Notes From Norman – Striving

Striving

Norman P. Grubb
I feel a sense of striving coming into you, striving to ward off something, or to keep up to something. Striving is self, and therefore sin. Abide simply and happily in Jesus, just doing what He tells you, no more, no less. Forget the devil, there is Someone more interesting to be occupied with!

Knight of Faith, Vol.I

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Daily Thought – His Keeping Power

His Keeping Power
Watchman Nee
Jude 1:24 But to Him who is able to guard you from stumbling and to set you before His glory without blemish in exultation.

Joshua 14:10-11And now, look, Jehovah has kept me alive, as He said, for these forty-five years, since the time Jehovah spoke this word to Moses while Israel walked through the wilderness, and now, look, today I am eighty-five years old. Today I am still as strong as I was on the day Moses sent me out; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for battle and for going out and coming in.

If your life is truly in His hands, then the promise of Jude 24 will be fulfilled in you. To stumble is to slip and strike against something when we are unconscious of any obstruction in the way. Praise God, He will preserve us not only from falling but also from the slightest slippage. Thank and praise the Lord, His preserving grace operates beyond the realm of our consciousness. Brothers and sisters, if we commit ourselves unreservedly into His care, we will marvel at the way we are kept. When temptation suddenly assails and love is required, we will find love spontaneously welling up from within. When a sudden temptation demands patience, without giving it a moment’s thought, our patience will rise up to meet the need. Praise God, as the life we received from Adam spontaneously expresses itself, so also does the life we receive from Christ. We inherited our bad temper from Adam, and we can become angry without the slightest effort of will. We inherited pride from Adam, and we can become proud without any deliberate decision.

In the same way, those who have received the life of Christ and committed themselves into His keeping can be meek without making up their minds to be meek, and humble without any effort to be humble. The same spontaneity of manifestation that characterizes the life we have received from Adam also characterizes the life we have received from Christ. To work out what the Lord Jesus has given us does not require any effort on our part. If we trust in His promises and commit ourselves utterly to Him, we will be kept from this day to the day of His return, and we will be kept without blemish. Thank God, we have a salvation which is worthy of our trust and which will withstand every trial.

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Seeing the Land

Seeing the Land

By Fred Pruitt

Deuteronomy 34:

(1)  And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land …

(4) And the LORD said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes …

This is about the death of Moses. As the children of Israel, after forty years of wandering in the desert, have finally come to the edge of the Promised Land and are about to enter, God calls Moses to the top of Mount Nebo to die, and to not enter the land with the people he’d led for all those years.

But before Moses passes out of this world, God gives him a vision of the land.

I’ve read this story for at least forty years. My mother bought me a children’s Bible Story book when I was 9 or 10, and I read it over and over. I’ve always loved these stories.

But for a very long time I saw Moses as a sad character in the end. It seemed to me a small consolation that God let him see the land that he was never going to enter. That might be construed a punishment. Some see it that way, I’m sure.

But any way you cut it, it can be a sad sight to think of, Moses by himself about to die, able to remember everything that had happened as they lived day by day for 40 years in the wilderness, and they are going into the land but he is not. He just gets this beautiful view from afar.

I could see it from the standpoint that Moses in the scheme of things represents the law and the law cannot take us into the Promised Land. 

That is a life-altering truth in itself, but it wasn’t until recently that I saw it for Moses himself. Moses my human brother, aside from any typeology, remained sad to me. So somehow it becomes important that not only do I see Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, but that I also see Moses in the same way — come in the flesh. What I mean by that is that I know Moses as a real living human man. Not a type or an historical figure. Just as a real living human man, perhaps me or you or someone right next to us. So if that real living person, the real Moses, is left sad in my heart, then that doesn’t seem satisfactory.

The reason I got into all this in the first place is that I came home from a trip and got in late. I turned on the TV and there was a movie about Moses playing. It wasn’t especially good and it wasn’t especially bad, but for me more than anything it served to put a more human face on Moses. It struck me that if Moses was a real figure as I have believed and so do millions of others, then he would have been a man just like me or any other, and that he and Aaron and Miriam, and all the other characters in Moses’ story, were also men and women as we all are.

Maybe minus the miracles, anyway.

