September 1979
| Index |
Bill Volkman
While reading the book, The Virtue of Selfishness, (written by Ayn Rand, an admitted agnostic), my eyes were opened to a truth seldom recognized: egoism and altruism can be compatible. A life of self-interest and a life of unselfish concern for others need not be mutually exclusive. Have you ever considered selfishness as a virtue? Well, it is, when we come to see who our true Self really is. At that point we see that the mature Christian life is not one of "either/or", but of "both/and". Both egoism and altruism have a viable place in the life of a spiritual "father".
One of our favorite phrases in Union-life is "I'm for others." Once we see that "As He is, so also are we in this world" (1 John 4:17), we properly conclude that we too are "otherlovers", regardless of occasional appearances to the contrary. We recognize that as "God so loved the world that He gave", so we too are lovers of all mankind, and we too will give and live and die that others might live in creative freedom. We say with Paul: "So death works in us and life in you (others)." This is true altruism: an unselfish concern for the welfare of others.
But what about us? Does dying to self in the interest of others mean an annihilation of all self-interest? Why do we talk so much about finding out who we are in Christ if all selfinterest is to be replaced by a life for others?
For me, the answer to these questions lies in an understanding of the difference between two words: egoism and egotism. The first is "the doctrine that self-interest is the proper goal of all human actions." The latter is defined as "self-conceit" or "selfishness". Though "egoism" and "egotism" are sometimes used interchangeably, in the area of ethics and philosophy "egoism" is accepted as having a positive quality, whereas "egotism" has clearly negative connotations.
Jesus was an egoist, but not an egotist. He was always saying "I - I - I ='. "I am the way, the truth and the life." "I am the bread of life." "I am the light of the world." Yet Jesus was the ultimate altruist - He lived and died as a total intercessor for others. If both egoism and altruism were true in His life, why should they both not be true in our lives?
The problem lies in our incorrect assumption that there must be a disparity between what we want for ourselves and what the transcendent God wants for us. This wrong assumption is another by-product of our past brain-washing as to the consequences of the Fall. When will our focus on alienation and separation finally become history?
Many problems will vanish when we finally learn to live with that "inner wink" of union consciousness; for then we will know that self-interest is really SELF-interest, because our "self" is actually God Himself, the Self of the universe. Even our selfishness will then be seen as a form of loving God, and when we say "I" we will really mean "He in me." When we finally see that we have an eternal God-nature because of the truth of replacement and union, all previous hang-ups caused by a separated outlook will miraculously fade into the unknown.
We have been properly taught that "to worship and serve God is the chief aim of man." But we have not been taught that we and our neighbors are all forms of the One God. So we do not appreciate the fact that to love and serve ourselves (as well as our neighbors) is to love and serve God. There is no automatic priority or preference between serving God, serving ourselves and serving mankind - they are all the same.
As we find out who the real "I" is, altruism (intercession) will be seen as the total, spontaneous outflow of our lives. Altruism will no longer be an onerous, contrived effort at serving God by serving our unlovely neighbors, but will be seen for what it really is: a natural flood of egoism (SELF-centeredness) that flows from us to others. All serving and pleasing
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of ourselves will result in a serving and pleasing of others, and vice versa.
My own experience confirms these truths. As an inner consciousness of who I am has taken me, I see less and less need of a focus on either egoism (pleasing myself) or altruism (pleasing others and God). I just live. Life has changed from a forced focus to a free flow. I contentedly rest in Jesus' words: "He who believes in Me ... from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water." I trust that this issue of UNION LIFE will cause many to see more clearly the rivers flowing out of them.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3 A Damascus Road Experience
- David Ord
6 From Ground Level To Summit
- Amy Darnell
7 More Prison Letters
8 Rusiko - Norman Grubb
10 Sin No More - Bill Volkman
13 Dead: Not Divorced - Dan Stone 14 Let's Talk It Over - Bill Mortham 17 The Gift, The Giving, And The Giver
- Darrell Scott
18 Our First Visit To The Islands - Dan
Stone
20 Quotable Quotes - Brenda Marcy
22 What About The Smoking Habit? - Nor
man Grubb
24 The Beauty Of Angry Rebellion - Jacki
Butz
25 A New Awareness - Bill Mortham 26 Mailbag
COVER-The cover photograph is from beautiful Hawaii. See this issue for details about Union Life's first visit to the Islands, via Norman Grubb and Dan and Barbara Stone.
