Why do we find it difficult to fully use the principle of appropriation, even at the Holy Communion? Is it because we rely upon our human capabilities so completely that we tend to use our own experience or wisdom—or that of those round about us—to solve every problem? We tend to be dependent upon our own skills; we try to evaluate what we can do and what we cannot do. The Lord tried to convey to His disciples this important truth: It is not what you are, but what you can draw from Him that makes you effective. Perhaps more than any other generation, before or since then, they grasped this truth.
At the prelude to the Passover and the Pentecost that was to follow, the disciples had to be made aware of their own inadequacy. Sometimes the defeats that people experience—like that of the disciples when they failed the Lord—are very necessary. It was necessary that Peter lose his self-confidence if he was to be the one who had the power to open the door to the Church Age on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14–24, 37–47). He could not carry with him this cocky attitude: “Everyone else might forsake You, Lord, but not me” (Matthew 26:33). He even took his sword and cut off Malchus’ ear, so he was certainly willing to defend Jesus (John 18:10). But there had to be something worked in his spirit that would shift him from his self-reliance to an utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit and the fullness of the Lord.
It is somewhat puzzling to read chapters 13 through 17 of John containing the last teaching of Jesus before He went to the cross. It is a unique section of the gospels. We would expect our Lord to speak of many other things. I wonder what I would say if this were my last message to you? What would my emphasis be? John dwells upon the Passover and Christ’s last teaching. We have to understand in our spirit what Christ was talking about before His ascension when He said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8–9). When He told the disciples that they would receive power, He was not talking about their inner resources being regenerated or established or bolstered up. He was talking about something else completely. The whole purpose of the Holy Spirit is to lead us away from our utter dependence upon our own thinking, or even our past experiences.
In John 15:10–11, Christ said, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” He saw that there was a relationship between keeping the Father’s commandments and abiding in His love. We must keep His commandments so carefully, not so much out of a religious duty, but so that we can continue to abide in His love. He said, “I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. I have spoken these things to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” We still depend too much upon our own ability to master our emotions, instead of looking to the Master Himself to give His emotions and His feelings to us.
In the sixteenth chapter of John, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit’s work. “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” John 16:12–13. The Holy Spirit draws from the Father, just as Christ draws from the Father. By the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Christ did only that which He saw the Father do (John 5:19). Independence and self-reliance are not virtues in the realm of the Spirit. Instead we must learn to draw from God, depending upon Him, just as Christ did.
“He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.” John 16:14–15. The Holy Spirit will manifest or bring forth in us the things of Christ. We should not be interested in merely learning human methods of how we can function or accomplish things. Instead we want to be able to reach out in faith for the Holy Spirit to take what belongs to Christ’s fullness and manifest it to us. The emphasis is often that the Holy Spirit comes only to reveal our sin, our need, or our commission. If our revelation stops there, we do not move on in God. Every revelation about a ministry or a gift should lead us, not to try to walk in it ourselves, but to exercise tremendous faith that draws from the Lord (Romans 12:6). We draw from the Lord and appropriate His provision.
“And in that day you will ask Me no question. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you shall ask the Father for anything, He will give it to you in My name. Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full.” John 16:23–24. The emphasis on our growth and maturity has been with us for many years in this walk with God. As more and more is expected of us, we could get the idea that more and more is expected out of us, rather than through us. There is a big difference. We must become more and more only the channels of His fullness.
The disciples were more complete men in every way when they started out to be disciples than they were later. The Apostle Paul and the other disciples lost their human initiative and zeal. In a sense, they became dead men. The death of Christ had been worked in their own spirits. However, as they became crucified to so much, they learned to appropriate the life of the Lord. Paul said quite freely, I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God. Galatians 2:20–21a. God had given Paul so much grace and anointing as though He were saying, “Here it is. This is all you need. Just live and function by what I have provided for you.”
Our walk with the Lord is not an endurance contest, even though we know that “He that endures to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 10:22). It is not an endurance test of your strength. How you draw from Him is the key (Philippians 4:13). Many of the projects that God sets before us seem to require a miracle every day. We are thrown into a place where there is no way to succeed, humanly speaking. Shiloh, for instance, has no tangible means of financial support. Its success depends upon people who reach into God and appropriate His provision. We come to Shiloh for a discipline in the ultimate experience of reaching the end of ourselves where we must appropriate Him. We must draw on Him, so that He brings forth what He wants within our life. It cannot be otherwise. Christ must be all in all (Colossians 3:11). The only hope of glory is Christ in us (Colossians 1:27).