The end of the movie corresponded with the Mount Nebo story I related above, and it shows Moses getting a view of the landscape from the top of Mount Nebo, getting what appeared to be a vision like one might hope to get on a clear day from Rock City, Tennesee, where one is reputed to be able to see 7 states. I’ve been there, and all 7 states are pretty hard to spot — you have to sort of take it by faith that’s what you’re seeing.

I realized that that is how I have seen that final moment of Moses, as sort of a 25-cent telescopic view of the whole of the land of Palestine, a land he’d never see or enter, but getting this glimpse at the moment of his demise, of all he was going to miss out on. How pretty it was, how green, how luscious, how arable, how prosperous. He had come to the very brink of all its fulifillment, but he’d never actually be there and see it for himself.

I just hated that for Moses. Even if I saw the typology. Typology doesn’t pay the rent (of life.)

But then I got the real story and my sadness for Moses left.

It was a not-too-good but not-too-bad television Moses movie that opened my eyes. They did such a good job showing the Promised Land in the distance in Moses’ last moments. It was so good I realized that was what God had done with Moses.

God showed Moses the real Promised Land on the top of Mount Nebo. It may have started out with the physical views of the various territories occupied by Dan, Asher, Naphtali, and so on. But suddenly I saw it. Why would God give him a view of a temporal land? Moses had long before found the Eternal God — I AM. Moses, surely more than any of the people, knew the true land to which they were being taken.

The well-watered gardens, luscious valleys and inviting paths spoke to Moses not of a land still in strife, with enemies to repel and fortresses to take. He could only have seen the Real Land, God Himself, the filler and upholder of all, unfolding and speaking all, providing all, loving all. He Himself as our Land of Promise.

And this is where we also join with Moses. These characters did not live their lives for themselves, but for us who would come later and know God in their lives, so that we would know God in our lives. So this Moses is also us, and it is true, that sadly, because of the law, we can never enter the land in the flesh of this world. We can only sit as if from afar and can never get a full view of the temporal land. It is always strife and temporary, and in it we can never find any lasting country of fulfillment. 

But suddenly our sights are raised, and behind the misty view of the temporal land we see the Real Land appearing, and the clarity of the Real outshines the obscurity of the temporal.

The view of the temporal by itself can only be incomplete. It is only an appearance of truth, and we are only able to see its meaning and its meaning out of the solid substance of faith, as we have been given it and received it by the Holy Spirit — faith as substance and faith as evidence.

And by grace this is our walk in the Spirit. That we see in the temporal, the Eternal, and find our truth in the Eternal, and not in the temporal. This is not as a mental exercise of the intellect, but a simple receiving through faith the word of God Who is our very life — Christ our life.

Awake thou that sleepest –

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Notes From Norman – Faith Is Victory

Faith Is Victory

Norman P. Grubb
”I still say that faith is the victory. We cannot help having heavy hearts, but when we give way to grief, we are really giving way to unbelief. If we dare to believe the God of the impossible, then we honor Him by rejoicing when things are darkest. Now is the moment to rejoice in a reigning Christ…”

Knight of Faith, Vol.I

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Daily Thought – The Measure of a Man

The Measure of a Man
John Collings
True manhood is not a test of what we have or can accomplish. It is not a matter of wealth or accumulated possessions, or how well we can make it on our own. It is not how much we have learned, or how much we know. It is not how strong or how disciplined we have become.

True manhood is obtained by the ways in which we contribute to those around us, our families, our co-workers, our employees, our fellowship. How we give to those who cannot give back is a greater measure of our manhood than how we perform for those who will reward us.

Your maturity will become evident when you do not need to be first, when you do not require of others. When you need people, not for what you will receive from them, but for the way you are able to give to them from the gifts you possess, then, you have obtained True Manhood.

I began writing this for my son, then realized that it was for me, then understood that it was for my father. I have been understanding, and even teaching about fellowship, and about grace, and still revelation comes from many directions.

Fellowship: That all that is really important in our lives is about giving, and our interaction with those around us. I the purest sense, knowing the Father, and what gives him joy or sorrow. It is understanding his motives and purposes, and it is being his vessel, acting as his agent in this world.

Grace: That regardless of how the Father is known and understood, regardless of how he is treated or received, he manifests his Love to all his children by orchestrating their lives to the purpose of knowing him (having fellowship with him).

My first thought is that all that my son is, he is by the seeds that I have planted in him. He is by what I have given him. My son stands on my shoulders. He is who he is by the grace of his father.

