Spirit and Personality
Martin Cecil March 18, 1979
You will remember that it was said of Job that he was a perfect and an upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil. This is rather an apt description of what should naturally be the case for all of us. It is quite obvious that human beings cannot be perfect by reason of human effort; they are only perfect when they are upright. Here is indication of the vertical component we were considering this morning: perfect and upright—because we fear God and eschew evil. We love and reverence God and we are not involved with the evolutionary processes in the realm of effects. We let evil alone; we eschew it. There is no need to condemn it. There is certainly no need to try to make what we consider to be evil into what we consider to be good. We trust God because we love and reverence Him. Being associated with God in the expression of right spirit, the essential cause is present by which the proper processes of evil may occur.
This morning we were touching upon the matter of position. A characteristic of human nature, of the horizontal state, is the endeavor to defend position, to defend one’s own position. Do you ever do that? I’ve scarcely known a human being who didn’t, because that is characteristic of those who are oriented in the realm of effects, those who have a lack of stability, because there is little awareness of the vertical component which is known by reason of spiritual expression. If there really is spiritual expression in living there is no need to try to defend anything, least of all one’s own position. Would it not be a great relief for all concerned if those of us who are associated together never anymore made any attempt to defend position? There is no need. There is no need either to defend one’s own position or to promote someone else’s position, or one’s own for that matter. One may have the attitude of trying to defend one’s own position because there is a feeling of being attacked somehow, or of promoting it so as to reach a position of supposed authority. There are those who have complained that they have never been appointed to positions of authority. Can you really be appointed to positions of authority? Not from the standpoint of the vertical spiritual component. The authority is there; it doesn’t need to be made to be so. In spite of the fact that there have been millions of human beings over the ages who have denied the existence of God, and certainly the authority of God, it has made not the slightest difference to God, to the fact.
We begin to associate ourselves then with the fact in the sense of the truth. The truth can never be lost. It may be lost sight of by human beings but it is still there. Whatever is true is true. How would you go about making something that is true not true? That would be an impossible task. It has been said that the truth is true and all is well in consequence. You cannot change the fact in this sense. There are those who try to promote their own positions, to defend their own positions, to reject the positions of others—it is all part of the same syndrome—or to promote the position of others. There have been some who have been inclined to try to promote me. Don’t do it! I don’t need any promotion, in either sense; none of us do, because we are.
Becoming aware of this through spiritual expression then we cease to be defensive and we recognize that there is no need to try to push anything. We certainly have no interest in trying to promote this ministry for in- stance; it is! I don’t think you have felt that I was interested in trying to promote myself. I am content to be. It is on this basis, actually, that we have a ministry. There is an inclination to think that what we do is important. What we do is certainly not the primary thing of importance; it is what we are. When we are what we really are then what we do will have importance, but only because we are what we are. If we are not that and try to prove that we are important by the things we do we may fool some people but we shouldn’t be capable of fooling those who really are Emissaries. It is what we are that is important.
We speak of that by using the words I Am. I Am, we have noted, is one of the names of God. So we are concerned with being, rather than with achieving, because when we are we will naturally achieve—no effort. What needs to be done will be done. But if we are not and we try to achieve we can only do it on the basis of the sweat of the brow, and that exhausts us after a little while; and an exhausted person is a dead person. So there is no necessity to promote anyone, least of all me. I would consider it an insult if you tried to promote me! I am not talking about whatever your own attitude may be toward me, but don’t try to transfer that to somebody else. In any case you need to have a clear attitude in this regard yourself.
If we have a ministry—and evidently we do—it is based in the fact that I Am. There is a spirit present then which springs from God. We speak of the spirit of the living God. This must obviously be made evident somehow. If it is to be made evident there must be someone to make it evident. It is important that it should be made evident because obviously the spirit of God has been present anyway even though it wasn’t made evident. It is only when it is made evident that the achieving becomes possible. The achieving is not based in human effort. It is based in the action of spirit, whatever that is. That action appears when there is a means for its emergence. There must be someone on hand to make that spirit evident then. Fundamentally that is all that is necessary, because the spirit does the rest.
There are those who seem to feel that I have claimed something with respect to being the supreme manifest focus of God on earth. I don’t think you ever heard me make any such claim. That would be a human assumption. No one needs to make that claim. If there is this point on earth it is made known by its own nature, in other words by being, certainly not by making any claims. In fact if claims are made it is an indication that there is something not quite right. What I have said on occasion relates to a fact, a visible and evident fact. I do provide the focus point for this ministry. I am not making any claims in that regard. It is the fact, isn’t it? Those who are associated with this ministry obviously and necessarily accept this fact. Otherwise there would be a house divided. A house divided cannot stand. So one either accepts the fact and is not a house divided or one does not accept it and is a house divided. The consequent experience is then known in either case. But I make no claims to be the focus point for this ministry. I merely sometimes indicate that it is the fact, that there would be no ministry in this moment if it were not for my focus point. It has emerged on this basis. Of course there are others who are sharing this focus point with me, and I rejoice in that, but I wish to make very clear to all concerned that I do not make any claims for myself. If there is a fact to be seen then I may point to it, as I am doing now with regard to the focus point of this ministry. This is the case in this moment. This is the fact in this moment.
