Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. 1 John 2:22-23
Recently the Lord allowed me to experience the bitter taste of denial. I mean the kind of denial that He endures whenever those He deeply loves deny Him. My own taste of this came about when a dearly loved child in the Lord whom I had been mentoring and pouring myself into (at their own request), totally denied to another believer that they had any relationship with me. I was unprepared for the depth of personal grief I went through as a result of this experience. Even after the matter had been dealt with scripturally, resulting in full repentance, forgiveness and restoration of the damaged relationship, the shock and grief of the "denial" remained a heavy burden within, more than seemed reasonable in the circumstances. A crushing burden of inner anguish and unexplainable grief from which I could not emerge weighed down on me. After seven full days of this, the Lord spoke words of revelation and release, saying "I have allowed you to join Me for a short time in My experience of denial." Ah, Lord! Thank you for counting me worthy to fellowship with You in this place of Your own suffering!
I suspect denial of Christ is not something most believers have ever contemplated on a personal level for more than a few moments, if at all. After all it's not exactly subject matter that will fill a conference venue or ensure a number one best seller for any potential Christian author these days. If we do hear about it at all, it's usually in the context of Peter's denial of Jesus immediately after His arrest, but not something any genuine follower of Christ needs to be concerned about personally, right?
Well, no actually. The distressing truth is that hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of so-called "Christians" are daily staking their eternal security on a "gospel of denial" that is not full, not complete and not safe. It is a gospel that says "I have believed that Jesus Christ came to die for me, rose again, and now lives. I have asked Him to take over my life. Therefore I have been saved and can get on with living." There is truth in that statement, but it is not ALL TRUTH. Remember that the Holy Spirit was sent to lead us into ALL TRUTH (John 16:13). He does not give us "partial truth", "renovated truth", or "just enough truth". His assignment is to bring each believer safely into the arena of ALL TRUTH. Any salvation doctrine less than all truth is incomplete and dangerous. That is what is so insidious and deadly about this half truth gospel that is so prevalent in these days. It is a gospel of the denial of CHRIST IN US. Do we realize that multitudes of people attending thousands of churches are believing a lie? The lie is that because they said a prayer presumably "receiving Christ", they can now return to normal life resting easy in the assurance that He will take over their lives, blessing all they plan and providing for every perceived need. Because of this half-truth gospel, there are many - far too many - trusting in a false security. Believing they are safe, they are actually living in a manner that places them in very real danger of never attaining true salvation at all. Having not received the gospel of "Christ crucified", they are unable to live a crucified life (1 Cor. 2:2).
This incomplete gospel, devoid of repentance, self-denial and the mystery of Christ's resurrected life in the believer, has spawned such widely held mindsets as "What Would Jesus Do?" - a phrase that has generated millions upon millions of dollars in "Christian" merchandise, and worse, holds countless young people captive to an impossible ideal. What is the only response we can give when asked What Would Jesus Do? It's "What, you mean, if He were actually HERE?" Friends, Jesus can only be imitated as He is lived. Please don't teach your children to ask "What would Jesus Do?" Teach them that He Himself will do what He wants to do as they surrender their lives to His (Matt. 16:25-26; Rom. 8: 18,19). Equip them with the truth of Christ IN us, not with cute, catchy phrases that fall short of a full and complete gospel. Our children will not survive the coming days by playing mind games - they will survive because they can testify that Christ lives in them and as He has overcome, so have they overcome IN Him (1 John 4:4; Rev. 12:11).
This powerless gospel of denial of Christ-life is so far from the gospel preached by Christ and the early apostles it would be unrecognizable to them. Nowhere in our New Testaments are we taught a gospel of redemption that does not demand radical reformation of our entire way of living. Are we redeemed by the Blood and the Cross of Christ? Absolutely! But what exactly has been redeemed? Nothing more than our right to live. However, our right to LIVE AS WE CHOOSE was not redeemed. Jesus is not the least bit interested in taking over our lives. His end purpose is to BE our life (Col. 3:4; John 5:39-40; John 6:53).
Christ's sacrifice secured for us who were already dead in sin, the right to life IN Him. We may look to the case of Barabbas to illustrate this point. When Pilate addressed the Jewish crowd asking them to choose between Jesus or Barabbas, they chose life for Barabbas, a thief and murderer (Mark 15:7-14). Jesus the innocent was crucified in place of Barabbas the guilty. Most of us understand the prophetic significance of this event in terms of Jesus dying in our place, thereby redeeming our lives from sin's death sentence. Barabbas may well have been deeply convicted that day about His own unworthiness to live while Jesus died; he may have even later believed on Jesus as the Son of God, been baptized, and renounced his former life of crime. However, unless Barabbas came to understand that the life that had been mercifully restored to him must in turn be crucified and replaced with the Life of Christ, he would merely have been changing his religion (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 5:24; Gal. 6:14).