And so are we all.

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Daily Thought – What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?

What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?
C. S. Lewis
‘What are we to make of Jesus Christ?’ This is a question which has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us? The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is going to make of an elephant has comic elements about it. But perhaps the questioner meant what are we to make of Him in the sense of ‘How are we to solve the historical problem set us by the recorded sayings and acts of this Man?’ This problem is to reconcile two things. On the one hand you have got the almost generally admitted depth and sanity of His moral teaching, which is not very seriously questioned, even by those who are opposed to Christianity. In fact, I find when I am arguing with very anti-God people that they rather make a point of saying, ‘I am entirely in favour of the moral teaching of this Man and of His immediate followers, moral truth is exhibited at its purest and best. It is not sloppy idealism, it is full of wisdom and shrewdness. The whole thing is realistic, fresh to the highest degree, the product of a sane mind. That is one phenomenon.

The other phenomenon is the quite appalling nature of this Man’s theological remarks. You all know what I mean, and I want rather to stress the point that the appalling claim which this Man seems to be making is not merely made at one moment of His career. there is, of course, the one moment which led to His execution. the moment at which the High Priest said to Him, ‘Who are you?’ I am the Anointed, the Son of the uncreated God, and you shall see Me appearing at the end of all history as the judge of the universe.’ But that claim, in fact, does not rest on this one dramatic moment. When you look in to His conversation you will find this sort of claim running throughout the whole thing. For instance, He went about saying to people, ‘I forgive your sins;. Now it is quite natural for a man to forgive something you do to him. Thus if somebody cheats me out of five pounds it is quite possible and reasonable for me to say, ;Well, I forgive him, we will say no more about it.’ What on earth would you say if somebody had done you out of five pounds and I said, ‘That is all right, I forgive him’? On one occasion this Man is sitting looking down on Jerusalem from the hill above it and suddenly in comes an extraordinary remark – ‘I keep on sending you prophets and wise men.’ Nobody comments on it. And yet, quite suddenly, almost incidentally, He is claiming to be the power that all through the centuries is sending wise men and leaders into the world. Here is another curious remark: in almost every religion there are unpleasant observances like fasting. This Man suddenly remarks one day, ‘No one need fast while I am here.’ Who is this Man who remarks that His mere presence suspends all normal rules? Who is the person who can suddenly tell the School they can have a half-holiday? Sometimes the statements put forward the assumption that He, the Speaker, is completely without sin or fault. This is always the attitude. ‘You, to whom I am talking, are all sinners,’ and He never remotely suggests that this same reproach can be brought against Him. He says again, ‘I am the begotten of the One God, before Abraham was, I am,’ and remember what the words ‘I am’ were in Hebrew. They were the name of God, which must not be spoken by any human being, the name which it was death to utter.

Well, that is the other side. On the one side clear, definite moral teaching. On the other, claims which, if not true, are those of a megalomaniac, compared with whom Hitler was the most same and humble of men. There is no half-way house and there is no parallel in other religions. If you had gone to Buddha and asked him: ;Are you the son of Bramah?’ he would have said, ‘My son, you are still in the bale of illusion.’ If you had gone to Socrates and asked, ‘Are you Zeus?’ he would have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, ‘Are you Allah?’ he would first have rent his clothes and then cut your head off. If you had asked Confucius, ‘Are you heaven?’, I think he would have probably replied, ‘Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste.’ The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. If you think you are a poached egg, when you are not looking for a piece of toast to suit you may be sane, but if you think you are God, there is no chance for you. We may note in passing that He was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. he did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met him. He produced mainly three effects – Hatred – Terror – Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.

Taken from: ”God in the Dock” by C.S.Lewis

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Notes From Norman – His Life in Us

His Life in Us

Norman P. Grubb

His ways are not our ways. My life seems so much easier than yours, with time to spend in the things of God, and even one’s work centering around Him. But all are God’s ways. When once we have seen that it is nothing less than Christ Himself living His life in us, then that makes Him a very ordinary person, marking papers and preparing lessons, as you say. It is He Himself doing this; and as you recognize it in this fact, then you relax in Him, even though your mind has to be centered on these mundane things. Don’t let resentment or rebellion against the way He has chosen to live His life in you mar the central rest which proceeds from the not I, but Christ relationship. That is living; and to “live in the truest sense” is only Christ living in His most mundane way through us, as He pleases. Christ is really seen in deeds of faithfulness, such as your teaching life, not in the many words and nice thoughts which make up so much of ours! So let Him live on in you!