Editor: Bill Volkman
Assistant Editor: Dan Grubb
Circulation & Correspondence: Claudia Volkman,
Brenda Marcy
Contributing Artists: Richard Moszumanski,
Jim Seward, Salvador Alcantara Contributing Editors: Norman Grubb, Bill Mortham
Alan Parker, Donald Scott, Dan Stone, John Whittle Design: Dwight Walles
Each of us probably finds someone in the Bible with whom to identify in a special way. For me, that biblical character is Joseph.
It was 13 long years from the time Joseph first received a glimpse of the intercessory role his life was to fulfill until the dream was fulfilled. That is a large chunk out of anyone's life, especially in his prime years from age 17 to 30.
Joseph was dragged from his homeland to become a slave in a far off country. It seemed impossible that he should ever see his father and mother again. He would probably never know freedom again. And yet, there were these dreams: what could they have meant?
No doubt his hopes rose when he found favour with his master, Potiphar. He rose to lofty heights in that household. Were the dreams about to come to pass? He must have been expectant.
But suddenly, his world fell apart for the second time. His situation was far worse than before. He found himself in the dungeons, a common criminal. It seemed he would rot in that prison. There was no way to escape, despite his favour with the keeper.
Then came the two servants of Pharaoh, thrown into Joseph's company for a few days. When he rightly interpreted their dreams, his hopes for release must have soared.
Two years went by. Each time things looked as though they were on the mend in Joseph's life, they deteriorated. What was God doing? Had he deserted his servant? Were
by David Ord
the dreams meaningless? Was he mistaken in interpreting them as God's calling to a great task?
Suddenly, the doors of the prison opened. He was hurriedly cleaned up to be presented before Pharaoh. In a flash, he realised what his Creator had been about. Each piece of the jigsaw fell into place. God had been with him every step of the way; each incident had been according to his perfect plan!
When his brothers feared for their future some years later, he explained, "And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive."
God meant it for good! What a glorious truth. And it is as true for each one of us as it was for Joseph.
In 1962 I prayed earnestly for light on a particular matter. Not until 1975, some 13 years later, did that light dawn.
I had heard a radio broadcast by one Herbert W. Armstrong, and his son Garner Ted Armstrong. At that time, as a keen (but very young) evangelical, I was in the habit of tuning to various religious programmes, particularly those of Dr. Billy Graham, Dr. DeHahn, and others like them. I had a great interest in the Bible, an interest which had been awakened in an evangelical Sunday school within the Anglican church in the north of England.
This broadcast offered a free magazine by the name of Plain Truth. I wrote for copies. Suddenly, I was in confusion.
The magazine claimed that mainstream evangelical Christianity watered down the Word of God. It presented what was to me at the time a convincing biblical case for keeping the law of Moses, excepting for the sacrificial and temple elements. We were forgiven past sins by grace, it explained; but that did not mean we should continue to sin. We were cleansed in order to begin obeying - and that meant keeping the law.
I came to believe that I had not in fact been living by "every word of God" as Jesus admonished men to do. Indeed He had warned about those who would water down the law, relegating some of its commandments to a position of non-essentiality. Men should observe the whole law - every last jot and tittle, right down to the least commandment - not only the letter, but even the intent (Matt. 5:17-20).
Evangelical friends assured me that I was the victim of a false prophet. I was terrified! If they were right, it could mean I would burn in hell eternally! So I pleaded with God to open my eyes to the truth.
And in I went to what my friends described as a "cult". Old ties were severed, and soon the Worldwide Church of God and its Ambassador College had become my life.
After four years of training, I graduated and was sent to the New Zealand office of Plain Truth. Then in 1973 I was transferred back to England to take up duties as personal assistant to the vice president for Europe and the Middle East, one of
UNION LIFE SEPTEMBER 1979 Page 3
the Worldwide Church's highest ranking ministers and executives.