There are many differences among the members of the Body of Christ, but they differ only according to the grace of God that is given to them (Romans 12:5–6). One man may have an anointing upon him to be a hand; another, to be a foot. But these differences do not lead us to despise one another and to say that we do not need one another (I Corinthians 12:21). Instead the many members constantly draw upon one another, and they come into an amazing interdependence, just as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are interdependent.
When Christ came to take on a body of flesh, He emptied Himself and took upon Himself the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6–8). Why would He do a humble thing like that? Why didn’t He come as God bottled up in a human body? Why did He empty Himself so completely? Because He had to be in the same place that we are (Hebrews 2:16–17), where there was nothing in Him except what He appropriated from the Father. He said, “I can do nothing of My own self. It is My Father; He does the works” (John 5:19).
We know that Jesus Christ was God and that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). But we believe also that He came in the flesh in order to open up the way for us to be perfect channels of His fullness too (Ephesians 3:14–21). Audaciously, we dare to believe this, and we abandon the course of human progress that is attained by human means, human attributes, and human abilities. We want to see what the world can experience when there are just a few humble people who know the power and force of such submission and appropriation that the fullness of God can be seen in the earth again. All we want is for His fullness to be manifested (Ephesians 5:17–20). This means, of course, the end of ambition and anything else for which we could glorify ourselves.
Where then is our initiative? Do we just sit back and wait for something to happen? No, the whole purpose of discipleship is to reach for the tremendous anointing of the Holy Spirit which gives a thrust to our appropriation. It gives the thrust to our appropriation that brings us to the place where we are eager to appropriate. Jesus said, “Until now, you have asked for nothing in My name” (John 16:24). Even now, that is still true; we are not yet asking for enough. You may be thinking, “I have been taught to focus on the Lord, not on myself!” However, it is not pie-in-the-sky that we are focusing on; it is pie-on-our-plate. We are focusing upon Him, that we might feed upon Him daily. With our focus upon His fullness, we honor Him by appropriating that fullness. When we do not see Him as our perfect provision, or when we see Him as something remote from that perfect provision, we actually dishonor Him. Jesus was teaching something about Communion when He said, “Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you do not have any life in you” (John 6:53–57). Every time we break bread together, every time we take the fruit of the vine together, our faith is appropriating His fullness.
Your personal situation may seem to you to be most miserable. But many people will never be happy or have the joy that is available to them until the Lord has made them even a little more miserable. Their life may have to be on the verge of being unbearable, humanly speaking, before the fullness will come. Perhaps we cannot comprehend these words on appropriation until He comes to us also and says, as He said to His disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled” (John 14:27). He marveled at the sorrow that was among them in that day. You may be unhappy and a bit miserable. You may even think about withdrawing. Good! You have reached the place where the joy of the Lord can be appropriated. It is good to be discontented with what you are, with what you can do, and with your own capacities. Do you feel that your life is being wasted? That can be good too, for “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it will not bear fruit” (John 12:24).
In everything we experience, there must be the coming to the end of ourselves, so that we are provoked to accept the fact that Christ said, “I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly (John 10:10); but you will not come to Me that you might have life” (John 5:40). If you have problems, maybe the Lord is stirring up the nest so that He can teach you something (Deuteronomy 32:11–12). Do you feel empty? That is a good time for His fullness. The Lord is not giving you ten easy lessons on how to kick up your heels and enjoy yourself. He came to give you one simple lesson: “I will give you My abundance and My love.”
It is a fallacy to believe that if we make the right decisions or have the right dedication, we will automatically be happy. Dedication does not make you happy. Dedication only channels you. It is appropriation that fulfills you. You may have thought that getting married would bring fulfillment. In a sense, it does. But before long you will realize that you could be married in the perfect will of God, you could be set in the perfect church, you could have the right pastor, the right elders, the right doctrine, the right divine order—and still find that something is missing. It is missing because God will not allow the fulfillment of His eternal purposes to come forth on the human level. He is the One who will be glorified in His saints. He is the One who will be admired in all who believe (II Thessalonians 1:10). The Parousia is not a time when supermen do exploits, but a time when those “who know their God will be strong and do exploits” (Daniel 11:32). Their strength will come out of knowing Him and loving Him and appropriating Him.
