While reading the book of Colossians, I was impressed that we do not need to wait for some of the experiences and development in the divine nature to happen to us; we have control over many of these things if we would only see it is within our determination.
Love is a recurring theme in the first four chapters of Colossians, especially the first three chapters. The secondary theme is revelation—knowledge and wisdom. The book of Colossians was written to counteract the Gnostics and the philosophy which came forth in the first century. They so exalted philosophy, that Paul warned against those who were being spoiled by it. It is important to discover the marvelous truth as Paul shows the positive side of both love and knowledge (or wisdom), rather than get into doctrine about Gnostics. Although the terms “knowledge” and “wisdom” are distinct, I would include knowledge and wisdom as one in revelation. Revelation is the anointing to know, whether by factual knowledge or an anointing to apply knowledge, which wisdom is. To plan, to foresee, and to evaluate facts is in the realm of wisdom.
The other factor is love, divine love. At this particular time, love and unity in the Body will probably be strained. God is establishing divine order, an apostolic authority and the unity of the apostolic company, which will not be easy. It will be a test upon the love of the Body, greater than they have ever experienced. Also, wisdom and knowledge will become an issue, for we are living in days of such deception. If it were possible, we would see the very elect deceived (Matthew 24:24). Therefore, the anointing and the impartation of wisdom from God becomes very essential. As this wisdom is tested, and as spirits of deception become rampant, it is important to realize that the process of love and knowledge (or wisdom) come by the exercise of your will.
You do not love automatically; you love because you determine to love. You do not believe for something automatically; you believe because you have a will to believe and you determine to believe. A person who is sick, who has a determination to recover, will respond by his very will to live. If he has no will to live, even though the normal processes of his body should cause him to recover from some diseases readily, he will not, because he has no will to live. It affects every process of his physical being.
This is true also in the spiritual realm. When you experience certain problems where love is tested, you rise to the occasion by determining to love. You set your heart on God and you set your heart on your brother. You love because you have a will to love. You determine that you are going to love.
The same is true of belief. People who do not have any faith are constantly vacillating. A question, a doubt, or unbelief comes, and they are swayed by it. There are other people who, no matter what you would tell them, would not let it affect their faith. Facts contrary to what God has shown them, piled mountain high, will never phase them because they have determined to believe. They have a predetermination to faith and a predetermination to love; a predetermination to worship and a predetermination to walk with God. When the occasion of need comes, they automatically respond to that within their heart which has predetermined them to a certain course of action, as though it were already settled within them. They do not have to forcibly restrain their temper to keep from murdering someone who slaps them on one cheek; they turn the other cheek because they have predetermined they will love and not hate. They are not suddenly overwhelmed when in the same day they have a wreck, lose their job, lose their wallet and many bills come in, and they go home and find that all the furniture has been stolen. That would be a time when some would say, “There is no God!” Would you be tempted to say that?
Predetermine in your heart, “Though He slay me, yet will I serve Him.” That attitude was in the heart of Job (Job 13:15). He lost everything yet what did he do? He fell down and worshiped God. When he heard that his children were killed and all his goods plundered, the first thing he did was worship the Lord: “The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
As we read the Scriptures, we find that the early Church had this same attitude. In the book of Colossians, a great emphasis is placed on love and upon revelation wisdom, but it did not just happen; they decided they were going to do it. Paul said that God has imparted to every man a measure of faith (Romans 12:3), and that faith will remain dormant unless you exercise it. It is rising up in the midst of a circumstance that would wipe out your confidence in God, and saying, “I believe, Lord. I believe.” It is coming into a situation, seeing right through the duplicity of some heart, and loving just the same.