In this post I began writing extensively for the Plain Truth and other Worldwide Church publications. There were also administrative duties, and a fairly extensive speaking schedule. I wrote articles upholding observance of the law, showing how those who claimed to be Christians in other churches had a hazy notion of the whole question of sin and righteousness. I had a zeal for the law akin to that of Saul the Pharisee.
But in 1975 I was reading the letter of Paul to the Galatians in personal Bible study when several statements in the letter began to hit me in a way they had not done before. I had always viewed Galatians as addressing the problem of trying to earn forgiveness. Of course, no amount of law-keeping could undo past sins. Jesus had to die because we cannot put right the past by our own efforts. It seemed to me that this was what Paul was saying in his letter to the Galatians.
Now I saw that Paul was combating something far more subtle. The Galatians would not have imagined that they could earn forgiveness. Paul agreed that they had started out right, receiving forgiveness by grace. It was how they had gone on that was the problem. And not even Judaism taught men that they could earn forgiveness! That is why the old covenant had a built-in sacrificial system, to take care of men's failures. No, the Galatians knew better than to imagine they could wipe out past sins by their own law-keeping.
What they had fallen for was the concept that Christ's work on the cross was not in itself sufficient: it only netted forgiveness; but this forgiveness must be followed up by obedience to God in the form of lawkeeping.
The Galatians had been told by Jewish Christians, who were keeping the law in Jerusalem, that the law was binding on them. Christ had indeed become the true sacrifice for sins; but that did not mean people could continue sinning by breaking the law. Christ was only the means of forgiveness, and we must actually perform righteousness to continue on toward perfection.
After all, these Jewish Christians no doubt continued, what was wrong with the law? Who could fault the ten commandments, the annual holydays, the food laws, the laws about tithing increase, the agricultural laws such as the seventh-year land rest, and a
host of other commandments?
I had learned to meditate upon the law like king David of Israel. There were some beautiful laws when it came to how to run a community of human beings. Laws about taking a straying ox back to its owner, not taking the mother bird and her chicks at the same time, leaving the corners of fields unharvested so that the poor might glean them, and building a parapet on a flat-roofed house so that no one could fall off. Paul rightly called the old covenant and its laws "glorious". It was "holy, just, and good". It was "spiritual", too, for it reflected something of the character of God.
So the Galatians had been persuaded to take up with these old covenant observances. Not the sacrificial laws - they couldn't offer sacrifices in Galatia, only in Jerusalem. Besides, Christ was their sacrifice. But they had begun to keep much of the rest of the law.
How clever! And similar arguments have fooled millions since.
The Christian church never really got free of the problem of Galatianism. After the death of Paul, they quickly began returning to old covenant practices. Priests were introduced. Church buildings were erected, with altars, like simplified forms of the temple. Ritual multiplied. Before long the Christian church looked little different from the old covenant church of Israel, and the life of Christ was largely crushed by a burden of legalism.
We have some lovely church buildings here in England. I can understand why people cling to them. Men must have some "thing" to help them worship - a building, the administrations of a priest, robes, altars, a set pattern of service with beautiful oratorical language. These things are considered "aids" to worship, yet in reality they create the illusion of a God who is separate.
Jesus died to break down the mediatorial barriers of old covenantstyle religion. He revealed God as "Abba, Father" - the God within us, who welcomes us as part of his intimate family. Now we no longer need "things" to assist our worship; we are the building of God, indwelt by his Spirit. Stiff, formal prayers addressed to an "Almighty God" belonged to old covenant times - they have no place in God's new covenant family.
I had been in an extreme form of Galatianism. When I severed my links with the organization I had been locked into for those 13 years, after trying to bring as much light as
possible to those within, I imagined that my battle with legalism was over. Little did I know that I would leave behind one form of bondage. . only to discover that the majority of Christians are themselves trapped in a neo-Galatianism!
They may be in a watered-down form, but the ten commandments still play a prominent role in the Christian church, together with a whole array of other laws that are not actually in the Bible. These range from rules about dress (particularly for women, because many have never faced their sexual hang-ups), to rules about not drinking alcohol, not playing cards, the importance of a "quiet time" of prayer and Bible study each day, fasting, and an endless variety of similar rules depending on your group's particular bent. Milder than I was in, perhaps, but legalism all the same.
