The Lonely Eternal says, "Come Unto Me": UNTO Him? You do not Have to Go Up, Just In
1975. Sunday morning service at the House of Praise on Center Street, Kaimuki. We were asked to think upon what Jesus had done for us. In my imagination I saw Jesus tethered to a pillar. To one, or between two, I do not now remember. Maybe both before my imagination settled into a vision.
Roman soldiers whipped him with cats-of-nine-tails. Not forty stripes: their only constraint was he wasn't supposed to die yet. His back was torn to shreds like hamburger, and onto his back the soldiers placed the rough-sawn cross. I saw it as a post and crosspiece. It hurt mightily. Jesus dragged the cross toward the city gate. At one point he fell. He was going into shock from the pain. He was dying. Another man was pressed to carry the cross for him.
At Calvary, the cross was laid upon a couple of boulders, and Jesus was made to lie on his back. Not comfortable. I, on the other hand, was in my seat weeping. It was my sins for which he suffered. I wanted to project myself into his place. It was not right for him to die for me. I wanted to die for me.
It came to me that I COULD NOT DIE FOR MY OWN SINS. I owed God a perfect life for the perfect life He had given me, and I, in my ignorance and willful rebellion, had ruined what I had had. My only hope was Jesus offering his perfect life in place of my mine, and my becoming joined with him.
Because of His perfect life and the work He was doing for me in love, he was given the right to forgive me. It was him I now owed. He had undertaken this work for the joy of being able to forgive me and save me. My heart was swelling with appreciation. As a soldier placed a stake at Jesus' hand and raised a mallet, Jesus, whom I saw in profile, turned his face to me, and looking straight at me, said AUDIBLY INTO MY BRAIN, "Come unto me."
I noted that that was a pretty good trick. It meant that he knew exactly what was going on in my mind - he was monitoring it - and was able to transcend his spiritual thought to the electric impulses of my brain's nervous system. And he did this to me - a nobody bum living in a pickup truck on a little island in the middle of the ocean. To do that he would have to be seated in power as all-knowing God in Heaven. I marveled: there is a dude who could do that.
But I didn't know what to say. He had said, "Come unto me.” How was I supposed to do that? I could not fly up to Heaven to be with him. I knew of no path or ladder to climb. There was no physical access. He did not seem to mean for me to pray to him, nor to try to measure up to him. Go unto him. "Get on up here." ? Find him among the poor he identified with? "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me." Close. If you are weary and heavy laden, and hear from God, "Come to me, all you mourners and carriers of burdens, and I shall give you peace" (Matthew 11:28 Alexander), HOW DO YOU GO TO HIM?
This isn't the first time I have posted this testimony and my wrestling with how to "go" to Jesus. I have discussed it a number of times. E.g., http://imagicworldview.blogspot.com/2016/05/where-to-go-when-god-says-come-unto-me.html, and others. After forty years you'd think I'd have a clue.
Clue ho!
Could it be that the Old Guy, the Ineffable, was lonely? I was thinking again on what Dr. John Piper said (see Damnable Heresy), that "God was all there was eternally. There was no space, there was no universe, there was no emptiness. There was only God, and that's all that it was, eternally." The Eternal Consciousness eternally alone. That will do something to your mind. Countless BILLIONS of years, should they have existed, in solitary. I have been told by a number of people that the worse thing one can suffer - the thing they fear the most - is being alone.
"Hey, I have an idea," It said to no one in particular. I have written many times that the Ineffable desired form, and that this world is the Ineffable in the process of becoming fully manifest. It occurs to me now that that fully manifest form is family. Companions. Company to be with. Good neighbors. Good times! We have heard the sermon and altar call so many times, the offer to become a member of God's family. Fellowship. Be one of the family. Love him with emotion and attitude. He wants me to be with Him? I hear ya, Lord. Here am I.