For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:3
Friends, the gospel of all truth says we must be converted to Christ, not to Christianity. This may sound like a pedantic play on words to many, nevertheless the difference must be understood. Too many are preaching and receiving a gospel that denies the full New Testament doctrine of salvation that is founded on crucifixion of the flesh and new life in Christ. This is literally a matter of eternal life and eternal death. The full salvation gospel does not teach that we have been redeemed for the purpose of fulfilling our lives. It says that the only way to keep our life is to lose it. It does not say that our lives were given back to us, it says that the Life of Christ was given to us in place of ours. Our lives must be willingly surrendered for a spiritual death - that means every plan, every desire, every day, every night - every last breath! Christ did not die so that we could live our lives - He died so that we could live HIS life. That is why our lives are said to be hidden in Christ.
Listen, if you count yourself a believer but yet are not daily laying your life down on the altar so that He may live His Life in you, you are living on a precipice that may cost you eternity. I am not promoting a gospel of works over grace here. I am promoting a gospel of ALL TRUTH that does not deny the true cost of our redemption. What an insult to the Blood, what a slap in the Face of God, to believe that we may take the free gift of His Son, and go merrily on our way paying lip service while we continue to control and direct our own lives. How dare we tolerate any longer this false gospel in our midst!
It is not enough even to say, "Lord, please direct my life." Why? Because He doesn't want to direct OUR lives, He wants to crucify our lives! Realize that when we decided to live with Christ, we decided to die with Him. Realize that from that moment on we had absolutely no right to our lives - only to His Life! Is there not freedom in Christ? Yes, but only IN CHRIST. Did He not come to give us life abundant? Yes, but only IN CHRIST.
There is no life apart from Christ's life, and there is no holiness apart from Christ's holiness. We must receive a gospel that gives us to understand that God is not going to renovate, remake or renew our old Adam nature. He is not going to repair our former lives. He is giving us a new life, but it is His Son's life, in place of ours (Acts 5:20; Rom. 6:4). Our former lives are totally corrupt and unredeemable. We are fallen creatures whose flesh lives cannot be restored. The Cross is not about you and I being made right. The Cross is about you and I entering into the life of the First and the Last - Christ, the Firstborn from the dead and the last Adam (Col. 1:18; 1 Cor. 15:45). We are not able to be made holy in any way at all, except as we partake of Christ's holiness (Heb. 3:14).
When we come into THIS gospel, our lives will become all about Him instead of all about us. Even our language and the way we respond to the Lord will be different. Instead of saying "Lord, be with me today", we will be asking, "Lord, may I go with YOU, today!" Rather than "please bless what I'm doing today", we'll be crying out "Lord, how can I bless what You're doing today?"
A Cry for Repentance
Friends, this message is a plea for repentance. First corporately, because we, the church, all bear responsibility for tolerating and allowing this incomplete and demonically inspired gospel of denial of Christ's life in us to grow and prosper among us. In doing so we have born a false witness to the world - the very ones to whom we are to witness the Life of Christ. Second, we must repent individually, because we have each denied Him in ways we do not want to see or acknowledge. Let us not echo Peter who foolishly insisted "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You" (Matt. 26:35).
How is it that we deny Christ, and in the deceit of our hearts do not even recognize what we are doing to Him? Let me share with you a list He gave me personally, which I am now instructed by the Holy Spirit to present to the church. I encourage you to take time over what follows, in humility allowing the Holy Spirit to convict you to repentance wherever necessary. And let me assure you that I present this list as one "down among", and not as one "over and above". As the Lord led me through this list, He showed me that I had failed Him on each count except one. That was not a very encouraging revelation. However, it is God's goodness that leads us to repentance (Rom. 2:4).
As the Lord revealed His heart on this issue, He imparted the truth that denial springs from idolatry. Idolatry is simply the act of exalting something or someone other than Christ to the pre-eminent place of total Lordship and sovereignty that is rightfully His alone. By this I understood that the Lord considers it idolatry when we deny any aspect of Who He is in us.
1) When we judge our brother or sister by determining in mind or speech that brother or sister is unable to be changed, comparing them to others in whom we have perceived greater fruit - we DENY Him. This is denial of His Spirit, for we deny the power of His Spirit at work within that one to sanctify and conform them to the image of Christ. We are exalting human flesh above Him. First, we are exalting our own flesh to presume we understand His way of working in another. Second, we are exalting their flesh to presume it is stronger than His Spirit is.
Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Phil: 1:6
2) When we judge ourselves by determining in mind or speech that we will never overcome a certain sin or destructive habit, we DENY Him. This is denial of His Blood, for we deny the power of the Blood to cleanse and heal us completely. We are exalting the power of sin and flesh above the complete sufficiency of His shed Blood to deliver us from sin's grip.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
1 John 1:7
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Heb. 9:14
3) When we deem our own worth as less than what He deems it to be, that is, judge ourselves unworthy, a failure or unforgivable, we DENY Him. This is denial of His Cross, for we deny the power of His love to heal and deliver us. Again, we are exalting our essential "badness" (sin nature) above His essential goodness, which is an attribute of His Glory (see Ex. 33:19)
For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight-- if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard.