I discovered that the church is more often like a hospital than a barracks. We seem to be God's sick soldiers much more than his victorious soldiers. We try, but fail; the Christian life is more downs than ups. Repentance and confession of failure, together with a deep longing for something better, figure largely in evangelical Christianity when people are really honest with themselves. (The system is supposed to work, so it isn't too often that people will admit that it really doesn't work for them.)
For the next 18 months I was somewhat disillusioned with the church. I could not find a church that was at all into the new covenant. Until one evening we heard a minister speak who at least seemed to be relevant in the 20th century.
We learned that his church had begun in a redundant church building, with eight or nine people in attendance. Over about twelve years it had grown into a sizeable congregation in the centre of York, just across the road from the city's famed Minister. Now there were some 300-400 at a morning family service, and around 800 at the evening service of worship.
The service was very gentle, with the Anglican liturgy, but much more "alive" than my wife and I had ever seen before. It was modern. A singing group had replaced the usual choir, and the strumming of guitars together with the organ enlivened many beautiful songs of worship.
Before long the opportunity arose to begin to play a fuller role in the life of this church. My wife became secretary to the minister, and I assisted him with the final editing of a
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couple of books. The way opened for me to lead one of the house groups, and to impart a little of what I had learned from my experience of living under law and being released into new covenant freedom.
I shared with everyone who God placed in my path the fact of "Christ in us", the "mystery" Paul wrote of.
The external law God gave for Israel (it was never intended for the Gentiles) was just the ABC's of love, I explained - love expressed in a childlike form that humans without the Spirit of God can understand. This law was a "way of life". But it was just a shadow of the true and living way. That Way is Jesus. We walk this way as he lives within us. It is not following an external code, a written law. It is following the inner urges and impulses of the Spirit.
The old covenant was external - a way of life spelled out in commandments, statutes, judgments. It was a written law that men tried to keep.
The new covenant is not written, either on stones or with pen and ink. It is internalised. It is written on hearts and minds. It is not a "thing"; it is a person, the resurrected Christ living within us. This is what Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretold, a day when men would do by nature, naturally, spontaneously, the things of God. The commandments of Jesus are not words written on paper, but the thousands of commandments he prompts us with all the time in the inner man. This is the living Word that replaces the dead letter.
The law had said worship God. But how could carnal humans perform this? By not having other gods, not making idols, and by setting certain periods of time aside to concentrate on the things of God. That was the closest they could come, and all that God required under the terms of the first covenant.
I explained that I now understood these things as mere shadows of the reality, for we have become "one" with God through his dwelling within us. We have entered into continual communion with him. "I in them, and thou in me," was how Jesus expressed his own union with the Father, and we share in that same union.
Eternal life, which I had previously looked for as something in the future, I now discovered is knowing the Father and the Son (John 17:3). It is to experience this life of union with God. We become partakers of the divine nature right here on earth, so that we already enjoy every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly realm. We have been raised up into a new dimension through a new birth, and all has become new.
There is nothing more thrilling than to see people grasp hold of this glorious revelation of the mystery of the gospel. I have been privileged to share it with quite a number over the past few years, and on a recent trip to Australia the Lord opened the way for me to speak in several churches and two Bible colleges, telling of our Damascus road experience.
Leaving the law behind was like emerging from a dungeon into the glorious light of day. Everything that the external law tried to state in outline form I now find fulfilled in the fullest sense because the one who is the Way - who is Love - lives through me.
Jesus' words in John 10:10, "I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly," have taken on tremendous meaning. For many years I thought Jesus was talking about a prescribed "way of life" as revealed in the law. I thought that I should try to follow this way, asking God to forgive whenever I failed. But I found myself trapped in the Romans 7 syndrome - "Wretched man that I am." Now I know real "life", flowing spontaneously from within; not the shadow, but the reality.
God desires to free many from the bondage of legalism, and he is moving to do this all around the world. Here and there are prominent church leaders who are beginning to grasp the Mystery. At the same time, the Lord has been moving to soften hearts all over the world. Long-dead churches in all denominations are being renewed, breaking with old patterns and tasting the new wine of the Spirit. I believe that the renewal we have seen in recent years is only preparatory for what our Father plans for his church.