Before the day of Pentecost, Peter was a very empty person. Perhaps his failures were a key to everything he later appropriated, because he had had so much confidence in his own ability. How does God prepare a man to open the door? Jesus often challenged Peter, saying in effect, “You are not thinking straight, Son. You do not have it right” (Matthew 16:22–23). Once the Lord gave him a vision while he was hungry and waiting for something to eat; He showed him all kinds of reptiles and unclean animals and told him, “Arise, Peter. Kill and eat.” Peter’s response was, “No, I have never touched anything unclean” (Acts 10:10–14). Then the Lord told him, in effect, “You will this time, Peter; you will go down and open the door of faith to some of the Gentiles” (Acts 10:15, 34–35, 44–47). Peter was a Jew and he had problems with this later when Paul, the apostle to the uncircumcision, came against him at Antioch and said, “You are to be blamed, Peter, because when the Jews come around, you withdraw into your little clique of Jews. But when they are not around, you eat with the Gentiles” (Galatians 2:11–14).
In John 16:33 Jesus assures us that He has overcome the world. “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” Our victory comes because He has overcome the world, not because we have attained victory. The day we see that He has already won the battle, the warfare is over. If this is true, do you wonder then why you are having all kinds of struggles? They may only be designed to provoke you to appropriate and apply what He has provided.
At Holy Communion, when we partake of the body and the blood of the Lord, we exercise that same appropriation. Does this mean that we strive less? No, but we cease to strive in our own strength. We are not getting an inoculation to make us supermen. Instead, we strive with a faith that reaches into God. His fullness will be seen. He will be glorified (I Peter 4:11).
You will be just as happy as the joy of the Lord makes you (John 15:11; 16:24). You will be filled with just as much love as you can appropriate from Him. The breakdown of your human capacities and reserves will bring you to the end of yourself, so that you can come to a new beginning in Him. The whole purpose of the cross is for our human abilities to die so that Christ can be everything in us (Philippians 3:7–14). It is not easy for us to see this.
You may be wondering, “What about the whole purpose and function of my life? I feel that I have so much to offer, and my life is being wasted.” You are not wasting your life when you are in God’s will; you are losing it. There is a big difference. When the work of the cross comes to you, you will realize the truth of Jesus’ words, “He that loses his life for My sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39). You need to be reminded of these truths every day and have them renewed in your mind. There can be a new level of Communion for you; do not hesitate to appropriate His fullness. Instead, say in your heart, “This day, I behold His fullness that was provided for me. I appropriate it.”
Do not look for a super anointing to come upon your human capacities. Did Peter really know much of what was to happen on the day of Pentecost? It is true that he had the Word hidden away in his heart, but probably he had never seen or anticipated anything like what happened that day. It was certainly not according to tradition. Also, there was not one good, well-educated rabbi, versed in the teachings of the Talmud, to be found in the group. Only fishermen and other uneducated men were gathered together, along with a number of the women who had followed the Lord (Acts 1:13–14). Suddenly there was fire resting upon each one of them (Acts 2:1–3). This had never happened before, except in a destructive sense when prophets of old had pulled fire down from heaven to burn people up (II Kings 1:10). This anointing of fire resting on a group of people, the rushing mighty wind, and the speaking in other languages had never happened before (Acts 2:2–4).
Pentecost shows that God can still do something that He has never done before, that He can still move in a way that people do not expect. Pentecost is the breaking of traditions for a people who will wait until the promise of the Father comes and they are “clothed upon with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). Those early believers in that day were so broken and so emptied and such failures that all they could do was just look up to the Lord and wait, with a faith and expectancy, in one accord, in one place (Acts 2:1). There were no contentions or disturbances among them. Their focus was not upon each other or their failures. No one said, “Peter, it was not very long ago that you denied the Lord. You had better watch yourself or it might happen again.” No one chided Thomas because of his unbelief. With a collective sense of unworthiness, but also with a complete expectation running through all of them that God was going to do what He had said He would do, they were with one accord, in one place, waiting (Acts 2:1). Even though they did not know what the promises of the Father was, they knew He would bring it soon (Acts 1:4–5).
The disciples probably had no idea what the Spirit of truth was, though they could probably sense Him and maybe they felt His blessing once in a while. Jesus had taught, “He abides with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:16–17). The Spirit of God would be in them; they had never had that before. What an unconventional, untraditional, unhistorical, unreligious thing God did on the day of Pentecost when He filled those early believers with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak the Word of God and a world was changed because they reached in and drew something from the Lord.
