flyer than angels

hidden..

I can only die to self when I trust Him for life.

For so long I’ve understood Christianity to be one where I stay alive and I hide Christ in me. But true Christianity is exactly the opposite, one of death - dying to self, where instead my life is hidden in Christ.

I’ve had this longing desire, desperation for more of the glory of God - to see His goodness manifest on my life and the lives of others - but I had forgotten that God told Moses that His glory would easily kill him.

It’s better to die before the glory than because of it. So many ministers in past generations have carried the glory of God and it’s killed them because they hadn’t died yet. Their own aspirations and desires for self-gratification and preservation led them to use the glory for themselves, and eventually it led to their own ruin. The glory only speeds things up (taking that which was above time, eternal, and putting it into a time-governed realm - that’s why God sees things that are not as though they were, that’s why living in the Presence always results in rapid increase - you’re tapping into something above the restraint and control of time). But the problem is that sin leads to death, so if you’re still alive in sin (+ motivated by self) the power of the glory will just lead to your ruin quicker than if you didn’t have the glory altogether. That’s why we see anointed ministers, leaders, even presidents, CEOs, etc. come to ruin so quick - they tasted the glory but were too alive in themselves to live under it. 

Moses had to be hidden in the cleft of the rock before God’s glory, His goodness - could manifest over his life. If not, it would have easily killed Moses. In the same way, I have to die to sin, and be alive in Christ, hidden in Him - if I am to ever carry His glory, if I am to experience His torrential downpours of goodness in a way that doesn’t destroy me.

This has been a time of hiddenness for me. Wilderness, most definitely. A time where things in my life have been getting pruned off, some good, some bad. And it’s been uncomfortable, and a bit painful. I’ve seen things about myself and what I truly believe - and I haven’t liked everything I’ve seen. But wondering why I am in this place, and formulating my own understanding of it hasn’t helped. Trying to figure things out and cope hasn’t given me much assistance.

As my spiritual gramps P. Benjamin told me, “finding out why doesn’t get you healed.” The only fix is for the disease of self to be killed. Finding out why you’ve contracted a cold doesn’t kill the cold. Figuring out the cause of cancer doesn’t remove the cancer that is already in your body. It may help someone who comes after you to prevent getting sick, but it does nothing for your present condition. Rather, you gotta kill that sickness. It’s gotta die, so that new life can grow.

In the same way, the disease of self must die before we can receive new life. And the greatest chemotherapy to the cancer of self is faith. It both kills the self and creates the atmosphere for new life. But faith only comes through the hearing of the word, and only works through love. The word is the penetrating blade that kills the self, and love is the generating force that actualizes and energizes faith. As the word gets in us, and we receive the love of the Father, an ability to trust God for life (faith) arises.

True faith requires a death to self, because it requires a belief that the source of all things good, pleasing, and perfect in your life isn’t you. Gramps told me something else that was really poignant when he said, “Confusion is evidence of a lack of trust. When I begin to trust God, clarity comes freely.” Confusion for me has often came when I have experienced and seen the presence of God to heal and set free in great power, yet have interpreted that as an affirmation of God’s personal love for me. So when I was absent from these encounters I would often feel confused, distant, and that God did not approve of me.

However, signs and wonders are not God showing affirmation for us, it’s Him vindicating His word. God’s affirmation for us is shown in His word - it’s shown in this: that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We were “bought at a price”, and it was a hefty one at that. When we see the manifestation of God’s glory and presence as an affirmation of who we are, then the focus is on us. There is no motivation in that place to die to self. God has given His presence and glory to lead us, to empower us, to make us those who reflect His glory on the earth, but if it takes place without the revelation of God’s love through the cross, then we are still motivated by self.

But when we see both God’s vindication of His word, and the manifestation of His love through the Cross, we are both set free from the disease of self (as we “ourselves” are killed) and resurrected to not life for self, but to live for, in, and through God. I have come to the realization that wilderness (or hiddenness) is not simply so that we might die to self, but so that when we are brought out we will be like Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai - with the law of the Lord on our heart, and the glory of the Lord reflecting from our unveiled faces, so hidden in Christ that people don’t just see us, but they see the Lord.