The charismatic experience has made tens of thousands aware of the difference between religion and life. But most have not yet found. what they are seeking. Operation of the gifts of the Spirit is only the first rung of the ladder when it comes to claiming our full inheritance in Christ. Many are still thirsting, not realising that they have the capacity for rivers of living water dwelling within! They are seeking, but don't know where to look.
This then is no time for withdrawing from those who have not as yet entered into these glorious truths. It is no time for aloofness. It is time to be among our brothers and sisters, and
as opportunity presents itself we must point them in the right direction. As the charismatic renewal wanes as a "thing in itself", the need for those who know the way increases.
God's ways of preparing us for service - for none of us has been called at this time for our own benefit alone - are mysterious indeed. Why did God let me become enmeshed in Galatianism for all those years? Why did he allow Joseph thirteen years of darkness before fulfilling his dreams? Few of us understand at the time. Yet as we trust in every circumstance, the good and the bad, that everything is according to his perfect will, we find that nothing was without purpose.
Why didn't the Lord open the eyes of Saul the Pharisee before he martyred Stephen, and perhaps many others? His Damascus road could have come earlier. But God knew that these seeming tragedies were all a necessary part of preparing Paul for his life's work, when hundreds of thousands would come to understand "Christ in you".
When the light went on, Paul saw vividly. There were no grey areas where the law was concerned. He had been so deeply entrenched in legalism that when God opened his eyes he really "got the message". And he was able to labour far more abundantly than other apostles for whom the contrast between the old and new covenants was more blurred.
What a tremendous thing it is to realise that our Father is forming each one of us as a unique expression of himself, that we might feed a hungry world. That he cares so much as to tailor circumstances in all of our hives to fit our needs with precision! And that what he has begun, he will perform to the glorious end.
Let us lift our minds out of the negativism and bewilderment that has so long beset us, and be about our Father's business! O
David Ord of York, England, will be moving to California this summer to work on a new magazine, WORLD INSIGHT INTERNATIONAL. His first book, The Jet Set Galatians, about his experiences in the Armstrong church, will be published in a few months. Like us, David has a vision for bringing the "Christ within"message to the whole world. He writes: "We feel God is doing something on a big scale today. There have always been those who have understood, but the Christian church as a whole has rejected the Mystery of the Jesus within revealed to Paul, in favour of the "safer" way of a written law. Now it seems God is moving to bring the truth of the gospel to light in the minds of perhaps millions, in a way that has undoubtedly been unknown since Paul himself:"
UNION LIFE SEPTEMBER 1979 Page 5
FROM GROUND LEVEL TO SUMMIT
Amy Dagnell
(Ed: Amy is one of our first Union Life links in England. As Norman and Dan and Barbara Stone visit there this Fall many more contacts will be made. Then we will undoubtedly receive additional liberated letters like the one below.)
At the age of twelve I gave my heart to Father, and soon after was baptised in the Holy Spirit at a Young Warrior Camp. Then I was baptised in water about two years later. At that time I was on fire for God and wanted to die for Jesus. I witnessed to everyone I met and thought if I didn't they would all go to hell and it would be my fault. I tried to be holy, so I wouldn't watch TV or do anything I thought wasn't holy. I was very sanctimonious! No wonder people couldn't stand me!
Later, I can't remember how or when, I found myself in the world "doing my own thing." I thought that all I had experienced was just a dream. I have spent the last twenty years getting married, divorced and married again. I will not go into detail, but I was very unhappy and used drinking as a way of escape.
About five years ago, I started to talk to Father again. I don't know why. I just asked Him to give me a husband and a home and all these kind of things. I had no doubt that He would, and He did, praise Him, though I had no Bible and never went to church.
One day I felt Father said to me, "Well, Amy, have you had enough? What do you think of it so far?" My response was a single word, "Rubbish." It was as though Father had let me out on a piece of elastic and when it got tight He pulled me back. God seemed to get my attention for the moment, but nothing happened.
At that time, I was praying for my son, Jim. He was fourteen and going through a very unhappy time. I had just had a little girl named Marina, and I think he was very jealous. I never spoke to Jim about God, nor to my husband, who was an exJehovah Witness. I just prayed that God would make Jim happy.