It is sometimes easier to love an enemy than to love someone who is two-faced and lies to you as he smiles. I remember the first promise God gave me as I was coming into the Walk; from Psalm 144 He spoke to me in the Spirit one day and said, “This will be the people you will lead” (Psalm 144:11): “ ‘Lord, deliver us from the right hand of falsehood and the mouths that speak lies.’ ” Through the years I saw how many came with duplicity and how God had to deliver them from it. You can love people who come with honesty and integrity and withstand you in the way, because you know you must. But to love someone who will take your love and knife you in the back is very difficult, unless you predetermine that you are going to walk in the kind of love that says, “If they betray me I will love them.” I wonder how many times the Lord Jesus Christ expressed love to Judas Iscariot when He actually realized what was in Judas. That must have been the most fantastic exhibition of love that the world has ever known.
Having a will to love, and a will to know (a determination to know), are things I know a little bit about. Every week, as a regular routine I am called upon to minister in two to four revelation ministry services. When people come for ministry, although I may have a multitude of cares, I switch hats from engineer to ticket-taker. I have to switch from administration, to the Word, or to ministry, to the flow of the Spirit in revelation—whatever is presented before me, I must be instant in season (II Timothy 4:2). At the same time, I may be in a spiritual battle, not visible to the congregation, that is preoccupying most of my attention. At first it was difficult when someone would come up for ministry, and I would wonder, “What am I going to do for this one?” Already in a dozen different areas of conflict, with God speaking to me about something else, many times I would minister with my spirit consciously focused elsewhere. How would I do it? Well, I would like to know, too. I would do it, but I cannot tell you how. It is not by any cunning nor deep insight of my own mind. I have a great deal of confidence in the revelation that comes, but not because I have confidence in myself—only this one thing I do: when I stand before people, I determine to know. It is in my will to minister to them the will of God—no more and no less than God wants to reveal to them, and I determine that it is going to be. I do not approach it thinking, “Well, I hope I have a word,” I determine I am going to have a word; I am going to have the word that God has for them; I am going to have the revelation. And I think it is that one attitude, that one alone, that has been the key of the gifts working.
Paul told Timothy, “Stir up the gift within thee” (II Timothy 1:6). Gifts can become quite dormant. The will becomes the trigger of your faith, but your will also is the trigger of love—the love that God has put in your heart. Your will triggers off the flow of wisdom and knowledge that comes from the Lord. All of this is a basic thing that you determine, at least to this extent: that in the gifts of the Spirit, the will determines. You may already be familiar with the way tongues and interpretation and prophecy work; you wait on the Lord and you feel an inspiration. But it will just be an inspiration until you determine that you are going to move in the Lord. You set your heart to move in the Lord and it comes through. You prophesy according to the proportion of faith (Romans 12:6). That is not a dormant, passive faith; it is a very active aggressive eruption of your faith in God.
If something happens to you and you want to get angry in the situation, don’t do it. Determine that you are going to love in that situation. You may come to a certain place and feel as if you don’t know which way to turn. You can give into ignorance, to the darkness, the fact that the truth and knowledge is veiled from you, if you want to, or you can believe that God can bring you into wisdom. And you can determine that you are going to walk in it. Your faith literally pulls up the shade that hides the light from streaming through upon your pathway. God will help you to do this.
Determine you are going to move! You may say, “Well, I’m afraid and doubtful—passive. I don’t know if I have a real word from the Lord or not.” The will has a strange way of being like the defogger in a car, the device that removes frost and ice on the rear window. When you start your car, you can throw a little switch; the electricity runs through fine wire and heats up the element in the window. Soon, you can see patches of ice melting off. Likewise, you can have all kinds of problems, but set your heart on God. Set your will to seek the Lord. Set your will to have an answer. It has the most amazing capacity—it simply evaporates the fog for you. If you are having problems in this Walk and problems in your own personal life, you can be overwhelmed by them if you give into them. But if you determine, “God has an answer for me, and I’m going to have that answer,” you will move into it.
I am going to have one solid confession—that the Lord is faithful. I am determined to believe that. It will be active and I will voice it. I will proclaim it. I will praise the Lord for it. I will worship the Lord. If we increase what is within us by exercising it, we can overcome anything!
