Faith is a question of perception, getting your head lined up with your convictions. The fallen fleshly nature rejects the leadership of revelation. By design, we have the volitional means to overcome the resistance of the flesh. We have within us a will that can be aligned with revelation. It already has the wisdom of Heaven encoded like DNA, so it requires only that we exercise our will to focus on what God has burned into our souls and stop allowing the fleshly nature to usurp His lordship.
We don’t do it in the strength of our flesh. Redemption is Him pointing out to us the resources He already left stored inside of us. They came from Him. The meaning of Zechariah 4:6 is that it does not rest on human capabilities either as a virtuoso or by concerted exercise of authority. Whatever power resides within us that is actually able is not from those sources, but came from Him as a gift.
The Bible says things that are difficult to understand from the fleshly level. When you read it, you are supposed to be processing with your heart, not merely your intellect. The heart is able to fill in the blanks, the gap between what the words say and what God intended for us to do with it. Why is there a gap? Because we are fallen. The process of recording divine revelation into writing necessarily leaves that gap because the people recording it and the people transmitting it are still fallen. Thus, a fallen reader coming to that text has to face that gap.
We are fallen, but we are not abandoned. The path back to Eden is not closed; it is guarded. The guard is the revelation of God addressing our fallen nature. We must allow the Flaming Sword of Truth to penetrate our souls. That’s presented as a parable for a reason; it requires you process the whole thing in your heart, not your mind. That’s why Jesus used parables — to sift out those who were conscious of their divine heritage from those who refused to accept the demands. You must accept your fallen state and your culpability. You must agree with God regarding His declarations, His revelation of what is good and evil. You can’t keep going back to the Tree of Knowledge and asserting your fleshly nature as capable of reasoning it all out.
The issue is not whether you belong in Eden. You do belong, but you don’t get access on your terms. We have to submit to God for a restoration of what He designed.
This is why we say that eternal salvation is totally in the hands of God. It does not rest on historical events; it is not a matter of getting it, but of recognizing something that was true eternally. Spiritual heritage as a Child of God was established before you were born; it took place outside the time-space continuum. What happens inside that continuum is your recognition of it, if it applies to you. No one but God knows and He’s not telling anyone else but you.
You don’t “get saved” in the sense of obtaining but in the sense of waking up to eternal reality. You then set out to discover the implications, the full heritage. So our focus in evangelism is helping people discover the heritage they already own. The single best way to start that process is by us living that heritage. That means we walk around with our consciousness focused in our hearts; we live by your convictions. We conform to the character of God as expressed in His Word, particularly in the Law Covenants. We read the Bible from the heart and perceive the living reality hidden behind the words recorded there. It makes you a fully participating member of divine Creation.
This will call out to those around you, though you cannot predict whom and when. The timing is in God’s hands, working to break through the fleshly resistance in those people. At some point, there may well be some personal interaction, though there doesn’t have to be. God can speak and influence people in ways we cannot possibly comprehend. But at least some of those folks will need to interact with us in order to recognize the truth. There is no magic formula, no universal orthodox mental process for this. This is not a memorized process, with all the right words representing the right ideas. It’s just you and I as living manifestations of divine truth doing whatever it is God called us to do. The mental process is unique to each individual.
The key is their volition in response to the divine call. It’s not our words and actions; our testimony is used by God, but not essential. It’s His invitation for us to participate in His glory, as any father would delight in letting His children play along with His work. It’s actually more work for Him that way, but it’s what pleases Him. He’s extravagant with His resources for the joy of having our company.
Our teaching in Radix Fidem is not about getting folks saved, but of helping them discover their divine heritage, whatever that may be. We focus on how to live in this world, not whether anyone of us has somehow “obtained” spiritual birth. There is nothing anyone can do either way on the human level to affect the eternal destiny of anyone. It’s not about avoiding damnation as most people think about such words. It’s about seizing the divine inheritance in this world. If someone lacks the full use of their divine nature, they won’t be able to do this, and they won’t be able to pretend for very long. But the question on which we focus is seeking the ways we can help people discover that power if God has connected them to it.