Then one day, as I was going past the Pentecostal Church in our town, a voice said to me plain as anything, "Amy, you used to pray for that church, and yet you never have been inside."
So I said, "If You want me to go in there, You will have to show me a sign." It is wonderful how patient Father is with us all. At the time I just couldn't walk in that church. But a few months later, my son Jim was driving me mad, so I told him to go out somewhere. He didn't want to go out, but I made him. About Tea-time he came home and said, "Mum, can I go out tonight?" When I asked him where, he said, "Don't laugh, Mum, but it's the Pentecostal Church." I knew then that Father had answered both my prayers at once. Jim said he had met a young man over the field and he had asked him to go to the Gospel service. That night Jim was born again, and soon after was baptised in the Holy Ghost.
The next week I went to the church and was so nervous I had to have a couple of drinks. Even so, Father spoke to me that night, and I knew I could never go my own way again. That night I met my old friends Alec and Vera Stanbury, who told me they were "resting in the Lord". I could see they were different, and I wanted what they had. They gave me a UNION LIFE magazine, and I read it again and again. It seemed too good to be true.
Then a voice told me that God could not forgive me and that I would go away from Him again. I had so much fear in me. I
tried to feel humble, but the more I tried, the less humble I felt. I couldn't eat or sleep. I just wanted to die. Every time I read my Bible, I saw the devil in it and God's wrath. I tried praying, but Father ignored me, or so I thought. In the end all I could do was cry on my knees, "Help." Talk about laboring to enter into your rest. ..I fought every inch of the way!
One fretful night, I managed to drop off to sleep and had a dream. I was at a Fair. There was tent and a man shouting, "Come, and get the answer." I asked a man who had come out of the tent what the answer was, and he said I had to go in the tent to find out. I asked the man inside the tent what the answer was and he said, "You know it." When I said that I didn't, he said, "It's faith". I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to do something.
Another night when I could not sleep I felt Jesus put my head on His chest and say, "Trust Me". My brain was worn out trying to reason my way in, and Father said, "I AM, I AM." He kept on saying it to me and I fell asleep. When I woke up, God showed me Galatians 2:20. What a release. It wasn't me any more, but Christ in my old pot. I didn't have to save the world, it was His job! Then I finally gave up struggling. In resting, the brute "reason" was finally strangled.
As I rested, Father began to show me myself in Romans 8. He showed me that there was no condemnation and that nothing could keep His love from me. How wonderful! Every day, I prayed, "Lord, you increase and let me decrease." One day Father showed me that Amy is dead. What a day that was. I praised, cried and laughed, and wanted to celebrate that Amy is dead, by shouting, "Long live the King."
I now know that I am the Jesus form of Amy, and I see Father in everything that happens to me. I know that He is the only power. Father showed me that He is the one big heartbeat of the universe, and that we are all in Him. My son Jim is going through his time of fighting inside, because he is being taught that he will always have the "old man" in him fighting the "new man". I know that Father will show him otherwise.
What a blessed place the cross is to me now. I find that as I pray for Christians to come into their full inheritance in Father that I can't stop weeping. When the holy Spirit shows me to pray for certain people, I weep, and yet I know it is Father in me weeping. If that's the way Father wants to use this old pot, then I am only too willing. I know these prayers come straight from the Father and they get answered.
I also know that the last twenty years have not been wasted. I have been busy getting to the end of myself. As soon as I got me and Father sorted out, and I found that He loved me and was my life, I just fell into His arms. Now I just trust and enjoy Him. I'm so happy that sometimes I think my heart will burst. Now I can truly say that I love all I meet. I can do nothing else. Sometimes I have a soul reaction, but its only Father showing me I am the negative and He is forever the positive. Praise Him!
I enjoyed Norman's visit to England last year when we spent the day together at Millbrook. That was a big turning point in my life. Since then, Father has moved my husband and myself and a few others to start a Fellowship of our own.
I just wanted to write to you and tell you what Father had done for me and my family. I look forward to seeing Norman and some more "dead people" later on this year.
Much love to you all, Jesus in His Amy form.
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Dear Mr. Mortham: Greetings in Jesus' Name!
My name is Robby. I am an inmate at Sumter Correctional Institution, a prison about one hundred miles northeast of Tampa.
