Tonight I've been thinking about how Christ is formed within us, and that's what I want to open up with you a little bit tonight, and share with you. In Ephesians Chapter 5...you see... every earthly father who is, you know a real Christian father and loves his children. He desires within the inner most part of his being, as an earthly father, to reproduce himself in his children. The heart of Christianity, my people, is the Father God, through Jesus Christ, building Himself in us through His revealed Word, so that our moment-by-moment living is like and is with the Master. In Ephesians 5 it says:
Ephesians 5:1-2
Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
God so loved, according to John – remember? – 3:16? God so loved that He what? Gave. All love is giving. God, the Creator of all heaven and earth, so loved that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have what? Everlasting life.
The reason it's everlasting life is because it has a starting point for you. The reason it's eternal life is because it has no starting point for God. And therefore that which you receive from God is eternal, but for you it's everlasting. That is the difference in the usage of the two words "everlasting" and "eternal." With God, that which you receive is eternal. But for you, it's everlasting because it had a starting point. If you were twenty-five before you were born again, then before that time you had no everlasting life. But when you were born again of God's spirit at twenty-five, from then on you have His eternal life. But it's everlasting from that point on for you.
We walk in love "as Christ also hath loved us." He who knew no sin became sin, so that you and I might become what? The righteousness of God in him. Imagine that. God so loved that He gave. Jesus Christ so loved that he gave. And you and I must so love that we have to give. I have to love to the point where people learn to love because of the love that I share with them. That's what I mean when I say in classes, you have to learn to let people walk on your feet until they learn to walk on their own.
You have to be the hands of people until they learn to use their own hands. You have to be the heart of people until people learn to use their heart and extend it out to the lives of other people. We have to be broken bread for people until they learn to break their own Bread of Life.
God so loved, Christ loved and we have to so love because, "he hath given himself for us an offering, a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor..." – and that is better than Chanel Number 5. And the Word says that we are to God a sweet smell. When this Christ is formed within us to the end that we love with the love wherewith he loved – and people it is possible to love the unlovable. "In spite of." It is possible to so renew your mind that there is absolutely nothing that any other Christian believer does but that you still love them and don't criticize and find fault with them.
There is something brewing in my heart – just didn't have enough time to get it all brewed up and canned – but one of these Sunday nights, by God's mercy and grace, I'm going to teach on the battle of the mind. And show you that you can get so in alignment and harmony with God's Word, that the Word so lives within you and you within that Word, that you can absolutely take anything your mind has done previously and make it agree with God's Word – change it around. You can so walk that you are the epitomization of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Christ is in you the hope of glory spiritually, yes. But what about that love? That forgiveness? That tenderness? What about the criticism we pass on people? You know, he's a Christian brother and he does something that does not quite agree with what you think you ought to do. So instead of really loving, we criticize. The only criticism I've ever seen in God's Word that Jesus Christ ever gave were to the religionists: those men who sat at the top echelon of so-called Judaism which was supposed to represent the power of God and the Word of God in its day and time. Those men he called whited sepulchers; he called them hypocrites.
But I remember a woman taken in adultery. Everybody else was really laying it on her; they wanted to stone her. And Jesus said, Which one of you fellas wants to throw the first one? He never criticized her. He never called her a whited sepulcher or a Pharisee.
You see, we've got to go to the Word and love with the love wherewith Christ Jesus loved. And you're never going to get to that place unless you commit yourself to the integrity of God and His Word and let this Word be built in you. And the building of the Word takes time, people. It's not something you take a class on Power for Abundant Living in two weeks, and walk away and say, "Well now I've got it. The rest of my life I can fool around." That's just the bare foundation.
It gives you all the principles on which to build, that I know. But the building takes time.
Like building this Biblical Research Center takes time. If we were going to manufacture a piano – you could have all the things to put in a piano – it still takes time to put it together. And in that process of learning and growing, where people move from hearing the Word to building the Word within their lives, takes time. And that takes a lot of love.