Col. 1:19-23
4) When we give Him the leftovers of ourselves instead of the first and best, we DENY Him. This is denial of His Lordship, for we deny Him His rightful pre-eminence. When we choose to pursue other activities, such as career, pleasure or Christian service, at the expense of seeking out His Presence, we exalt our love of self above Him. When we exalt "self" we deny Christ. When we exalt Christ, we deny "self". We cannot exalt both of them.
If anyone desires to come after Me, let him DENY HIMSELF, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
Luke 9:23-24
Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Rev. 2:4
5) When we embrace another name more than His, we DENY Him, for we deny the power and glory of His Name. The early disciples of Christ were known only as "those who had been WITH Jesus" (Acts 4:13). How do we identify ourselves? Do we esteem the name of our nation, our denomination or even our family higher than His Name? When we fail to place all our other "identity tags" beneath the Name Above All Names, we exalt the world system above the Kingdom of Christ.
That the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thess. 1:12
I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.
Rev. 3:8
And they shall see his face; and his Name shall be in their foreheads.
Rev. 22:4
6) When we replace the Word of God with the commandments of men, we DENY Him, for we deny Christ the Living Word (John 1:1). When we replace worship in Spirit and truth with denominational tradition and ritual we DENY Him, for we exalt fleshly man-made religion above God Who is a Spirit (John 4:24). When we choose and appoint a priestly class, bestowing on them authority to govern our spiritual lives in place of the Holy Spirit, we deny Christ the Resurrection and Life (John 11:25), proclaiming to the world that mortal men must now head the church because He is not able to (Eph. 4:15).
This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain the worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
Mark 7:7
.....Making the Word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.
Mark 7:13
For he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live to him.
Luke 20:38
And with great power gave the apostles witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
Acts 4:33
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
1 Peter 1:3
7) When we choose to live the life we desire instead of surrendering to His Life in us, we DENY Him. This is denial of Christ, the Tree of Life, for we deny Him His right to Life in us. When we choose instead the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil by exalting our fleshly life above His Life in the Spirit, we claim that we have a right to life apart from Him. The truth is that we have no right to our lives at all. We only have a right to His Life. This is the ultimate denial for it is the denial Jesus experienced from Judas. Judas chose to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which represents the reasoning power of man, rather than feed from the Tree of Life, which is CHRIST IN US, our hope of glory (Col. 1:27). He reasoned that his betrayal of Jesus would save his own life, but his reasoning in turn betrayed him and this choice cost Judas his eternal life (John 17:12).
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Cor. 2:14
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Gal. 2:20
Denial or Witness
Whatever else each of us may believe to be our calling, gifting, or function within the Body of Christ, the scriptures teach there is one fundamental and primary calling above all others that belongs to every man, woman and child in Christ. It is the calling to provide witness for Him on the earth. To be part of the "ecclesia", the called out ones of Christ, is literally a calling to walk this earth as witnesses of Christ's resurrection (Rom. 1:6). None of us have any higher calling than this. The church has been left upon the earth until the Father's appointed time to give witness of His Son's resurrection, to principalities and powers (Eph. 3:10), and to the world (Luke 24:46-48). That witness, above all other things, is why you and I are here. This is not a witness worked out through active evangelism alone, though evangelism is certainly one aspect of it. This witness we are called to is primarily expressed through Christ's life being manifested in and through us. There is no other living witness on the face of the earth to the truth that Christ lives but the faithful, Spirit-empowered Bridal company of believers. When we deny Christ in any manner whatsoever, we are walking as false witnesses before demonic powers, before the world we live in and before the Father Himself.
While Peter hid in the shadows of the courtyard, inside the High Priest's palace the religious authorities were busy presenting false witnesses against Jesus to discredit Him. Outside in the courtyard, warming himself near the fire, Peter was presented with the opportunity to give a true witness to Jesus, but failed (Mat. 26:57-75). We are all familiar with the story - three times he was asked was he with Jesus, and three times he denied that he even knew Him. We cringe at the thought of placing ourselves in Peter's shoes that night. We cringe even more painfully when we contemplate the scripture that states "And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter" (Luke 22:61). In all of history, did ever a human being receive such a look? We don't like to think we could have done what Peter did. But the truth is, we have denied Him - again, and again.......
It would be easy for me to end this message with a prayer for forgiveness that we could all agree with and move on to other things more pleasant to our taste. How we love the prophetic message or the revelatory teaching that affirms and comforts us, but this is not such a message. This is a message that requires us to pause and come aside with our Beloved One, a message that demands a reckoning in the secret place of His grace and forgiveness. This message is a call to repentance, and my prayer is that we will humble ourselves to receive it. May we turn aside to Him and acknowledge the unspeakable. May the fear of the Lord return once again among His people. And when He comes, may He find us among a Bridal company of true witnesses who refuse to deny Him at any cost.
Cheryl McGrath
July 1, 2005
Great South Land Ministries
