human condition, and how life will always be a give-and-take fight where we will win some and we will lose more, and God will occasionally show up and do something out of the ordinary, but mostly, life will be a series of disappointments where we will dutifully serve the program of the church and bow our heads and close our eyes and pray to God to hope to die, and if we don't die first, one day, Christ will come back to rescue us because evil will continue to grow until darkness covers the face of the earth. Because only in heaven will our problems cease.
I'll stop. It's a downer even to review the religious hopelessness.
Heaven is now. Heaven is here, inside, because what was promised is true. Christ is in me, the hope of present glory and future glory, is alive and dancing to the rhythm of the Father's heart. Life. Love. Supernatural power to overcome evil with good. Good works, which God prepared beforehand for me to walk in them.
You see, I am a member of the Body of Christ. The one who is the Bride of Christ.
The bride who is worthy to wed the King of Kings, Jesus. She's not a loser. She's not powerless. She's not sinful or sad or sloppy or selfish. I'm not sinful or sad or sloppy or selfish.
- Graham Cooke, from The Recession Buster:
Pray like someone who's beloved. Don't pray like a widow: "Lord please help me!" Pray like someone who knows she can get something out of her Beloved. Women are good at that, have you noticed that? Guys we need to learn from the girls.
By the way, there's a reason why they're called grrrls. Because they're tough, they're fierce. They don't stand any messing. They're like a warrior bride; she looks gorgeous, but when she lifts up her dress she's wearing combat boots! And this girl is so feisty, she'd just as soon kick you in an unmentionable place than kiss you on the mouth. This girl - she ain't taking any schtick from anybody! She's fierce.
Now, Jesus is coming back for a ravishing beauty who's strong and powerful and knows who she is.
You can imagine Jesus in heaven over the last 10, 15 years saying, "Dad, let's just delay the second coming, I'm not marrying *that!* I'm not marrying that!"
You know that we are made beautiful by the promises God gives us. Instead of the ashes of defeat and depression he gives us beauty. What if every situation in the world right now is sent to beautify the bride of Christ? As she rises up in her honor, in her power, in her beauty. And she manifests - so the whole earth points to the bride and says, "That's the girlfriend of God!" … We are the girlfriend of God. We live under His favor, we live under His bias, His provision, His strength, His majesty.
I imagine that, if she was cognizant that every situation was about making her more beautiful and more strong and more ready for eternal relationship with Jesus, then she wouldn't be boycotting and picketing and complaining against those situations, but she'd instead be diving into those bad situations to reclaim territory, to make things right.
Stand up as a saint. Stop calling yourself a sinner, and stop allowing religious mouths to call you one. Stop thinking that the Holy Spirit needs to come down and touch your situation, start reaching out with your hands and touch with the Holy Spirit Who lives in you, and Who promises to never leave you. You have prayed to be the hands and feet of Jesus to a hurting world, haven't you? Well, look at the ends of your arms; prayer answered. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Christ is in you, He in you is your hope of glory after glory, and you are now His hope of glory after glory after glory on earth.