Well, think of the love God had in Christ Jesus to make salvation available to us. To make it possible for us to be born again of God's spirit, to be filled with the holy spirit, to have a knowledge of His Word so we could rightly divide it and operate manifestations decently and in order so that all of God's people could be edified, built up, by way of exhortation and comfort. To hear from God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth.
In Acts Chapter 16 there's a record of two men of God. And the same God that was in those two men is the same God that's in you tonight. The same Jesus Christ – the same yesterday, today and how long? Forever. I think I'll just read this thing. I hadn't planned on it but it won't hurt you.
Acts 16:16-17
And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel [young lady] possessed with a spirit of divination met us, [who] brought her masters much gain by soothsaying [palm reading kind of stuff, you know; other things]: The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, [who] show unto us the way of [what?] salvation.
Was she right in what she said? Absolutely right. Don't tell me that devil spirits don't know. What she was saying was right on. Most of the people would give her a front row seat.
Verse 18-25
And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to [the woman? No. He said to what?] the spirit [the spirit, that devil spirit, he said] I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he [the devil spirit] came out [of her] the same hour [That means pronto, right away, boomps-quick]. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace [or to the court] unto the rulers,
And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against them [against Paul and Silas]: and the magistrates rent off their clothes [you know, they're getting real hot under the collar] and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison [so they couldn't get out], and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight
Paul and Silas...Moped. They said, "Oh God, we're working for you, why do we have to suffer like this? Lord, all we were doing is your will. You gave us revelation, it was a devil spirit, we took it out." At midnightPaul and Silas, what? Prayed. Under the most adverse conditions, being in prison for something they shouldn't have been in prison for at all, yet at midnight:
Verse 25-30
...at midnight[they] prayed, and [they] sang praises unto [whom?] God: and the prisoners heard them. [And Paul and Silas were ashamed they heard them sing. No.] And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.
And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had [all, what?] been fled.
But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here.
Then [the jailer] called for a light [he got his little lantern, his six-cell], and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
What a record. God so loved, Jesus Christ so loved, Paul and Silas so loved that even though they had laid many stripes upon them, cast them into prison: they sang hymns, they praised the Lord, they prayed. And when this thing occurred, the jailer said, "Fellas, I want that stuff you've got. I want to tap into the same thing you've got. What must I do to be, what? Saved.
Verses 31-33
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
And they spake unto him the word of the Lord [that's the only thing that saves people], and to all that were [what?] in his house.
And he [the jailer] took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized [doesn't say water, so keep it out], he and all [of] his [household], straightway.
That means immediately. They were born again of God's spirit – that whole household – that night.
Verse 34
And [then] when he had brought them into his house, he... [made a steak dinner for them; this has got to be at two-thirty or three in the morning] …and rejoiced, believing in God with all his [what?] house.
Paul and Silas did not cry because the magistrates threw them in prison. They didn't go around complaining. They knew they had to be broken bread until the people learned to break their own. They knew they had to be able to take it until people could take on Christ for themselves.
You and I have to so love, so have Christ formed within us, that we are the demonstration of the love of Christ in the renewed mind in manifestation.
In the book of Galatians, Chapter 4, look at Verse 19
Galatians 4:19
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be [what?] formed in you,
This was the walk of the Apostle Paul. See, they were born again of God's spirit. They were already "children," but they were little kids spiritually. You can be 90 years old and just be a little child spiritually, just sort of like a pledge or a fledgling. And the Word says, "My little children of whom I travail in birth." Labor, see. It's like in
Genesis, you know, it says something about "in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." That's a bunch of baloney. The Word says "in labor." But your see being Occidental and everybody having to suffer like crazy having kids, so we've got to get the word "sorrow" in there. No, it is "labor."
Boy, there's a tremendous class that Mrs. Duncan taught on Diamonds in the Rough. I've only listened to the first tape and a half on it – I didn't have any more time, coming back from Minnesota. But if the last part is as good as the first tape and a half, she's got something going in our ministry that all the young women and men ought to hear.