In the book of Colossians we read, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother (it reads, “our brother”—the margin says “the brother.” Timothy was known throughout the early Church as “the brother.” When Paul would refer to “the brother,” they always knew he meant young Timothy), to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since, we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints. Colossians 1:1–4. Here is the key—the love that they had for all the saints.
In verse 8, Paul said, concerning Epaphras returning from Colossae: … and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit. Making a running note of the times this love occurred, we begin to see that the Colossian church had a great deal of love. But we want to see what he instructed about the love.
In Colossians 2:2 he is praying for all those who have not seen his face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself. Notice: knit together in love—as though love was a force that tied the Church together. It did not happen; they believed to be one.
You are going to be just as much one with the Body as you decide to be. If you have an independent spirit, if all your life you have tended to be a loner, not too much involved with other people, it is your fault, and it is your responsibility to change. Don’t say, “Well, this is my nature.” There probably is something in your nature that has to be changed, and it all boils down to the fact that you do not determine to love; you do not determine to be a part of your brother and sister. Being knit together in love happens because you allow yourself to be drawn to your brother and sister and completely and totally enmeshed with the rest of the Body.
Instruction begins to come in Colossians 3:12, where Paul says, And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion.… Now here is the determination, the thing that you do. You put on a heart of compassion. It is not as though doing it were natural to you. You assume it. The attributes of God can be conveyed. They can be appropriated. Going to the great storehouse of God’s attributes and His nature is like going to a store where you can buy all kinds of clothing with an unlimited credit to get anything you want. You look at all the merchandise, you buy a pair of boots. You decide to wear them. So, you take off your old shoes and leave them, because you are not going to be able to carry them. Then you take off your old coat and put on a new coat. You take off your old necktie and put on a new one, etc.
In the beginning of the third chapter of Colossians it tells us to put off all things such as anger, wrath, malice, slander, etc. Then we read what the well dressed son of God wears. It is his new robe. These are the threads that really count: … put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against any one; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity (that is the belt which holds it all together). Colossians 3:12–14. This is what Paul is trying to convey to you, and if it is true—the book of Colossians is the Word of God and it is true—you can take all these things and put them on.
Let’s move into God’s great storehouse, and if you do not like the way you have been acting, and you do not like what is in your spirit, put off those things. Mortify your members which are upon the earth; kill them; stomp them to death; put them off, and put on the other. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh” (Romans 13:14). You discard one and acquire the other.
When you become a child of God there is a new birth. Then you are automatically stuck with two natures, two kinds of life. The life that flows from Adam, down through you, is a soulish life. The life that comes from Jesus Christ, the second Adam is also in you. And from time to time you say, “Oh, this old nature of mine is so terrible! I keep losing it!” But the trouble is that you don’t really lose it, because you find it again. Or, you say, “I do love the Lord. I want to serve the Lord, but I’m stumbling so bad.” That is because of the duality—you have two natures. You are like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: two people living within you. So why not put to death the one and put on the other? You have to decide which heredity you would like.
Do you want the heredity that came down from Adam—down, down, down, until it got to your forefathers and then to your immediate forebearers—until finally the things you see in your parents you see in yourself and in your children? You try to beat out of them what you bred into them. It is a pitiful, endless problem.
There is another way. The born-again child of God has a new nature and can begin to emphasize it. Set your will on it. Determine you are going to love with God’s love, that it is going to be your nature. Determine to know the wisdom of the Lord. Put away the ignorance that is natural to the old nature. Reach into the wisdom that belongs to the new nature: “In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). You can have all that, and you can love. Put on love, because it is the perfect bond of unity.
You cannot correct the old nature. This is not a reformation; this is not turning over a new leaf; this is regeneration. The old nature grows the more you repress it. It boils up and gets very healthy. Push it down in one place and it pops up in another. When I was a child, I had a long balloon, and when I stepped on one end it would swell up in the other end. In one of the old-order movements they would tell the young people not to go to shows. So they stopped going to shows and went to the roller skating rink and got into more trouble. Then they stopped them from going to the skating rinks, so they ended up in parked cars. You can repress the old nature only so long and it comes out another way.