We too can reach in and appropriate His provision for us. Why sit back half defeated waiting for someone to minister you out of your despair? Our relationship to the Lord is not intended to be like a spring thaw where we are constantly trying to dig one another out of the mud. Get the rocks out of the way and build a highway for our God! (Isaiah 40:3.) Speak the Word of the Lord that brings the anointing. Appropriate more of Him. Believe God and draw the strength of the Lord. A church may have a wonderful program, with everything very orderly and on schedule, and a doctrine that is correct; however, without the focus of faith that appropriates, they will not move on. When we come together, we should break through to a revelation of the Lord that electrifies the very atmosphere. Then, as we start drawing and appropriating, we become charged with the glory of God, filled with the anointing of the Lord from that very moment.
This is the way we minister to people. But don’t we need more experience? The disciples did not have any experience on the day of Pentecost—they did not know what to do. They just knew that when the Spirit came, He would lead them into all the truth (John 16:13). He would bring them all the fullness of Christ because all power in heaven and earth was in Christ’s hand (Matthew 28:18). Every provision was there, and He would manifest it to them. They knew also that they did not even have the capacity to understand it. Christ had said, “You cannot even understand it now. It will take the Holy Spirit to lead you into it” (John 16:12–13). In other words, He was saying to the disciples, “You do not have enough brains or strength in yourself. You will all turn away from Me; you will forsake Me and flee (Matthew 26:56). But when the Spirit comes, things will change because you will draw from the Holy Spirit.” Then there would be the anointing to reach into everything that Christ had and to walk in it.
Do you believe that Christ is touched with the feeling of your infirmities? Since we have a High Priest over us, who has all fullness, concern, and compassion, what does He invite us to do? We are to come boldly to the throne of grace to find help in the time of need (Hebrews 4:15–16). As you focus on Him, realizing that He is touched by your infirmities, determine to touch Him. How often do we read in the Scriptures that someone pressed in and said, “If I can just touch Him” (Matthew 9:20–21; 14:36). Does that sound selfish? It is not. When a man gets out of the way and lets God move through him, he is really being unselfish. He must either depend upon himself or depend upon the Lord and draw from Him. You either move in yourself or you move in the Lord.
What should we expect as we draw from His fullness? Think of everything the Spirit of the Lord has ever done, as recorded in the Word. Consider how, when the early believers gathered together in one place and lifted up their voices in one accord, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and the place was shaken (Acts 4:31). Imagine everything that could happen, and then say, “Lord, it will be something beyond anything You have ever done in me before” (Ephesians 3:20). Be filled with the expectation of the unexpected. You do not know what will happen; but you know that it will happen. Move out of your human limitations and into His fullness. Refuse to worry about all your emptiness, and just tap into the flow; your emptiness will disappear. I have never seen anyone pour coffee in a cup and worry about the emptiness. Reach by faith to turn on the tap that brings the flow. How much shall we appropriate? You will know that you have had enough when you are overflowing and you do not have any more capacity.
Your capacity grows; you can hold a great deal more now than you could when you were a baby. How do you grow physically? The body has to be fed with good food; something nourishing must be introduced into it. It functions and grows by a constant application of eating, fullness, assimilating and exercising.
There are many vessels, spiritually speaking—little vessels, great big vessels (Isaiah 22:24; II Timothy 2:20–21). What will help you to grow spiritually if you want to be one of those giants for the Lord? The only way you can grow to be a giant vessel is to draw as much as you can from Him every time you come into His presence. Draw as much of Him as you can, and as that starts working in you, you will find that there is a little more of Him and a little less of you than there was before (John 3:30). Wouldn’t you like to be
99.98 percent pure disciple? Then there would not be much of you left at all. By an act of faith, you can reach into that discipleship and change. You change because of Him. Are you discouraged? That is human. Do you want joy? That is natural. Start drawing. If you feel that you have come to the end of yourself, be glad. That is the beginning of something new in Him. Reach for it.
Why does God put us in places where we need so much, if He has all this abundance? He is provoking us into His fullness. Reach into everything the Lord has with a mighty thrust of faith. Do not give too much credit to the devil! Instead, draw on the Lord more! Instead of thinking, “I have so many problems,” focus on His fullness. Those problems will not be overcome by your maneuvering or willpower. We must see His fullness and appropriate it. Then we will know, “Lord, Thou hast wrought all our works in us” (Isaiah 26:12). This is the key. We rejoice in it and, like Jonathan, we snag the honeycomb along the way (I Samuel 14:27–29). We chase the Philistines and pursue every victory the Lord has for us with all faith.