Our Spiritual Richness

I am sharing a few more of Norman Grubbs postings here.

Romans
By Norman P. Grubb

"I would like to say that the Bible doesn’t give it as a crisis. The Bible gives it as a known fact, that in Christ you are not only in His blood, being cut off from your sins and their consequences but in your union with His body you were cut off from the false deity and were put in the right deity and that cut you off from the Law which went with the false deity and then the Law is inside of you. There is no more outer Law. You are governed by Spirit. But the fact is that most of us have met another crisis. Very few of us have moved from Romans 1-5, which is the peace with GOD and the outer relationship to Romans 6-8, where I have found I am a replaced person and my real self is no longer alive, but is Christ. What I mean is this—faith is always substance. Now we saw in Romans 5 with that first faith, “Oh I am at peace now, I am accepted by GOD. And, I am in the Love of GOD.” I have moved into “I am life.” I am not trying to get something, but He has got me. The Spirit of GOD has come into me and caused me to know the situation and the Love of GOD begins to be shed through me and so on and so forth.

Know you not that those who are baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized in His death?” Now remember Biblical knowledge is always know-how. The Biblical word for “know” means to be mixed with something. The simplest explanation I always know is in the professions. The whole point of a profession is to get you, isn’t it? You are at ease in your profession, where you study a profession. “Oh I know how to do that now.” In engineering or secretarial work or at home running a kitchen the joy of life is when you get to a certain phase of something you have learned and it has got you, “Oh I know how to do that.” That is actually how you change your name. We say a person learns carpentry and we call him a carpenter; he learns medicine and we call him a doctor; he learns teaching and we call him a teacher. You learn things from the outside of you which becomes your know-how. You know how to teach. You know how to cook your food. You know how to handle your medicine. Then life is constructive, happy and outgoing and you can give it to people. That is know-how.

Now the Bible know-how means that a thing has become you, so it becomes the positive. That is why we say in Romans 5, “Oh I know I have peace with GOD. I know I am in His Grace.” And my tribulations only give me more of Him. Life is only happy when you know how. Now there is a know-how here. I didn’t find that except that I went through a second stage when I was trying to run it by myself. Then GOD said, “Drop it, I am in you.” I had to learn what it is to affirm Him in me, replacing this independent self which was out. Then I have got a know-how. It is as simple for me to know it isn’t I but Christ, as it is simple for me to know that my sins are forgiven. Now, of course, the point is you live at ease in your know-how. When your sins are forgiven, “Oh praise GOD, I know that and I can witness to anybody, that I know what it is to have my sins forgiven.” And, mind you, you can reproduce only what you are. All we are ever able to reproduce is to reproduce ourselves. When I am a redeemed person I can reproduce to other people. I say, “Oh I can help pray for that one. I can show them how to accept Jesus Christ and believe in Him” and so on and so forth because you know how. So, what you are, you can now reproduce. Now this reproduction in different ways happened to you. It happened to you, that somehow it was settled into that you are, nor you, but Christ in you. Now that is when you begin to accept yourself back. So, until you know that, while you think that you are independent, you are disgusted with yourself, like Paul you are wretched. While you think that you are independent there is Law and all that stuff that I have gotten while under the illusion.

When I am out from that illusion, I am no longer an independent self; therefore, there is no more Law shouting at me. I am a replaced self as Christ in me. Now you accept yourself back. Because, when it dawns on you that Christ accepts you, you accept yourself. It begins to dawn on you that you are an asset. You are GOD’s asset. It is through your appetites your very GOD comes. And, now you are back as a beautiful person. It is through your mind, through your will, through your initiative, GOD comes. And, you become thrilled with yourself as an asset (agent) of Christ, because you are an agency of GOD. Now that begins to put the positive and the negative back into better focus. We aren’t so much bothered about the negative because we are getting more used to the positive. Now in that positive there come temptations, but now even our attitude to temptation changes to opportunity.

Now ‘myself’ becomes an adventure. A part is positive. I use it actively. I am actively free to be what I like and go to it. It is lovely and so I am GOD’s free person—the spirit operating through me. In the midst of that there is always coming these negative things pouring in, but I know how to deal with them now. It may take time, sometimes.
I was just saying recently to a friend. She is young in Christ, but she had caught on to Christ in her. About two weeks ago she was desperate. She said, “What am I to do? My husband has left me for another woman.” She acted full of rage and resentment and revenge. ”I’d do anything. I’m torn to pieces. You talk about Christ in you. It means nothing to me. Help me out. I am just full of it. I’m torn to pieces. I don’t know what to do. What about my children and the rest of it. I say Christ is in me and it doesn’t mean a thing.” I wrote back and said, “You are not you’ you are Christ. It isn’t Christ in you, you are Christ. It isn’t you fighting in Christ. You are Christ. The real you is Christ in you. (the promise of Jeremiah 31) Of course you have rage. It isn’t wrong, it is right. Of course you want revenge. Of course you feel revenge and hurt. Of course, who wouldn’t—left deserted like that? That is not the point. Because you are under this vast mistake in Romans 7, you are not there in Romans 7. Then you cry and shout you shouldn’t be. You are not there. You are Christ in the Mary form. You take a position that you live, nevertheless, Christ lives in you and is the person in you. You know what happens? You are in for trouble because of course, Christ loves His enemy, including your husband. It is rather tough on you. See, He wants to get your husband saved if he isn’t already and He wants to get the other woman saved too. So you have to begin loving them now. You are for it. You will begin to find with Christ you have got an adventure in which you can dare to say—you can use this—“LORD give my husband a good beat up en route.” You can ask Him for that one because he deserves it. See it? As for your children, if you at this juncture, can show your children love for a husband who has done this, you have taught them more than they will ever learn in 13 years of school. If they can see a torn up wife who can still say, “Well he did wrong, but I am loving him and so on,” you won’t suffer. (I have had a letter from her since. She is getting through.)
But, you see the vast difference? So, Romans 8 is replacement. And it says, “Then the righteousness of the LORD is fulfilled in you.” When you have got this replacement, the Spirit in you, the righteousness of the LORD is fulfilled in you “who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.” How is it fulfilled in me? Because the righteousness of the Law, of course, is Christ. Christ is the Law. He is a person who lives like that. Who does that? Christ, of course. So all that “you ought, you ought, you ought” stuff goes out and you dare to say, “I am no longer I, but I am Christ in me. The real me is Christ.” You can say it if you know—once you were no longer you; you were Satan in you. That is what we didn’t know. If you get the two in balance, you see you weren’t you, you were Mr. Satan. Mr. Self-centeredness. He may be Mr. Righteous, he might be a very nice fellow but he is still Mr. Self-righteous. That has gone out with Christ. Now Christ is Mr. Self-Giving-Love in you. Now you can begin to make the affirmation that the righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in you."