AN INTERACTIVE SUMMARY OF ATTAINING TO THE FULLNESS

AN INTERACTIVE SUMMARY OF ATTAINING TO THE FULLNESS

The following paragraphs are presented as a summary of Attaining to the Fullness. The review questions are designed to facilitate a clear comprehension of the thesis statements contained in that document. Click on the answer of your choice to determine the level of progress you are making in understanding the major points presented in this summary. For your convenience a link to the entire document is provided at the end of this lesson.

SEGMENT ONE

If we are going to survive and be of use to God during the chaotic days to come we must cease from our own works and look to the Lord intently every moment of every day and night. We must be in touch with the living Christ. We must receive our guidance from Him.

There are at least six sources of inspiration and guidance by which we make the decisions of each day:

Satan, the fallen angels, and the demons.

Antichrist, the spirit of the world, money, education.

Our self-will and personal ambition.

The lusts and passions of our flesh and soul.

Our feeling about what ought to be, and our fears.

The Holy Spirit of God.

These six sources of inspiration and guidance follow us all day and through the night. Five of them are attempting to take our crown of authority and life. These are enemies in our land of promise. They do not want us to just fear God and keep His commandments, they demand attention and service. They are hostile toward and upset with the idea of our ceasing from our own wisdom and efforts and seeking to press into the rest of God.

To enter the fullness, the rest, of God is to bring all of our decisions, great and small, to the Lord Jesus Christ. No decision is too small, no decision is too great—each and every one is to be brought to the Lord for His wisdom and will in the matter.

Review Question#1. Please click on the answer you think is correct.

To enter the fullness, the rest of God, is:

a. to become passive and let God do everything in our life.

b. to bring all of our decisions, great and small, to the Lord Jesus Christ.

SEGMENT TWO

Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. (Hebrews 4:1)

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; For anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:9-11)

We who have been saved and baptized with the Spirit of God are admonished to make every effort to enter the rest, the fullness of God.

What can we say about the rest of God. What are its characteristics?

Basic salvation is typified by water to the ankles.

The baptism with the Spirit is represented by water to the knees.

Death to our own strength is portrayed as water to the thighs.

But the fullness of God, the rest of God, is shown to be water to swim in, a river that cannot be crossed over.

The fullness of God is the place of abiding and rest in the center of God’s Person and will.

The fullness that God has for us lives in stern obedience to the Father. Obedience is its chief component.

Righteousness and holiness are included in the fullness, and must be pursued continually.

Faith also is a component; so are trust and hope.

Divine love is high in importance among the elements of the fullness of God.

Courage is an important component of the fullness of the rest of God.

Peace, and joy are components of the fullness.

Patience and perseverance are included in the fullness to which we are seeking to attain.

Faithfulness is included in the fullness of God’s rest.

Review Question #2. Please click on the answer you think is correct.

The fullness of God is:

a. the place of abiding and rest in the center of God’s Person and will.

b. is beyond our grasp.

SEGMENT THREE

The opposite of the rest of God is Antichrist. The mark of Antichrist is our willingness to be guided and inspired by self-will in our actions and thinking.

Babylon the Great is self-will in religious denominations and institutions.

Antichrist is self-will in the civil realm, in government and politics.

The False Prophet is self-will in the spiritual realm, the area of religious utterance and of the working of miracles.

Laodicea is self-will on the part of God’s elect, His lampstand, His church.

It may be noted that many of the leaders of institutional, denominational Christianity, of the local churches, and of our civil governments, are motivated by their desire for self-aggrandizement, as was Diotrophes. They will murder Christ and His messengers wherever they appear. This is because self-motivated people have doors in their personality that are open to Satan, who is the personification of self-will.

When we see self-will coming to maturity in the denominational structures, among those who have been gifted with ministry in the local churches, and in civil government, from that time forward those who die in the Lord, that is, who set aside their own life that Christ’s will might be done, will be blessed and fruitful—even throughout the heavy spiritual darkness of the closing days of the Church Age.