Because she is discussing – from the greatness of God's Word, the power of it – the new families in the ministry, the new husbands and wives who want to have a baby, how to go about getting ready for that baby. How to prepare for that baby. Then how to work with that baby after it arrives. That's why she called it Diamonds in the Rough. It's a beautiful thing she's doing.
You see, and she handles that verse that I just mentioned. That it isn't "sorrow" in Genesis, it is "labor," which is true. Any woman who has a baby is going to put in at least 15 minutes, a little bit of labor to get the production, I guess. But look at what he's saying, "children of whom I travail in birth [in labor, in birth] again." "Again." See, they're born again of Christ's spirit. Christ is in them. But Christ is not formed
in their mind. The new birth is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." But putting it on in the mind, up here, is to get the form of Christ up here. So that when you speak you speak like Christ would speak, that when you smile you would smile like Christ would smile, you'd love like Christ would love, you'd share his peace like Christ would share his peace.
In Philippians Chapter 2, look at Verse 13:
Philippians 2:13
For it is God [It is who? God.] which worketh in you [it is God who is at work within you] to will and to do of his [what?] good pleasure.
God at work within us. Spiritually he is at work within us that we may will and do His good pleasure. Now to know what is God's pleasure you must know God's Word. And one of the things that is God's pleasure, is certainly to love with the love wherewith He loved, the tenderness wherewith He was tender, the joy with which He joyed, the blessings with which He blessed, the thanksgiving with which He lived. It is God at work within us to will and to do His,what?
Good pleasure.
You see, God is building His love life in you. His righteousness, His strength, His perfection, His goodness, His justice, His forgiveness. God is at work within you to build that within you so that you can share it with others.
In II Peter is a tremendous truth. Hebrews, James, I and II Peter. Chapter 3, Verse 18:
II Peter 3:18
But grow in [what?] grace [grow in grace], and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ...
Grow in grace. The word "grace" literally could be translated, "love's gifts." Grace is always God, who is love, at work. Love at work is grace.
It says "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ." It doesn't say, "grow in the knowledge of Scripture." The Way Ministry is loaded with that stuff, at times, but no love. We've got grads of the class on Power for Abundant Living, I wish I'd have never taught them. All they do is prance around showing people how much knowledge of the Scriptures they have, and make everybody else that hasn't got that knowledge feel badly if they can.
Why my goodness. Why did I ever teach them God's Word for? Breaks my heart. It's not the knowledge of the Scripture you know, but the extent to which you know him and walk in the love wherewith he loved. Nothing wrong with knowledge of the Scripture. But it looks to me you haven't got enough knowledge if you don't apply it. And you ought to read a few verses that tell you how to put it on – how to love with the love wherewith he loved, how to forgive with the forgiveness wherewith he forgives, how to keep your tongue under control so you don't go blabbing everything all the time.
It's an unruly evil, remember? The tongue. No man can tame it. So quit trying to tame it, let God tame it. He's the only one that can do it. Otherwise you're always going to have the running off of the tongue, and diarrhea of the mouth to boot. Sorry... Without Ex-Lax of the spirit. So... Grow in grace. That growing in grace is to grow in the love life of Christ. Like you can grow in the new birth. You can't get more spiritually. The growing of it is in the renewed mind and in the walk. Grow in grace – love at work in your life – by God through Christ, Who saved us when we were totally dead in trespasses and sins without God and without hope, people. He loved us enough that He saved us.
Can you and I really, if we know what that means, do less than endeavor to build the grace of God in our minds, and the love wherewith He loved, to share that love? So it's not a knowledge of the Scriptures, but what do I love? How do I love with that knowledge?
You know in I Corinthians Chapter 2, look at Verse 9:
I Corinthians 2:9-10
...as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor [what?] ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that [what?] love him.
[Yet] God hath revealed [the things] unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth allthings, yea, the deep things of God.
"God hath prepared for them that," what? Love Him. He has revealed them by His spirit.
