How Do We Set People Free?

 (Or, What are the greater works?)

By Fred Pruitt

How do we set people free, when we seem to ourselves so beset with weakness and contradiction? The answer is that we are only allowed to view those “self” things, in order that we might know by contrast as negative to positive, that the Life in us is only Christ.

That is the message of the “truth will out.” It “outs” in us. What a thing is, it will be shown to be. So we do not have to worry about our “self” issues. Setting people free flows naturally our of our own freedom and life. We simply come to know that as we are led and free even so are they, and as we have heard the Spirit so will they, and they “hear” what the Spirit is saying in them, even as we have. We have come to thoroughly know it is not about discipling “men” to ourselves but to Christ and the Spirit. They (as we do also) belong to Him. Our hearts are His. Our motivations are His. We are not persons concerned about our public persona, but just simply living Christ in all we do, sometimes in what looks like trial and error, but sometimes also wisdom is proved by trial and error. We are then free of those continually recurring self-thoughts, even as we desire others to be free of them, too. We can be free because we ARE free! We are the Blessed and the Blessers!

We transmit to others our own reality, i.e., “Christ in His own freedom as me.” We don’t “teach” freedom as a concept (what is allowable, what is not allowable), because it immediately falls into the legal realm, where we still want to find the edges of this freedom, some borders, some rules we must keep somewhere in the forefront for self’s-security’s-sake, so often we invent phrases like, “Of course whatever you hear from the Inner Word will line up with the Written Word,” and others similar. (I do not deny that “lining up” will be the case, but the “lining up” is the Spirit’s lining up, and out of the mind of God and not of the flesh, ad therefore not available except to those who “lean not unto [their] own understanding.” We cling to those “safety” places, as I see it, less out of conviction, but more so out of having a safe “place” to anchor this freedom.

But true freedom defies all that and doesn’t live in that rational level. It does not answer those questions. “The wind blows … so IS everyone who is born of the Spirit.” People ask sometimes, what does this union life look like? Or what would this love look like expressed? Give me a picture, a model.

We give them the one they may not expect, in that we ourselves are the picture, the model. The answer is, it looks like the “whoever” it is, in which the Life is showing up. That is why Paul told the Corinthians that they were the letter he had written. Paul didn’t tell them to go study more, get with it, dig into the torah — though they may have done all of that — but simply told them that the Life was now showing up in them as them. “You are now the life,” he was telling them. “You’re the same letter I am.” Yes, definitely an earthen vessel, and in that earthen vessel the weakness shows up and never leaves, for the weakness is the function of the earthen vessel. But then we are not just an earthen vessel alone, but a vessel filled with the Divine Treasure, that shines by the contrast of the vessel, “that the Excellency of the power may be of God,” as brother Paul has told us.

Consider this Divine Treasure. Do we understand the implications of this? It is only what we have always said. This is all the riches and treasures and pure clear gold, the consummation of all things — I AM —

Hear O Israel!

(Rev 1:4) John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne …

(Rev 1:8)  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

(Rev 4:8-11)  And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever,

The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Hear O Israel —

Your Day has come!

In whatever form or by whatever means or by whenever time, comes the end of this age for the outer world and the temporal heavens and earth (visible universe) —

Let us know this:

The words and scenes depicted in the passages above from The Revelation of Jesus Christ, are the true inward words and scenes that are current and fulfilled in this present moment in all who are in Christ. We are each as present there in spirit as we are present in the body in the temporal world. The body world is following a timeline. The inner true eternal world has no beginning and no end other than Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the true inner eternal world in which we dwell in this present moment, there is no separation of night and day; there is no outer sun or moon or any other outer source of light, because the Lamb is the Light of it; there is no temple there, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

It is out of THIS, that the waters flow. It is out of THIS, that life pours out. It is out of THIS, comes great boldness. It is out of THIS, that all the nations of the earth are blessed. For THIS, is the blessing of Abraham in its fulfillment, “Look at the stars, and see if you can number them … so shall thy seed be!” It is out of THIS, that we rise to possess that by which we have been possessed!

Hear, O Israel!

There is great anticipation worldwide in this present time regarding possibly impending apocalyptic events. I have no certain knowledge of that one way or the other. I DO, however, believe in prophecy. As Abraham’s blessing was fulfilled, as Isaiah’s and David’s prophecies were fulfilled, as well as countless others with the coming of the Lamb into time and space as Son of Man, so that He appeared at a time and place in this current history, so shall all the things prophesied regarding this current world be fulfilled IN this current world, even as they already are IN us.

Like Martin Luther King, Jr., “I’ve been to the mountain top; I looked over into the other side, I’ve SEEN the Promised Land … and I thank God Almighty, I’m free at last, free at last … for we as a people shall SEE the Promised Land!

I tell you this. If this is the time of these things, then this is the truth that upholds the very elect. It is the time for deeds of valor. It is the time that the image of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay, is broken in pieces, so that the stone which broke them becomes a mountain that fills the whole earth. This, selah … has, selah … happened, selah … in us, selah.* And because it has happened in us, we transmit the same so that in each the same stone becomes a great mountain that fills the whole earth. Like Job, “Yet in my flesh I shall see God!”

Why is this so important? How else will the world be watered? How else will the world receive life? I have seen with my eyes the collapse of the house of sand, and many houses are collapsing in this present time. They collapse that the Rock might be exposed underneath, and all whose houses have collapsed will be wondering, “How shall I then build my house?” and we shall be their answer.

For we have found and stand upon the Rock, and are as great trees which nourish the whole earth. We are branches of the Divine Tree, and as we graft other wild branches in, through our branch are many other branches made, and they, too, are branches of the Divine Tree, and through their branches are many other branches made, into uncounted numbers. Divine Life and Divine Sustenance flows through all the branches equally, and this continues eternally without beginning and end.

This is what Paul was telling those early believers in Corinth.

“Now,” he tells them, “Your stony hearts have been reborn, and have become hearts of flesh.” Ah, is this not the purpose of God? Hearts of flesh feel everything, experience everything , apprehend everything, behold everything as taken into them, seeing no separation in what is outside and what is inside.

I maybe should not get carried away, and just conclude with this. We live a Spirit freedom and an Unbounded Love. That freedom and love is who and what we are, and we cannot help but to be it. And it is catching. A contagion of Life! That is who you are, and undoubtedly you are flowing out as He is continually flowing in!

Arise, Shine, Thy Light IS Come!

*FYI: In case “selah” causes some puzzlement, it is a Hebrew expression that means, “pause and consider.”

**Part of this article appeared first in my previous article, Update and Personal Note 2011-4.