It might strike you odd that I teach that the Lord Jesus Christ is a principle and an attitude of the Ineffable Most High. I have said that there was no, and is no, single and unique guy who was the Word of God incarnate two thousand years ago; because a principle can no more become an individual man than time can step out of a grandfather clock (said Gerald Massey). I am not changed in that. But a man, unnumbered men in fact, can manifest the attitude and the principle!! I do have such a guy in mind. He started as the intended end for all of us at the beginning of time - the End Guy intended in the initial Creation imagining. The whole universe is his crucifixion, and the whole Season of Grace (the period from the first temple destruction through the second) was his illustration. He is the Milta, the Manifestation - Eashoa Msheekha, the Life-giving Living Branch of Anointed Consciousness. He is our destiny. And it seems to me now that our destiny is a family of such redeemed consciousness.
From a distance, this attitude and principle appear to be a man, an individual; but up close it is myriads of peoples and nations (said William Blake). The mean Christs are the one man. You. Take for instance what Jesus said to General William Booth when Booth saw him in Heaven (Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was at the time a loose living, lazy Christian*): "Thou wilt feel thyself little in harmony with these, once the companions of my tribulation and now of my glory, who counted not their lives dear unto themselves in order to bring honor to me and salvation to me." Look again, please, at the end of "who counted not their lives dear unto themselves in order to bring honor to me and salvation to me." "To bring honor to me and salvation to me." God in Heaven and the lost of the earth ARE THE SAME MAN!
* I just happened to be reading Visions of Jesus by Chet and Lucille Huyssen (Plainfield: LOGOS International, 1977, p. 34) this week.
This is true, but it is not quite what I am getting at, which is: HE IS IN ME. And he is in you. Jesus, the Christ. Maybe periods would emphasize it. HE. IS. IN. ME. Nah. HE IS IN ME!! And he is in you!! Better. Jesus Christ is in us as our imaginations. Seek after him right here! And finding him, turn others onto the idea. Teach them the salvation that is in them - the Ineffable is righteous and praiseworthy - and is their own human imagination. Seek Him right there!
Neville moved from the Law to the Promise, to the child born, to the family as one. What was Abdullah doing teaching in America at his late age? Extending the family, bringing salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ who is in us. Our imagination is him. Maybe we ought to watch what we do with it.
“How far will this man and that woman allow Me to carry this hour? It can be as wonderful as any hour that any human being has ever lived. For I who am reaching out toward divine sons have not become satisfied yet.
“How fully can you surrender and not be afraid?” -Frank C. Laubach, Open Windows, Swinging Doors: Personal Diary of Dr. Frank C. Laubach (Glendale, California: Regal Books, 1955, p.24)
Roman soldiers whipped him with cats-of-nine-tails. Not forty stripes: their only constraint was he wasn't supposed to die yet. His back was torn to shreds like hamburger, and onto his back the soldiers placed the rough-sawn cross. I saw it as a post and crosspiece. It hurt mightily. Jesus dragged the cross toward the city gate. At one point he fell. He was going into shock from the pain. He was dying. Another man was pressed to carry the cross for him.
At Calvary, the cross was laid upon a couple of boulders, and Jesus was made to lie on his back. Not comfortable. I, on the other hand, was in my seat weeping. It was my sins for which he suffered. I wanted to project myself into his place. It was not right for him to die for me. I wanted to die for me.
It came to me that I COULD NOT DIE FOR MY OWN SINS. I owed God a perfect life for the perfect life He had given me, and I, in my ignorance and willful rebellion, had ruined what I had had. My only hope was Jesus offering his perfect life in place of my mine, and my becoming joined with him.
Because of His perfect life and the work He was doing for me in love, he was given the right to forgive me. It was him I now owed. He had undertaken this work for the joy of being able to forgive me and save me. My heart was swelling with appreciation. As a soldier placed a stake at Jesus' hand and raised a mallet, Jesus, whom I saw in profile, turned his face to me, and looking straight at me, said AUDIBLY INTO MY BRAIN, "Come unto me."
I noted that that was a pretty good trick. It meant that he knew exactly what was going on in my mind - he was monitoring it - and was able to transcend his spiritual thought to the electric impulses of my brain's nervous system. And he did this to me - a nobody bum living in a pickup truck on a little island in the middle of the ocean. To do that he would have to be seated in power as all-knowing God in Heaven. I marveled: there is a dude who could do that.