Review Question #3. Please click on the answer you think is correct.

Laodicea is:

a. something we need not worry about in the end times.

b. symbolic of self-will on the part of God’s elect, His lampstand, His church.

SEGMENT FOUR

If any man who has walked the earth was able to do something by his own wisdom and strength, it was Jesus of Nazareth. However, Jesus refused to live His own life. He did only what He saw the Father do. We are to do only what we see Jesus do.

Not all of us are able to see the Lord clearly, or even to hear His voice. But if we will commit our way to Christ, acknowledging Him in all we do, He has promised to direct our path.

It is my opinion that as the spiritual darkness increases in the time to come, we will be able to see the Lord more clearly until at the hour of His appearing it will be an increase of what we already have been experiencing rather than a dramatic change.

It may be true that every passage of the Book of Hebrews must be interpreted in light of the central thesis, which is that the Christian disciple must never cease pressing into the rest of God, into that place in Christ where he no longer is thinking his own thoughts, speaking his own words, or performing his own works. Rather he or she is flowing with the flowings of the Godhead. The believer has become one in Christ in God, and God in Christ are in him. It is one Entity, one Being, the incarnation of God.

This is the supreme attainment of the program of redemption.

It is termed "God’s rest" because God is able to find rest in us, in that we have turned away from our self-will. We have chosen to die that we might live and bear fruit. The believer who is willing to obey God to the point of death to his own life makes possible all sorts of benefits in the Kingdom of God.

Our adamic nature, including our physical brain, degenerates with age. But if we sow our death-doomed nature to the eternal Life of Christ, we will march forward with full consciousness into the spirit realm when we die physically.

Review Question #4. Please click on the answer you think is correct.

The central thesis of the Book of Hebrews is:

a. that the Christian disciple must never cease pressing into the rest of God.

b. addressed only to Jews and not Gentiles.

SEGMENT FIVE

When the Lord God shakes the earth and the heavens, only the part of us that has been wrought in Christ will survive. The part of us that is of the created world will be destroyed when the shaking comes. It is as simple and straightforward as this.

The reason for the serious warnings in the Book of Hebrews, the exhortations to cease our sinning and to press into the rest of God, become apparent.

"Our God is a consuming fire" is referring to the God of the Christian people. If we neglect to lay hold on our salvation, as the Apostle Paul did, we will not bear the fruit for which God is looking. In this case we are near to cursing and burning, according to the Book of Hebrews.

So whether we regard "heavens" as including the spirit Heaven makes no difference. In either case, we are courting destruction if, after having received the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we neglect to press forward every day, striving to grasp that for which we have been grasped since the beginning of the world.

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. (I Corinthians 3:11-15)

We have come to Christ for salvation. Now we are building on that foundation. If our works are wrought in Christ, they will endure the shaking. If they have not been wrought in Christ but have been inspired and guided by some of the forces we mentioned previously, they will be burned away by Divine judgment. We will be saved, but only as all we have accomplished has been removed from us. We will enter the Kingdom age as a naked spirit, having no inheritance.

Abraham was looking for a city that has foundations. How he knew about the new Jerusalem, I do not know. I do know Abraham is in Heaven with God, being one of the witnesses who surround us.

That city will come to earth one day. But it will not be of the adamic creation, nor will the new earth and sky be of the adamic creation.

If we are not moving past the Pentecostal experience to the fullness of God’s rest, then we will not be equipped and prepared to enter the Kingdom of God, for the Kingdom is not of the adamic creation.

Let us therefore lay aside every weight of sin and self-will that so easily distracts us from the single-minded pursuit of Christ.

The penalties are severe if we fail to do this.

Review Question#5. Please click on the answer you think is correct.

When the Lord shakes the earth and the heavens:

a. the Church will be safe in Heaven.

b. only the part of us that has been wrought in Christ will survive. The part of us that is of the created world will be destroyed.