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Hi Georgia,

I read your message today and look forward to giving you my response in hopes others will join in too.

However I'm going to hold it until Feb. 1st when our new website goes active. It will be much easier to inner act on that site. Please check in after that date (it may take 2-3 more days after the 1st to kick in) for your thread and responses. I look forward to any Casme discussions forthcoming.

Love,
Jaque

Post edited 2:41 pm – January 26, 2010 by Jaque

Hi Georgia,

I’m so glad your thoughts are provoked.  I believe the true Gospel will provoke anyone taking the time to give it more thought, as you obviously have.  

I’d like to address each question, one at a time.

1.     You wrote:Jaque referred to "our true inner self." That would be the part "he chose … in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." (Eph 1:4) So then our separated self is false, a deception by the enemy that we are "other" than God. Does this mean there are two selves, each vying for our attention?"

The illusive self is vying for attention; the true self is waiting patiently for our eyes to be opened.  The very notion of separation from God is illusive and, in fact, it created the self we think we are—the one "apart from" God.  Yet Scripture says, "He is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being."  It was Satan who convinced Eve that if she ate, she would be like God.  Notice how the "like" word still deludes man—evidence of the fall.  Obviously, to be like someone else automatically presupposes separation.  Both Adam and Eve dove deep into the illusion of independence and believed they should strive to attain wisdom "like" God.  So the whole race is now under the same delusion.  We know this, for instance, by how we crave feelings of being in control.  Any time we lose our ‘sense of control’ we will do anything to get those feelings back.  We will try gaining more knowledge about good and evil to assure our next choice is the right one.  This is independence at its zenith; we believe all outcomes depend on us (we who are supposedly separate from God).  The belief that we are choosing "right," is essentially the basis of feeling in control like God.

The false self vies for our attention concerning four things: it wants control, approval, security and independence.  These are the four core priorities of the fictitious self.   The fear of losing these keeps this "false persona" centered in the illusive "self."  (BTW, our newest course, "The Way of the Visionwriter" deals with how to let go of these four basic fears.)

The true self Georgia, is the one you noted. …the part "he chose … in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." (Eph 1:4)

  2.      Yes, sin begins and ends with the belief that we are independent creatures—apart from God.

"This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure. John 3:19-20 (MSG) (Emphasis mine).

Human addictions, even when eliminated, still maintain memory links in the brain.  (Remember we are now "in the flesh but not of it"). For instance, I quit smoking at age thirty, but about once every year or two I dream I am smoking a cigarette.  The dream is so real; I taste the nicotine, smell the smoke, and tell myself, "It’s okay if I have just one".  When I wake up I’m grateful it was just a dream.  Memory links are a huge part of the reason we still struggle with sin.  As long as we live in the flesh our memory banks will be intact, but they don’t have to control us.  The memory of our addiction to denial and illusion is stored in our brains.  Satan uses it to tempt us to almost feel unsaved.  When we think God’s work is not perfected or completed in us, Satan uses the opportunity to make us doubt God.  Satan’s sole mission is to get us to doubt our faith and live in unbelief, just as in the Garden of Eden where he asked Eve, "Did God really say…?" But that’s okay; we fall seven and rise eight, meaning every time we make a return to faith it is stronger than before.  Each exercise of doubt is used for good.  (God’s kids just can’t be defeated!)

  3.     What part does our free will play?   We must never forget that every choice has an outcome.   Though we’ve chosen Christ once-for-all and He now lives in us as us, our recognition and experience of the truth depends on what we choose to focus our attention on.  (See Romans 12:2 the Amplified version). We could say, "For us to choose is Christ" but paradox is built-in to everything, no matter what we think.   We are a "we" and He is a "He," yet we are One.  The purpose of God’s Satan (yes, He is God’s Satan) is to drive us back to God.  Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, and the temptation took Him further into God’s glory.  You are right in asking, "Is it all about having the mind renewed and being changed from glory to glory?"  Unequivocally YES!

  4.    I believe woundedness and inner healing drive us to recognize truth and set us free from the four core priorities of the fictitious self.  Not that we will never be wounded or have need of even more healing.  Living in the flesh, we will be tempted and tried, but the light of Christ shines more brightly as our appetite for control, approval, security and independence fades in light of the knowledge of Christ.  As for the temptation in the wilderness: that was an attempt to get Jesus to doubt His true identity.  Because He had no sin in His human memory bank, Satan tested Him by questioning His identity.  And He was tempted indeed; we must never forget this.  This was the most potent of all temptations.  God makes each of us who we are, but Satan accuses God by insinuating that we are not who God says we are.  The answer?  Experience God’s love in Christ.  Then we can answer Satan with God’s word. Until then we keep vacillating back and forth between belief and unbelief.  

5.     What would it look like when someone fully enters the understanding of Christ in them?  As you noted, we will no longer be victims feeling sorry for ourselves.  We will "put on the new self" and have confidence in our Christ identity.  We pose a threat to the false foundations of the prince and power of the air, (Satan), yet we are not arrogant in our knowledge.  We will fully grasp that "apart from Him (we are and) we can do nothing."  We will be content with who we are, having lost all savor for importance, or being someone special.  We will take full pleasure in living from Christ as we maintain the balance of truth by choosing not to fall back to sleep.  Yet if we do fall asleep, our hearts won’t condemn us, because we know God is greater than our hearts.  His love will awaken us again and return us to complete recognition of Christ, the truth. Lastly, we will live "forgiven" as we constantly extend forgiveness, grace and mercy to ourselves and others.  The whole world will know that we are Christians by our love.

Love,

Jaque 

Hi Georgia,

I think about Paul's prayer in Ephesians; "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be opened…"  I've come to realize that there indeed is nothing to do, just something to see–or– the only thing that really changes about us is the way we see things…our perceptions of truth.  We see double because we think in "separated " terms.  We think we are 'separate from God' in other words.  Therefore, He promises, He saves, BUT we fall and seem to never rise.  We're always down, down, down.  So where is God? 

In time we come to see the problem is the big "I" log in our eye.  Yes, God…BUT "I". "I" need, "I" need to be loved for who I am…and so on.

The truth is that the "I" we know ourselves to be (apart from God) can't do good.  The good we want to do always turns out to be the evil we don't want to do.  This, the epitimy of the self trying to be "like" or "separate" from God.  The answer, of course, is only to be embraced by faith.

Remember Satan's question in the Garden of Eden:  "Did God really say?"

We have to decide one day if God really said what He said and meant it.  That's faith.

Whose is the voice that always says, "I need to protect myself…I'm angry about…How dare I trust? Let's ask that question.

What say you?

I've really enjoyed reading through these last few exchanges on the Casme discussion!  Georgia, thank you so much for putting words to those things building up in you;  I'm feeling in need of a thorough dousing in truth and this conversation has been so helpful!  I'm finding it very difficult these days to hang on to that right thinking and am SO grateful for the new website and the opportunity to share on here!
lee