And it's the spirit that searches the deep things of God. And with God at work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure, when you and I renew our minds and walk in the light of that Word, then we are having Christ formed in us.
People will never see Christ, until they see you – he's seated in the heavenlies, waiting to get back. The only Christ they'll ever see is the walk within you – the Christ in you. The joy in you, the thanksgiving, the blessing, the effervescence, the enthusiasm, the smile, the dedication, the commitment. That's all they'll ever see of Christ. They're not going to open the Book. They'll buy one, put it in the house – they ain't gonna open it. Not going to read it. Not going to study it. But they're going to look at your life, and they're going to look at mine. And they are going to say, "Does he really love? He talks about forgiveness, does he really forgive? He talks about the tongue, yakkin' all the time, does he do the same?" You see honey they'll never see Christ
until they see it in you, see it in me. We have to become Christ-filled, Christ-centered. Christ everything has to be within us. Whether we're in a shop, or a factory, or in a car, or sitting on a log, it has to be Christ in manifestation.
In Ephesians Chapter 3, listen to Verse 8:
Ephesians 3:8
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable [untrackable] riches of Christ;
There are some things in life that you can track. Maybe one of these mornings we'll have some snow, and if the rabbits have been out that night, I guarantee you, you can track them. But there are other things that, in the Word of God, that cannot be tracked.
Some things you can track. Having been in research all these years, there are some things I can put together, as I say, "with a mathematical exactness and a scientific precision" – that when I'm finished with it I'm absolutely positive, if God's Word is right, that there's nobody can touch it. Because I can just track it, like a rabbit, to where he is sitting underneath the bush or the woodpile. Track him right in. But then there are other things in God's Word that are absolutely untrackable. That's this word "unseachable." That word "unsearchable" is the word "untrackable." The grace given, "that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable, or the untrackable, riches of Christ." Tonight, people, again I feel like I feel every time when I teach God's Word – whether it's here or any other place in the world. I feel like this verse: "the least of all saints." To me was this grace given, that to you I have the privilege – and to the people of the world that I minister among – to teach and to share with them that untrackable riches of Christ.
I don't understand it, but I sure appreciate it. I can't explain it, but I sure love Him for it.
But there are a lot of other things much simpler than the riches of Christ that I can't explain either. Electricity is one. I've had a real problem trying to explain it. But I sure enjoy it when I need it for the darkness to be dispelled, when I need toast in the morning, a few other things.
You see, that love of God tenderizes you. That love of God, when Christ is formed within you, makes you forgiving, makes you tender, makes you kind, makes you understanding – because it couldn't do anything else but.
In Colossians Chapter 1, look at Verse 9:
Colossians 1:9-10
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual [what?] understanding That ye might walk worthy [walk worthy] of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful [and to be fruitful is to propagate oneself, literally in the text] in every good work, and [growing up, "increasing" is "growing up by"] the knowledge of God [by the knowledge of God].
Walk worthy of the Lord unto all, what? Pleasing. You see, there's a walk with the Lord and there's a walk in the world. It's a two-fold walk. It's a walk with him, but there's also a walk in the world. And we're to so walk worthy of the Lord in the world unto all pleasing, propagating ourselves and growing what? Up. Growing up. I know that this Christ in you the hope of glory is perfect. I know it's eternal life from God's point of view. I know all that. But I know people, born again of God's spirit, who have an absolute miserable existence. Who are full of fear and worry and anxiety and frustration, downcast and defeated. People, that cannot be right-on. For our Christ came and lived within us that we might have a life which is more than what? Abundant. That we might be more than what? Conquerors. "I can do all things through Christ who infuses inner strength into me" – one translator puts it – "who strengthens me." What a tremendous record from God's Word.
You know, in Chapter 4 of Philippians, in Verse 11:
Philippians 4:11
Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state [King James says] I am, therewith ... content.