So let’s abandon the old idea of trying to whitewash, and let’s be made white in the blood of the Lamb. We must spend more time encouraging the new nature, encouraging ourselves to walk with God and encouraging ourselves to get in and do the will of the Lord. More is accomplished as we abandon ourselves and set our wills to do the will of God. Set your will to love. Set your will to believe. Set your will to know the will of God. Determine it is going to be true. Then, automatically, the new nature reaches out with its unlimited potential.
In the first chapter of Colossians, Paul said, … we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (God’s knowledge); strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience, joyously… Colossians 1:9–11. This is another reference on revelation knowledge. That was the prayer: that they would come into that knowledge of His will.
Paul told in Colossians 1:25, concerning his preaching: I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God.… A more accurate translation would be: “… that I might complete the word of God,” or, “… make full the word of God.” He was actually saying that God had anointed him to write the Scriptures. He was not talking about preaching the Word; he was talking about completing the revelation that was to come in the New Testament: … that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations; but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:26, 27.
God willed to make known. All that God wants us to walk in, He wills to make known. And we, on the opposite end of it, have to will to know it. God wills to make it known, and we will to receive it. The great divine will is determined, and it beams toward you the love and the knowledge that is to be in your life. Then you set your heart: “I will before God that I am going to have that love and walk in it! I am going to have that perfect knowledge of His will, and I am going to live every day in the will of the Lord.”
Paul continued: And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom (this is that knowledge), that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. Colossians 1:28, 29.
I know this is straight, old teaching, but if you can take hold of it, the rate of your spiritual growth will be stepped up a great deal. It will eliminate many of the times when you waver between two natures. You may still be in the flesh, but you can come to an end of it. You can come to the place where there is scarcely any manifestation of it at all, because you are walking in the new nature.
“If any man is in Christ, he IS a new creature. Old things are passed away; all things have become new” (II Corinthians 5:17). This is true of the new nature. But what happens when a Christian, who is a new creature and all the old things are passed away, falls into sin? He is going back to accept the old nature as valid in his life. Reckon yourselves dead to sin! You determine this—you reckon it to be so. It will be as real to you as you believe it to be, as you determine it will be. Do not say, “Well, I don’t have much faith.” You had better have faith! Set your heart on God. You are going to walk in just as much as you WILL to walk in. Determine you are going to walk in it. Do not say, “Well, I don’t know how I might act.” You can determine how you are going to act. If you wonder, “I don’t know what I would do in case I had to become a martyr.” Then settle it right now. Make up your mind to this: “I’ll die like a Christian. I would die glorifying God.” Paul had this idea; … Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. Philippians 1:20. That is the Word of God. It was a determination: “He is going to be magnified in me. That is the way it’s going to be!”
Do not say this is egotistical, because it is not. The human spirit was given a will in its new birth. When you become a child of God, there is a creative ability in the will of the new nature. When God says, “Let there be,” all the force of His will and His determination is behind it, and it comes to pass. And when you speak the confession that He has faithfully promised, without wavering, it will be done to you the very same way. That is what makes the difference.
Paul said, “We proclaim Him and admonish every man to see him presented perfect in Christ Jesus.” I feel the same toward you. I am not pastoring you for my health, for the money I get, for the fame I have throughout Christiandom, or because I love the sound of my own voice. I do this because the one joy in my heart is to start with some of you who are down below the bottom rung of the ladder and watch you reach up into God: watch you change, watch you become what God wants you to be, and to see sons of God come forth. I will to do His will, and that is His will. This is what Paul said, And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. It was a determination, a dedication.