From Knight of Faith, Vol.I

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Daily Thought – What Our Prisons Are For

What Our Prisons Are For
Fred Pruitt
A while ago it came on me so strongly that I needed to thank God specifically for things that were more easily issues of complaint or self-pity or even perhaps somewhat ”begrudged” faith. So I did, thanking the Lord for all the things I felt like I was hating and all the things I wished were different in my life. I thanked the Lord that things were specifically the way they were, including me and all the folks in my world. It cleared up some cobwebs.

One of the main things on my mind has been Joseph in the prison (if there was ever a place for lamentations and weeping and self-pity), and yet walking in the Spirit in the prison. Not knowing when his redemption would come, probably sensing it would come some day, probably getting his hopes up when the Pharaoh’s butler went back to Pharaoh, only to find the hand of man seemingly let him down again — how destroyed he must have been when he realized the butler had forgotten all about him — yet still remaining God’s man in the prison, for another two years.

His imaginations of various scenarios of human rescue had perhaps by that time subsided and he became content in God in prison. And that’s when the dreams came to Pharaoh and the butler remembered Joseph from prison. Joseph was lifted out of prison by the Unseen Hand of God at the proper time, to become in the end a type of Christ the Son as the Father’s agent throughout the whole land, and the redeemer of His people Israel who come to him out of the famine in Canaan.

And then we realize that this Joseph is us, and we he. Isn’t it too much? In our past we were the hungry sojourners who came in from the desert out of a great famine, but the story of Joseph is how we are not just to be the rescued or the delivered, but in Joseph (Christ in us) we ourselves now become the Rescuer, the Deliverer. The sustainer, who has sustained us, now sustains others by us. This is our heritage and our commission, and what our prisons and sufferings are all for.

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Daily Thought – Soldiering For The Lord

Soldiering For The Lord
Unknown
I am a soldier in the army of my God. The Lord Jesus Christ is my commanding officer. The Holy Bible is my code of conduct. Faith, prayer, and the Word are my weapons of warfare. I have been taught by the Holy Spirit, trained by experience, tried by adversity and tested by fire. I am a volunteer in this army, and I am enlisted for eternity.

I will either retire in this army at the rapture or die in this army; but I will not get out, sell out, be talked out, or pushed out. I am faithful, reliable, capable and dependable. If my God needs me, I am there. If He needs me in the Sunday school, to teach the children, work with the youth, help adults or just sit and learn.

He can use me because I am there! I am a soldier. I am not a baby. I do not need to be pampered, petted, primed up, pumped up, picked up or pepped up. I am a soldier. No one has to call me, remind me, write me, visit me, entice me, or lure me. I am a soldier. I am not a wimp. I am in place, saluting my King, obeying His orders, praising His name, and building His kingdom!

No one has to send me flowers, gifts, food, cards, candy or give me handouts. I do not need to be cuddled, cradled, cared for, or catered to. I am committed. I cannot have my feelings hurt bad enough to turn me around. I cannot be discouraged enough to turn me aside. I cannot lose enough to cause me to quit.

When Jesus called me into this army, I had nothing. If I end up with nothing, I will still come out ahead. I will win. My God has and will continue to supply all of my needs. I am more than a conqueror. I will always triumph. I can do all things through Christ. Devils cannot defeat me. People cannot disillusion me. Weather cannot weary me.

Sickness cannot stop me. Battles cannot beat me. Money cannot buy me. Governments cannot silence me and hell cannot handle me. I am a soldier. Even death cannot destroy me. For when my commander calls me from this battlefield, He will promote me to Captain and then allow me to rule with Him.

I am a soldier in the army, and I’m marching claiming victory. I will not give up. I will not turn around. I am a soldier, marching heaven bound. Here I stand!

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Notes From Norman – Life in Christ

Life in Christ

Norman P. Grubb
It’s grand to be alive in such days as these, although we are bound to share the suffering, sharing God’s burden until “that day”. More and more, as I go on in this wonderful life in Christ, I revel in the permanent ease and freshness of the abiding experience. I find it just like air. There is no effort to the lungs to live in the air unless they are diseased, and so the life in Christ becomes one’s native element.

Knight of Faith

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