I have gotten your name and address from the back page of UNION LIFE magazine. Just today I read it for the first time - the March issue. Already I have finished reading it - a real blessing. For about two years now, I have been through the "identification with Christ syndrome." That is, I first started reading in depth about it through books by Watchman Nee, A. Murray, Roy Hession, and last but not least, Norman Grubb. In fact, I am now reading The Spontaneous You. (I am most impressed at present with "living for others.")
Mr. Mortham, I have already been locked up for three and a half years (on the charge of attempted murder). I liken this time in prison to Paul's years in Arabia.
I have been married five years. God has given me a faithful wife who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior. Donna, my wife, is a nurse at Tampa General Hospital. The Lord of Glory moved her from Miami, my home, to Tampa so that we may visit each other each week. A Great God is He!
My wife is at present worshipping with an Assemblies of God Church. I worship in Spirit and Truth here at the prison. I am the Chaplain's Clerk (one of two). I tell you, Sir, it is a real pleasure to fellowship with you in correspondence. In my job capacity I come across brothers of all sorts, but those who have an insight into our union and position with Christ are few and far between. Though many tell me they believe they are in Him and He is in them, they say, "I just can't put it to practical use."
In faith I hope to soon be out of prison, maybe a year or so. I'm trusting the Lord for His time - a hard thing to do at times. I see the parole man in December and by then I'll have a complete parole plan worked out to present to him.
Please keep me in your prayers as we are one in spite of the geographical separation. These fences limit my fellowship somewhat.
In Christ, Acts 17:28 Robby Knuck
(Further thoughts from Robby Knuck in a letter to Bill Mortham.)
I guess the biggest break-through for me in seeing, with some clarity, the "Union Life" was when I became introduced to Norman Grubb's books. An equal blessing was when I got a set of ten tapes from the Springs Of Living Water Tape Library. These tapes were by Norman, and they covered everything from the Universe to Humanity: the total manifestation of Deity.
The audio was not too good on the tapes, and I can well remember myself sitting up after lights-out in my cell, straining to hear all that Norman had to say-boy, what a job.
But my new insights put me in a predicament. As soon as I got some new light I would try it on someone. A close brother, Jim was always one of the first to hear about my new light. "Jim, did you know that our position is 'IN CHRIST' and there is nothing we can do to alter it?" But the answer came, "Well, that sounds great, Rob, but I just don't feel like I'm in Christ half the time - I just can't see it."
On occasion I would get brave and try a thought on the Chaplain. His answer was, "Rob, I'm afraid I just don't see it the way you do."
And don't you know that at times the biggest hindrance to ONENESS was my own past prejudices shouting, "HERESY! HERESY! PANTHEISM! PANTHEISM!"
But nothing can extinguish the light once it comes. I recall pondering Acts 17:28. (For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, "For we also are His offspring.") Then, by the grace of God, I was paging through my Interlinear one day, just looking up words here and there. I came across Colossians 1:17, and the Greek word sunesteken. In the new American Standard Bible this word is rendered hold together. "And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." King James reads a bit different: "and by him all things consist."
Well, what about the Greek? What does the Greek mean? I looked it up, and to my surprise sunesteken is a composite of two words (maybe three, but just two for now). The first half of the word is sunes. It is taken from the word sunesis which means, "a running together, a flowing together: of two rivers." The other part of the word, teken, is from the Greek teko. This means "to melt."
So what we have "in Christ" is a constant running and melting together. In modern language we could say a "constant molecular or atomic reconstruction". The things that be are in a constant state of rearrangement "in Christ." The molecules and atoms that compose your body (or any substance really) were part of who knows what years ago. Perhaps part of you was a dinosaur, an eggplant, or whatever.
Whatever, it really does not matter. What does matter is that it all goes on "in Christ": sunesteken! That's right - IN CHRIST. That is, what is from the beginning is still here. Not one particle has been lost in the eternal span of I AM. Everything that takes place takes place in Him.
Whether we believe this or not has no bearing on the situation. If' I believe I'm in Christ, I'm in Christ; if I do not believe I'm in Christ, I'm in Christ just the same. There is nothing I can do to alter my position; IN HIM ALL THINGS CONSIST, HALLELUJAH! </