But I didn't know what to say. He had said, "Come unto me.” How was I supposed to do that? I could not fly up to Heaven to be with him. I knew of no path or ladder to climb. There was no physical access. He did not seem to mean for me to pray to him, nor to try to measure up to him. Go unto him. "Get on up here." ? Find him among the poor he identified with? "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me." Close. If you are weary and heavy laden, and hear from God, "Come to me, all you mourners and carriers of burdens, and I shall give you peace" (Matthew 11:28 Alexander), HOW DO YOU GO TO HIM?
This isn't the first time I have posted this testimony and my wrestling with how to "go" to Jesus. I have discussed it a number of times. E.g., http://imagicworldview.blogspot.com/2016/05/where-to-go-when-god-says-come-unto-me.html, and others. After forty years you'd think I'd have a clue.
Clue ho!
Could it be that the Old Guy, the Ineffable, was lonely? I was thinking again on what Dr. John Piper said (see Damnable Heresy), that "God was all there was eternally. There was no space, there was no universe, there was no emptiness. There was only God, and that's all that it was, eternally." The Eternal Consciousness eternally alone. That will do something to your mind. Countless BILLIONS of years, should they have existed, in solitary. I have been told by a number of people that the worse thing one can suffer - the thing they fear the most - is being alone.
"Hey, I have an idea," It said to no one in particular. I have written many times that the Ineffable desired form, and that this world is the Ineffable in the process of becoming fully manifest. It occurs to me now that that fully manifest form is family. Companions. Company to be with. Good neighbors. Good times! We have heard the sermon and altar call so many times, the offer to become a member of God's family. Fellowship. Be one of the family. Love him with emotion and attitude. He wants me to be with Him? I hear ya, Lord. Here am I.
It might strike you odd that I teach that the Lord Jesus Christ is a principle and an attitude of the Ineffable Most High. I have said that there was no, and is no, single and unique guy who was the Word of God incarnate two thousand years ago; because a principle can no more become an individual man than time can step out of a grandfather clock (said Gerald Massey). I am not changed in that. But a man, unnumbered men in fact, can manifest the attitude and the principle!! I do have such a guy in mind. He started as the intended end for all of us at the beginning of time - the End Guy intended in the initial Creation imagining. The whole universe is his crucifixion, and the whole Season of Grace (the period from the first temple destruction through the second) was his illustration. He is the Milta, the Manifestation - Eashoa Msheekha, the Life-giving Living Branch of Anointed Consciousness. He is our destiny. And it seems to me now that our destiny is a family of such redeemed consciousness.
From a distance, this attitude and principle appear to be a man, an individual; but up close it is myriads of peoples and nations (said William Blake). The mean Christs are the one man. You. Take for instance what Jesus said to General William Booth when Booth saw him in Heaven (Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was at the time a loose living, lazy Christian*): "Thou wilt feel thyself little in harmony with these, once the companions of my tribulation and now of my glory, who counted not their lives dear unto themselves in order to bring honor to me and salvation to me." Look again, please, at the end of "who counted not their lives dear unto themselves in order to bring honor to me and salvation to me." "To bring honor to me and salvation to me." God in Heaven and the lost of the earth ARE THE SAME MAN!
* I just happened to be reading Visions of Jesus by Chet and Lucille Huyssen (Plainfield: LOGOS International, 1977, p. 34) this week.
This is true, but it is not quite what I am getting at, which is: HE IS IN ME. And he is in you. Jesus, the Christ. Maybe periods would emphasize it. HE. IS. IN. ME. Nah. HE IS IN ME!! And he is in you!! Better. Jesus Christ is in us as our imaginations. Seek after him right here! And finding him, turn others onto the idea. Teach them the salvation that is in them - the Ineffable is righteous and praiseworthy - and is their own human imagination. Seek Him right there!
Neville moved from the Law to the Promise, to the child born, to the family as one. What was Abdullah doing teaching in America at his late age? Extending the family, bringing salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ who is in us. Our imagination is him. Maybe we ought to watch what we do with it.
“How far will this man and that woman allow Me to carry this hour? It can be as wonderful as any hour that any human being has ever lived. For I who am reaching out toward divine sons have not become satisfied yet.
“How fully can you surrender and not be afraid?” -Frank C. Laubach, Open Windows, Swinging Doors: Personal Diary of Dr. Frank C. Laubach (Glendale, California: Regal Books, 1955, p.24)
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