February 20, 2001

Monica,

After I wrote to you last evening, I sat here on the floor in front of my little electric heater until around 2:30 in the morning with flow thoughts flowing through my head. For hours Father showed me things about myself and about the River of Life flowing from the throne of God.

For the past twenty-five years, I have been asking God what the simple secret is that I have been missing. There may be more to the simple secret than this understanding of flowing, but this has to be a very important part of what I was missing. The frustration about which I have been questioning Father is what I always felt when I read the first four books of the New Covenant. Jesus’ attitude was screaming in my spirit as much as his words and works were.

While Jesus taught all he taught and did all he did, he only showed amazement in one area. He could turn water into wine and think nothing of it. He could feed multitudes from a packed lunch, restore limbs on human bodies, rebuke demons, sickness, and the wind, and raise the dead without batting an eye. But utter amazement flowed repeatedly from him when his disciples could not do the same things. "O you of little faith!" he would exhale. He never marveled at the works flowing from him, but he was astounded that others were so spiritually impotent.

"O you of little faith!" was his way of saying, "Duh! Guys, get with the program. These things are so easy that it would be harder not to do them than it is to do them!"

That has long been my frustration. I could see that doing the works of Jesus and doing even greater works as he said we would was not a matter of figuring out something difficult or doing something difficult. I could see that it had to be something that was too easy for us to see. As some sounds are too high for us to hear, so some sounds are too low. As some things are too hot for us to endure, so some things are too cold. I wondered if some things could be too light for us to pick up even as some things are too heavy. I wondered if some things could be too easy for us to understand even as some things are too complicated. I was sure that what I was missing was something too easy for me to grasp.

What is more frustrating to the physical body than a lack of flowing? A stuffed up nose? Constipation? Clogged arteries? The physical body is a picture of the spiritual. These things depend on flow. I see that everything in the Bible--every spiritual principle, every lesson, every commandment--everything can be best understood in terms of the flowing of that River, which is God the Holy Spirit.

Adam sinned, cut off the flow, and died spiritually. His body began to line up with his spirit, so it began to die also.

Abraham believed God, obediently acted on his belief, and his faith was credited as righteousness. The River flowed again. Everywhere he went blessing followed him and splashed out on those around him. The blessing is the River. The manifestations of blessings were products of the blessing--the River of Life. Obviously the curse is the natural product of a lack of flow of the River just as most sickness is a natural result of oxygen-poor-blood from a lack in the respiration flow and/or circulatory flow in the physical body. Abraham did not need any written code to know how to live right. He just knew; the knowledge was flowing in him. That could be expressed as being led by the Spirit. He did not give a tenth of his income because of a law; it just happened. The tithe just flowed intuitively because the River was flowing. He did not have a well-meaning, Bible-thumping preacher telling him he was robbing God if he did not tithe. That is legal language associated with the Mosaic Covenant. For Abraham the life of blessing just flowed.

In Moses’ time, God, knowing the hearts of the Hebrews, knowing they wanted to do it themselves and not have him there talking constantly to them, gave them a written code to help them keep some flow. He got them to confess for themselves first that that is what they wanted. If you read the account carefully, you see that they told Moses to tell God not to talk to them. Basically they were saying give us your instructions and let us alone. We will promise to do all you write down--just don’t talk to us.

So he told them ten things that would interrupt the flow. The flow was already limited by their lack of desire to have him actively part of there everyday life. Full flow depends on full rest in the Sabbath all day everyday. The New Testament tells us the law was a shadow of the reality which is Christ by the Holy Spirit. The New Testament also tells us that the law put those who depended on it in bondage. The Mosaic Covenant is even referred to as a covenant of death.

If you keep this principle of flowing in mind and reread the whole Bible, you will see the flow principle jumping off the pages hundreds of times. What is sowing and reaping but flowing? What is being still and knowing God? Why is it more blessed to give than to receive? Why are you told that you have to love? Why is the greatest leader a servant? Why is the key to marriage from a man’s perspective loving his wife as Jesus loved the church? He came to serve. The perfect husband is his wife’s slave. It is all there in the Bible when you put it together. Go on and on with Biblical principles, and in every one you will find the River that flows from the throne of God.

Our covenant calls for us to give more than ten percent of our things and one out of seven of our days to God and then go our own way within the boundaries of a set of written codes. No, to have the full flow, we have to offer ourselves--all that we are and all that we have--to God as living sacrifices. That requires trusting him twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That trust requirement is foreshadowed in the keeping of the Sabbath Rest one day a week. Full flow of the River in the New Covenant requires full-time Sabbath Rest in the reality of the Sabbath, who is Jesus Christ our righteousness. While the church has embraced the shadow and fought over what day the Sabbath must be, they missed the reality. It is as if a wife runs out to meet her husband when he comes home from work, but she ignores him and hugs his shadow on the ground. Look up! The reality is here with us! Emanuel!

"Duh! Guys, get with the program. These things are so easy that it would be harder not to do them than it is to do them!" Surely it is easier to breathe than it is to not breathe. A stuffed up nose is frustrating; a totally clogged windpipe is death. Get your eyes off the shadow and on the Reality. Give all that you are and all that you have to that Reality. Rest in that Reality. That Reality is God! Trust the River of Life to flow through you and to splash out on all those around you. That is the Spirit-led life. That is the New Covenant.

I hope this insight blesses you as much as it is blessing me. Over the past few months, God has revealed and already removed several blockages that were restricting the flow in my life. I beg for revelation knowledge of and removal of any blockage that may still remain. That is flow speak for "I want more of Jesus, more and more and more!"

Love,

Dad

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