Dedication is an aggressive force, not a passive state. Dedication that reaches in, that does not stop, is like a dedicated salesman. He has crushed toes from sticking them in doors that were slammed on his feet and scars on his legs from dogs that were set on him, but he is determined. Nothing is going to discourage him. He may go to nine houses where they swear at him, and at the next house he makes his sale. He has a determination, knowing he is going to win a few and lose a few, but the battle is really won, not because of what is done at the door, but what is done in his spirit. He may not feel like smiling, but he is determined he is going to sell, so he comes to the door with a smile: “How do you do? I have something to sell you. Here—you want this. I am here to tell you that you want it, that you need it. You are going to buy it!”
That is like what Paul was saying, “I labor, striving according to His workings. It works in me mightily.” When you have a dedication to the Lord, it comes out that way. It doesn’t come out in growls and a phony aggressiveness, but it comes out in that which is right there all the time. You cannot discourage it or put it down; it is born of God. You cannot trample it to death. It is a love that comes from God. It is a faith that comes from God. It is a wisdom, a knowledge of God’s will that comes from God, and you determine to know it. You know it, and you are not going to pass it away, because this is in your heart: … for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. II Timothy 1:12.
Is this the way you want to serve God? It is in you. If you love Him, you are born of Him. Whatever is born of God, loves. He puts His love in you—it is the mark of a new nature. That love is in your heart. That measure of faith is in you. Now what are you going to do with it? “Well, I’ll cover it up, and if I don’t express it much, nobody at home will even know I’m a believer.” No, that’s not the way. “Well, I’ve got to be careful. You know, you have to use wisdom.” That is the wrong kind of wisdom. Daniel had unbelievable wisdom, but he would not compromise his determination to wait on God and pray three times a day. That he was going to do, even if it meant going to the lion’s den.
It is a predetermined dedication to God that you are going to love Him and serve Him. Watch it when you start to grumble and complain. Watch it when you start speaking against the things that really belong to your walk with God, if you are going to be a believer. “I can see a lot of problems in this Walk, but it’s the best I’ve found, so I think I’ll stay with it.” Oh, you mixed multitude—like a half-breed Egyptian and Israelite, trailing along wondering, “Where do I belong, back in Egypt, or should I follow them to Canaan?” That is where the murmuring comes and the fire falls in judgment. That will not get you anywhere. Get into the center of the camp. Get right in and be a part of it. “Well, I like to come. I love the Word; I even love the worship, but I don’t want to really get involved. I was involved in a church once—never again!” In this you will have to be involved. “But I have problems, and I don’t want to become a spectacle and for people to know about my problems. I’m embarrassed.” You don’t want to make a fool out of yourself? Then you are thinking with the old nature. If you think that way you will end up in hell.
Stop thinking that way. Start thinking, “I’m a new man in Jesus Christ. I am going to show forth the marvelous love and light, and anointing of the Lord. This is what I’m raised up to do. This is what I’m going to show.” You do not have to be a fanatic. You do not have to make yourself obnoxious; just let that inner radiance come through because you determine your will is set. Simply say, “I’m going to believe; I’m going to love; I’m going to do the things that God sets before me to do; I’m going to be a doer of the Word.” The determination is in your heart.
This could be a changing point in the way that you live, a changing point in the way that you approach the services and the everyday circumstances. It is the difference between going along like a little cork, bobbing on the waves, or being a big power-driven boat that splits the wave and keeps on going. Do not be constantly influenced by circumstances because you have no determination, but get the thrust and the drive that takes you through and makes the progress. Even when it seems as if everything is coming against you, keep moving—keep moving!
Have you found that contrary winds keep blowing you back, and you seem to make no progress? Determine that you are going to move in God. It is all done in the realm of your spirit, because in the realm of the Spirit you have perfect victory, perfect provision provided by Jesus Christ, a perfect new heredity, a perfect nature, and new things you can put on, such as love. You can acquire them. You can determine it. It is up to you. God has laid it within your grasp to walk as a child of God, or it is within your ability to walk on the human level. God has made Himself available. You choose which nature is going to come forth. When the decision is made, go after it. Do not pamper the flesh by day and by night and expect, when the Lord’s day comes around, that the new nature is going to be there with mysteries and revelation. Determine to walk twenty-four hours a day with the Lord.