When the Father offered me the faith of His Son, I knew that everything that the Son was, came with His faith. I knew that I was relinquishing the right to ever live my own life in me again, and that I was yielding consent for the Son of God to completely live His faith and life in me forever. I knew that never again would I choose my own way at any spiritual crossroads to which I would be brought. My choice was predetermined from that point on. Receiving His Self had cost me all of my self, period. I didn’t know how all of the details of that exchange would reveal themselves, but it didn’t matter to me; my choice was fixed.

    This spiritual change also began reflecting itself immediately in our physical life. The church which had birthed us and nurtured us was not friendly to the "faith of Jesus" and His testimony in us. Because of this, we gladly obeyed the Father when He called us to fellowship with those of "like precious faith." This was thirteen years from the time the Father had called me away from my childhood home; He called us to leave our church home that had birthed and nurtured us in our spiritual confusion. Remaining there would have hindered the emptying process through which He desired to bring us. He also called us to leave our home and dwell in a home that we could take with us wherever the Father called us.

    I did not foresee the extent and depth and invasive nature of the mission before this child of the Father, Who had been anointed to come into me and empty me of my own self and bring me to nothing so that all that would be left in this human vessel would be the Father’s only begotten life, His own divinely implanted Self.

    The main work that the divine "faith of Jesus" was anointed to do, was to render inoperative every trace of "the faith of man," that faith which springs from our natural human religious nature.  It was necessary that every trace of this human faith be brought out into the light of exposure and rendered inoperative. Isaac Pennington was given such clear light, descriptive light from heaven on the difference between divine faith and human faith. In A Distinction Between Faiths it is stated:

The true entrance into spiritual life is to feel that power which slays man's natural ability and propensity to believe, so that the gift of the true faith may be received. For there is no rising up and living of the second without the death of the first, with all its dependence on its natural faculties and powers...When a man is called to believe, he is not called to put forth that faith wherewith he believes other things; but to receive and exercise the gift of divine faith which is from above. That which is to be believed is spiritual and that which believes in it must be spiritual. This divine faith, at its first entrance, strikes that part dead in which the other faith did grow; and by its divine growth, perfects that death and raises up a life which is of another nature than that which ever entered into the heart of man to conceive. It destroys all the former religious part, where sin on the one hand and self-righteousness on the other hand stood and grew and the new divine life principle forms a new vessel for itself; and man's faith, its branches, leaves and fruit wither and die daily, and truth comes to grow safely...And here is the great contention in the world between these two faiths, the one contending for its knowledge in the human understanding, and the other maintaining its knowing in a different part; the one setting up its faith from the natural part, calling it spiritual, and the other which has felt the stroke of God upon this — and thereby come to know the difference — setting up the divine faith of the true heir; which has a different beginning and a different growth from the other. Isaac Pennington, A Distinction Between Faiths.

    During the next twelve years, nothing was going to remain hidden or left standing in the soul, as with divine singleness of purpose, this child of the Father began His work, so excruciating to the human self. This anointed one "must be King [in the soul] and reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet…After that comes the end, the completion, when He delivers over the kingdom [of the soul] to God the Father after rendering inoperative and abolishing every other rule and every authority and power [in that soul]. For the Father has put all things in subjection under His feet…However, when everything is subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also subject Himself to the Father [be consumed Himself into the Father] Who put all things under Him, so that God may be all in all, be everything to everyone, supreme, the indwelling and controlling factor of life." I Cor. 15:25,24 Amplified.

The Faith of the Father

    When this divinely begotten "faith of Jesus" was twelve years of age, it too experienced a maturing and opening of its faculties. The faith of the Son of God was about to get a vivid awakening to the faith of His Father. Quite unexpectedly and irresistably, the Father drew me to specific verses and phrases in the Old Testament, as He opened up His faith to me, the faith of the Father Himself. It was strongly impressed upon my heart that God was undertaking in a very decided way, to bring these passages to their very real, literal fulfillment.

    At the time, I had no idea of the profound significance that these verses would have to all of us now, two years later, as the witnesses write. I was simply following Him where He drew me to read, and was writing down the words that He was illuminating. It was as though the Father had taken me up into Himself and I was seeing through His eyes, and the sight of His faith was infusing me with His own divine feelings. Words cannot describe what it was like to be taken up into the Father as He led me from chapter to chapter and book to book. It was as though His eyes would light up with delight and anticipation as He looked at certain verses. They were all verses that prophetically described His faith, and the feeling of His divine knowing of His own capabilities and power to bring about whatever He had said, and His pure delight in doing just that, cannot be described. I found myself filled with His same spirit of knowing and delight as He drew my attention to what He was undertaking to bring about.