That's not true. That would say if you're sick, be thankful you're sick. Well if you're dying, be thankful you're dying. That's a bunch of baloney. The text reads, "in whatsoever state, I am self-adequate." That makes you more than a what? Conqueror. More than an abundant life. In whatever "state." Your standing is one of a son of God. State fluctuates. In whatever state I am, I am what? Self-adequate. Not because of my own self, but because of His self: God at work within me to will and to do what? His good pleasure. He makes me self-adequate, don't you see it? That's why I am adequate. Because of His adequacy, His ability, His willingness, His desire.
I too had to learn to love, like everybody else. It said "growing up," right? I too had to grow up. Because there was a long time I took growing up. Especially with some people, I had an awful time growing up with them – that I had to love them. It was so much easier to get mad at them all the time, and raise hell with them. Because I just didn't like the way they combed their hair or put on their pants or something. What kind of shoes they wore, you know. And gollysixty you know, to find someone unlovable one and then the Word says you have to love them. That is a real strain on your head. I too had to learn, people. I've always had, in the inner part of my being, I guess, the ability to understand a lot of things about people. But that love wherewith I love today is just unbelievable even for me. I'm like that vessel we read about, I know this. It can only be God at work within me that brought me to that place. Because there's nothing anybody could tell me that would shock me, number one. Nobody. You couldn't tell me anything you've done that could even shock me. And you couldn't tell me anything you've done that'd make me think less of you to the end that I wouldn't love you. And for God to do that within me takes an awful big God.
I've come to the place where I trust by God's mercy and grace I am tonight, that there is just nobody that I could not love. Has to be God. And I can so easily put up with the shortcomings of people – I'm talking now about Christians who are also growing up – because God tenderized me on the inside because of the greatness of His love. If He can take a man that is calloused and hard and egotistical – and all the rest of the junk that goes with the usual academic procedures – and so bring him to the place...
That is how I got to it. Just by growing up in the Word and by letting this Word live in my mind and by practicing the presence of God – by the Word all the way through. This is why Galatians speaks so loudly to my heart, people:
Galatians 2:20
I am ["I was," is the text] crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live [right now, this Sunday night, 1974] in the flesh [the senses world] I live by the faith [pistis] of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
I was crucified with Christ. When Christ was crucified I was crucified with him and so were you. When he died we died with him. And the Word says when he was laid into the sepulcher we were laid there with him; when he arose we arose with him; when he ascended we ascended with him. That is why the Word says we are already seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Because wherever Christ was, we were. Where he is, we are. When he comes back, where he will be we will be, for he is our Savior and our Lord.
I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I am alive. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. That is the greatness of this life. And the life which I now live, right now in the senses world, I live by the pistis, the believing, of Jesus Christ, who so loved me that he gave himself for me.
People, as far as I understand a little bit from the Word about building the greatness of this Word in your life: what I have seen, through the years, is that the only men and women who grow deeply spiritual are men and women who allow the Word to be fully declared unto them and who walk in the fullness of the greatness of that Word. These are the men and the women who become deeply spiritual. I did not say "religious." I said "spiritual." And it is that Word living in you and you living in the Word – manifesting forth the greatness of it – that moves the greatness of the power of God in our world today.
This is Thanksgiving week. That is why I wanted to share this message that I have shared with you about Christ being formed in you. Because this is what our nation needs. This is what your next-door neighbor needs: to see that Christ in you with the love of God in the renewed mind in manifestation. There is nothing so completely satisfying as the knowledge of the Word in the renewed mind in manifestation, bringing that love to people. You will never be so blessed in your life until you are blessed by helping somebody else with the love that Christ has given you. You will never be so blessed until you learn to forgive like Christ has forgiven you. To bring peace to someone's soul because Christ first brought it to you.
That is why my prayer too is that Christ be formed in you. That we can so love that we will be wonderful men and women of God who the world can look at, and if they want to see, they can again see Christ. For God so loved that He gave. Jesus Christ so loved that he gave. How can we say we love God, when we do not even love our fellow brothers and sisters?
