The Devil and the Holy Spirit are Two Parts of One Act
In the context of an evangelical Pentecostal church long after the evening altar call, I gave my mouth and breath and voice to Jesus. Nothing happened except my realizing he rejected me. I sought to be accepted and came to a point where I gave him whatever it was he was not accepting me for. Long story short: I saw my life up to that point. "I" saw me formed from the mud of the earth. I saw the mud me puzzled by the world before him. The mud me started taking care of things: finding a place to stay; how to be safe, stay alive; find firewood; provide food -- I INVOLVED MYSELF IN TAKING CARE OF EVERYTHING, SUCCEEDING AT LIFE -- and not once did I consider what God had created me for. I never asked why; never said, "Thank you." It was His life, and I had ungraciously absconded with it. I was a thief, a rebel, and I considered myself God's peer.
Where was the Devil? I had just recently encountered a demon who was influencing my life toward possession. I certainly believed in the Devil; I had just met one and had been saved from it by Jesus Christ -- THAT was what had driven me to accept Jesus Christ. But in God's telling of my life, the Devil had been my own ignorance incurred in becoming, in my mind, the mud-man. Satan was stupidity, the adversary of self-induced spiritual blindness.
A very necessary spiritual blindness. Necessary. Essential. Required. This spiritual blindness was the very door "I" as God's consciousness had to pass through to separate me from God-consciousness. For unless God goes away from our immediate awareness of being we cannot make progress as individuals in becoming more like the Ineffable. We are otherwise stuck in following Him and having no real individuality at all. Listen to Neville Goddard's lecture "Unless I Go Away." As God's spirit we did not want to suffer this death, but it is a necessary part of God's wisdom: separate from Him in consciousness to become -- after a very long development process -- more like Him in character. He made ignorance desirable (THAT is all the Serpent is in Genesis). The Devil was the Holy Spirit getting us here.
Once we made the dive in to humanity we were disconnected from consciousness of the presence of God. Here we wallow in the ignorance of this amnesia and the futility of life until the Holy Spirit catches our attention. That does not immediately fix us up again, but we discover from this knock on the head that God is REAL and PRESENT and POWERFUL and INTERESTED. By the Holy Spirit we learn the Law: God's nature and character, currying that nature and character in ourselves. Eventually we learn by revelation and experience in practice that we ARE God sent here for a purpose. That purpose, my friend, is all that matters.
When I realized that I had never asked God for what purpose He had created me -- what was I supposed to do? -- what had He intended me for when He made me, I got no answer. I said, "You are Glorious God; I am a mud-man." I abandoned myself to His disposal. He replied, "Remember this, and it is all right," and I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Ignorance and development, all part of generating the Image of God Most High, Its Manifestation. We are to BECOME Him of Whom We Are OF. No wonder the Holy Spirit is always feminine gender in the scriptures (in the Aramaic, at least). So let me observe: we as individuals are to desire like He desires -- in faith -- and leave it up to Him as to HOW to fulfill. That does not mean we do not do anything, but what we do is submitted to and subject to His/the Holy Spirit's leading. What becomes our nature and real belief becomes manifested as our reflection in our self-created worlds. The experience of our worlds gives us feedback as to how we are doing as God's Image (humility and contrition become real important).
It is an odd tension I discern, to put forth great effort, intensity, and concentration in imagining and love and consideration; and in yielding to the Holy Spirit to do nothing but resign to His will. Yet there seems to be a thrill ahead in it. Well, food for thought.
Where was the Devil? I had just recently encountered a demon who was influencing my life toward possession. I certainly believed in the Devil; I had just met one and had been saved from it by Jesus Christ -- THAT was what had driven me to accept Jesus Christ. But in God's telling of my life, the Devil had been my own ignorance incurred in becoming, in my mind, the mud-man. Satan was stupidity, the adversary of self-induced spiritual blindness.
A very necessary spiritual blindness. Necessary. Essential. Required. This spiritual blindness was the very door "I" as God's consciousness had to pass through to separate me from God-consciousness. For unless God goes away from our immediate awareness of being we cannot make progress as individuals in becoming more like the Ineffable. We are otherwise stuck in following Him and having no real individuality at all. Listen to Neville Goddard's lecture "Unless I Go Away." As God's spirit we did not want to suffer this death, but it is a necessary part of God's wisdom: separate from Him in consciousness to become -- after a very long development process -- more like Him in character. He made ignorance desirable (THAT is all the Serpent is in Genesis). The Devil was the Holy Spirit getting us here.
Once we made the dive in to humanity we were disconnected from consciousness of the presence of God. Here we wallow in the ignorance of this amnesia and the futility of life until the Holy Spirit catches our attention. That does not immediately fix us up again, but we discover from this knock on the head that God is REAL and PRESENT and POWERFUL and INTERESTED. By the Holy Spirit we learn the Law: God's nature and character, currying that nature and character in ourselves. Eventually we learn by revelation and experience in practice that we ARE God sent here for a purpose. That purpose, my friend, is all that matters.
When I realized that I had never asked God for what purpose He had created me -- what was I supposed to do? -- what had He intended me for when He made me, I got no answer. I said, "You are Glorious God; I am a mud-man." I abandoned myself to His disposal. He replied, "Remember this, and it is all right," and I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Ignorance and development, all part of generating the Image of God Most High, Its Manifestation. We are to BECOME Him of Whom We Are OF. No wonder the Holy Spirit is always feminine gender in the scriptures (in the Aramaic, at least). So let me observe: we as individuals are to desire like He desires -- in faith -- and leave it up to Him as to HOW to fulfill. That does not mean we do not do anything, but what we do is submitted to and subject to His/the Holy Spirit's leading. What becomes our nature and real belief becomes manifested as our reflection in our self-created worlds. The experience of our worlds gives us feedback as to how we are doing as God's Image (humility and contrition become real important).
It is an odd tension I discern, to put forth great effort, intensity, and concentration in imagining and love and consideration; and in yielding to the Holy Spirit to do nothing but resign to His will. Yet there seems to be a thrill ahead in it. Well, food for thought.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
2:50 AM
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