September 23, 2001
Dear Laren,
You asked how I received these understandings.
I thank-you for your letter and hope I can answer in a way that will let you experience more of that Freedom you seek on your trip out of the bondage of today's religions.
It would take a book just to give a glimpse of the processes of God in my life as I was brought up in the Church of Christ with all of it's legal bondage and twisting of scriptures by the Carnal Mind. I was never satisfied with what I was taught because God had put a hunger within me for more reality. I kept asking God for wisdom because He said that if I asked for it it would be given.
I became aware of how totally we are all indoctrinated and conditioned by the way we are raised. I wanted to be free from every possibility of the way I was raised affecting how I see things. Mine has been a life of seeking a more real God, a right NOW God and a God I could experience. I knew I needed something to fill that hunger that was inside me. I became a workaholic because I couldn't rest. I could see things so different from the people at the churches we would try to go to, that as I tried to share with them what I was seeing it would threaten them in their system. Much like Moses to the children of Israel before he had to flee into the wilderness.
In my wilderness God sent a couple who were friends of mine along with the invitation to a meeting. We went to an Open Door, where we, (my wife and I,) could tell that the Holy Spirit was to be a bigger part of our lives. We wanted all He was and from the Open Door meetings that we could only stay at a few months, we were invited to a home fellowship. We were helped to start walking in the Holy Spirit with all the gifts and listening to Him as He chose us to show off in. He gave me the ability to actually believe in His promises for me here in this dimension at this time.
For about five years we walked daily in what we knew was His walk for each day as people felt we had gone off the deep end. Yet they couldn't deny the miracles the Lord would do with and in our lives. The Lord in this time caused me to not work for on year, (the year of Jubilee). In that year he showed me that I was not the source of our living or livelihood but that He was. He showed us that we should have no debt and during this year of Jubilee He brought us out of a sixty thousand dollar debt, paid our way to a vacation in Israel, kept us with all our needs met and some days showed us milk money for the kids. While the night before we wondered where we would get it.
The year got over and I hadn't worked at all and we hadn't lost our little farm or anything but our debts and thoughts of self-reliance. We called these our Charismatic days as God became real and personal in our lives for about seven years. Those were exciting times in our lives and yet God said for us to cone on into more of Him. I guess the change had to be from praying to a God outside of us to come to the realization and experience of a God who is within our vessel. This may sound simple and yet takes much dying to self. After a couple of years when it seemed God had decided not to direct our path and we missed that constant feeling of His instructions and revelations from the scripture, we finally got an instruction within that said, "Whether you go to the left or to the right I will be there with you. That all our steps were ordered according to the Lord." This drastically changed our lives again as we realized that God wanted a body that was naturally His. No longer thinking of how to do Good and forsake Evil as most are doing in an endeavor to stay right. We had to totally stop eating from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, as we turned from it to only eat from Him who is the Tree of Life! We had to start seeing that God would fix any path we would take and know that they were ordered already for our experience of Into Him further. We had to Know that what might seem to be good or evil was Not how God was seeing our walk.
The Scripture in Gal. 2:20, (literal trans.) "I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in the faith of the Son of God who loves me and gives Himself up for me." It is the assurance of His faith put within this vessel and His life revealed as being the True Life I am living now that is our longing to recapture. This was lost when man wanted to be "Like God," I no longer want to be Like God. I desire to lose my old self and Let God occupy, posses, live in and give totally over to Him the responsibility of fixing this vessel up for His dwelling place however He wants to do it.
You asked how I got to this place of understanding. At 62 years old I can say it is a journey. Not being afraid of any teaching or thought that may be brought my way. I read many writings of Dear Friends who God has given the ability and time to pass on what they are shown by God. I read what they write, not being afraid of being deceived. God has taken much of what I used to believe and change it as well as taken much totally away even though He used it for a time in my Journey.
I only am repulsed by people or spirits trying to Feed me what I have thrown up, yet even in that, sometimes there may be kernels of truth that a different light on them can bring even them to life.
Many people read the same thing I read but hear it differently or with less impact or more impact. God used within the last 25 years, Ray & Doris Prinzing, P.O. Box 5822, Boise, Idaho 83705,.22years, Preston & Loraine Eby, PO. Box 371240, El Paso, TX. 79937, Elwin & Margit Roach, PO Box 4004, Alamogordo, NM 88311, and many other speakers & writers to confirm or stir up thoughts that found a place in my life to manifest Jesus Christ and what God is doing and wanting in His creation. Helping me rid self of ideas and precepts that do not give the true picture of the unending love and work that God has done in Christ Jesus within me. Truly we have put too much emphasis on this shadow world or dimension and are now being able to see into the other dimension of life. Like an onion being peeled as the outer layer starts to dry out and lose taste and moisture yet protects the next layer or dimension just waiting to be unwrapped as another aspect of facet of God being revealed to us. It is all God, as you suspect, and the things we see are just facets of God we are privileged to see and become aware of as being a portion of. There is no place or situation that is not in God. That which came out of God. Like a person that has an Idea: The idea isexpression worked out and completed yet never is lost or removed from that person.
God is constantly unveiling Himself to and in all these dimensions. Isn't it great to realize that you are an aspect or expression of God when all is said and done? Won't it be great when all the blindness falls away and we can see through His eyes and see through His faith? Knowing that when He said, "Let us make man in our Image", only a shortsighted idiot would say God will be a failure and not complete what He said He would do.
While I stay too busy reading, building houses, developing subdivisions, a little traveling and other things, my biggest delight is sharing my experiences of my walk with God to anybody that shows an interest in what God is revealing to me.
My wife says that I have the inclination to dump a truckload on someone only wanting a handful! I have been blessed with a wife who is and has been a great partner for 38 years as she stood with me in faith in God as we trusted totally in God as our healer, teacher, financial supply and Friend and now our life.
We have 3 children who are 28 through 34 and went through the trauma of us not being like other families. They are all married with neat families and kids that are all of them friends of mine.
God said that where 2 or 3 are gathered in my name, there I am also. Sometimes it seems to me that if there are more than this for any length of time there becomes a problem! Ha.
Get ready for the trip into a new and exciting ride along with the Lord when you dare to throw all you trust into the faithful hands of the Lord who just wants a body,.that's you. Let go of all your goodness and your rightness, your laws and requirements. Just listen for God's direction for you, for today! Learn to Hear His Voice even if it comes from a donkey.
I'll stop for now and wait to see if you are hearing any of this, knowing that this probably brings on a hundred more questions. In God's Love, from N.W. New Mexico, Jim Phillips
Back to Directory
http://www.godfire.net/jimphillips/
Home | Pathfinder Directoy | Elwin's Directory | Margit's Directory | Kingdom Links