    As He led me through verse after verse, it was very clear to me where His Son got His faith from. He was infused with it as He looked through His Father’s eyes. I had felt the personal effects of the Father’s Words as His personal presence supplied the spiritual identification and responsiveness to those words, and I knew innately that that was what the Son of God had felt as He heard and read the words prophesied of Himself from the writings of the prophets. I felt the Father’s powerful resolve and purpose, as He clearly specified what He was going to do: I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that God was now taking things into His own hands in a very marked way, and He was desiring for me to be awake and to watch Him do it. I had no question that He was going to bring to pass every purpose in His divine heart but I didn’t comprehend the details of what He said He was about to undertake, because I was interpreting everything shown to me in a metaphorical way, rather than in a literal way, as He was outlining it to me. This is often how our Father works with the soul.

    You may like to read The Faith of God at this point and see if you would have had any idea of the extreme change the Father was undertaking to bring to pass in a very literal, physical way, the details of which were revealed in The Finished Work. We will look at the specific details of the fulfillment of His faith a little further on.

    At this time the Father also recalled to me an inspired passage that I had been drawn to many times before which said that at the end of time it would be seen that God was taking things into His own hands in a special way. For years I had felt a stirring in my heart every time I would recall the thought of God taking things into His own hands. It always brought a sense of earnest longing to see that day, and I had felt deep down inside that I would see it.

    During the time that the Father opened up His faith to us, He began moving upon all of us, individually and collectively, to prepare us to leave the place we had been dwelling. By a very providential series of events, it became very clear to us that God was physically and spiritually "taking things into His own hands" in a very literal way. And now for a third time, another thirteenth year again found me leaving an old dwelling place to watch the Father deliver us completely into a totally new land. It was one year from the time that He had given His word of faith, "Thus says the Lord God, I have lifted up MY hand and sworn, My people are soon to come home." It was also very clear that the Father was quite on purpose to make our dwelling here in this new land the equivalent of dwelling in Him, as immediately He set about to bring us to the consummation of the rest from ourselves which He had begun with the faith of His Son, and which He was going to complete with the faith of the Father.

God’s Own Hands

    Even though the Father had clearly said, "Behold I AM doing a new thing!" we were totally unprepared mentally for what actually occurred next. Only as we look back on it now, do we see that the Father had in fact, in His own way, carefully prepared us for it. "I bring near MY righteousness. It will not be far off, and MY salvation shall not tarry." We were about to find out exactly how near the Father was bringing His own righteousness.

    The Father Himself led us to the passages with which we are now concluding this chapter, and surprised us with them in His characteristically providential and unexpected way, only after He had already brought them to pass in real life. Even though we look back at The Faith of God and now read right there what we have seen unfold before our very own eyes since being brought to this new land, we didn’t see the literal details of what He was foretelling us at the time, because they didn’t coincide with our preconceived ideas. Our previous interpretation blinded us from seeing their literal and obvious meaning beforetime.

    The Father brought to us two clear reasons why He worked this way. The first reason is that He wanted to let us know that it was all His idea and doing and not ours. We know that for a fact because we didn’t have the least suspicion of what He was actually going to bring about. But then, didn’t He say, "I show you specified new things from this time forth, even hidden things kept in reserve which you have not known. You never heard of them, lest you should say, Behold I knew them."

    The second reason He often does things in this order is to test the true desires of our hearts. We are required to hear His Spirit and follow it without the overwhelming evidence that would only convince our minds against our will. God could bring forth such proof for what He does that no one could deny it. But then He would be forcing humans into following Him. They would be following Him because He was right and not because they loved Him with everything in their being and recognized the voice that they loved to hear no matter what unexpected way it came to them. Will we hear His voice and follow it even when things don’t look at all like we had anticipated? Or will we be stuck in our own preconceived ideas of His words and follow our own ideas about His word and discount His real voice? Do we love ourselves and what we want to hear and see, or do we love His unforeseen appearing?

    I had not previously read the following statement that reveals how God literally took things into His own hands once before in the history of this world. The Father providentially caused me to come upon it simply to reveal that He had foreseen this event all along when He inspired the words, "it will be seen that God is taking the reins into His own hands." He meant exactly what He said. He was referring to the return of His Messiah, His precious Son, Who has real physical hands. He saved the written word for us till after we had believed, as confirmation of our faith in His inner voice.

    Isaiah also prophetically described what it would be like when God took things into His own hands "a second time," but until the Father brought about its literal fulfillment, we had never "seen" this passage in the Bible, even though we had read it.

    Oh, how literally this Scripture has been fulfilled! Yet how inadequate human words are to really describe how great in our midst is the Holy One of Israel! We are personal witnesses of the return of Him Whom our soul loveth, the fairest among ten thousands, and the One altogether lovely. Truly the Spirit of the Father rests upon Him! "His delight shall be in the reverential and obedient fear of the Lord, and He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, neither decide by the hearing of His ears." This earth has not witnessed such pure delight of the Son in His beloved Father, such quiet listening for His Father’s wisdom and quick understanding, such marked integrity that follows His Father’s instructions alone, and such pure selflessness and divine love since His coming 2000 years ago; and we say, Behold God!

Chapter 1, page: 1, 2