I have also indicated that there must be a manifest focus point for the world, for mankind as a whole, if there is to be the restoration. I suppose this is portrayed for all of us by the fact that there must be a manifest focus point for this ministry if there is to be a ministry composed of however many people. This is the way it takes form. By the same token the same principles work in relationship to the whole body of mankind. There must be a focus point. That is the fact of the matter. I also indicated that there always has been such a focus point in the world. It has virtually never been recognized as such, and most of the time, as I indicated before, it has not even been recognized by the outer consciousness of the individual who properly should be providing that focus point. So we can see clearly what is factual and what remains to reveal itself. What is now factual has revealed itself and we don’t have to speculate in the matter. The focus point for this ministry is evident. It has revealed itself. It was rather murky for a while back along the way but gradually it has been coming clear, and now is self-evident.
There is a spirit present then made evident by reason of what might be described as a human personality. I am sure that we are all aware of the necessity to learn to worship God. The means by which we are enabled to worship God is His spirit. We cannot find God, we cannot locate God, because He is not locatable in the dimensional world, but provision has been made so that His spirit may be known in the dimensional world. This is our connection with God, the means by which we may worship God. There must be a personality which allows the spirit to be made evident so that the processes of worship may be experienced, but the personality is not worshiped; the personality doesn’t need to be promoted. The factor of primary importance is simply the spirit. This does not mean that the personality concerned can be pushed aside—“We won’t take any notice of that!”—because if you do that you lose the spirit too. If a personality is making the spirit evident and you push the personality aside the spirit won’t be made evident to whoever pushes the personality aside. So the personality is on hand, and warrants love and respect by reason of the spirit that is revealed because of the personality. But there is no worship involved. Worship is of God, whose spirit is revealed.
Let us see this in a little different way. I love the Word. Because I love the Word I anticipate that you will love it too. If I didn’t think much of it I couldn’t expect you to love it, could I? I love the Word, and I love the words which reveal the Word. Do you suppose that that is self-adulation? I might offer a quote here: “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” This is the basis of all spiritual expression. So it could be said, in one sense at least, that the words are not the words of the personality; and yet they are the words of the personality because they couldn’t be spoken without it. But here are the words revealing the Word and consequently finding expression in the world the way it is. I love the Word, and I love the words, and I can say that without any self-adulation whatsoever because I know from whence the words come and from whence the Word comes.
Because of my love in this regard I offer you the opportunity of sharing it. As I said before, if I didn’t think too much of the Word and the words but just gave out because it was my duty to do so, what would you have to share? You have the opportunity of sharing the spirit, and the spirit loves the Word and loves the words that make it evident on earth. To the extent that you have the same experience then to that extent we are one. To that extent we begin to merge into the vertical spiritual component.
The words and the Word are indeed Life. There are those who have received the words and, because of their own internal experience, found themselves delightedly acquainted with the Word, never having met this outer personality. In one sense I suppose you could say that makes it easier for them. There are no reactions toward the personality to get in the way of the Word which is finding expression. But you may easily see that while it is necessary that there should be such a personality so that the words may be spoken, recorded, transcribed and sent out so that somebody can read them, there may be response to the Word on that basis without a person having personal acquaintance with this personality. Obviously there must be many in this category and will doubtless be many more. It is the spirit that is primary. Of course there are those who may react somewhat to the way the words are expressed, imagining that they might be expressed some other way which would be more acceptable to them. Perhaps some of you may have had that experience. But here is a personality that does it this way, and you have to lump it! Doubtless some other personality would express it some other way, but then there would be those who would feel that they were necessarily having to lump that. The point is that one rightly becomes increasingly aware of the Word which is being made evident by reason of the words, and that is supreme.
In one sense it doesn’t really matter who provides the means for making the Word evident. But we also see that there is necessarily a design which includes an essential point of focus, actually many points of focus; but it all comes to point, and must come to point, somewhere. So never accuse me of making any claims by trying to get someone to accept a concept you may have about me. Just let me be me. Trust the spirit, because the efforts and manipulations of human beings are obviously not getting anywhere. So what is there left but to trust the spirit of God?
It seems that I have been speaking quite a bit about myself, which I don’t usually care to do, but there was something necessary to clarify here. In any case I can repeat the words that I quoted before: “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself.” They didn’t originate in this human personality, certainly, and if something is rightly to be said I go ahead and say it because that is my business. We all have the same responsibility, not only in speaking but in our living in all respects, of revealing what is ultimately, absolutely dependable. The dependability is not so much in the outer form, is it?—the personality, as such—but in the spirit. It is revealed by a personality that makes evident that it is perfect and upright, fearing God and eschewing evil. Then there is something present and in expression that is dependable, but that is the spirit of God.
Having emerged to the extent that it now has, increasingly through numbers of personalities, there is a power made evident, a power that gives evidence of the stability of the spirit of God. Of course the spirit of God has always been stable but there have been very few personalities available for its expression. Now it begins to be revealed increasingly. As we have noted before, there is evidence on every hand of what is not dependable, and this includes vast numbers of human beings the world around. If we see this lack of dependability we have no desire to condemn it at all. It is the way it is, and it must be the way it is because of the state of identity in the horizontal component. So we see that that is inevitable, but we see that something else is present also for which we carry the responsibility. If I have indicated this responsibility as it relates to me I do so because it also relates to you. I am certainly not unique in this regard. So we share a responsibility which is based in the worship of God, and our increasing awareness of the spirit of God, the tone of life, by which the worship is made possible, has come because of the Word and the words.
There needs to be a certain reverence in this regard, an awareness of from whence these things come; but it also impresses upon us, surely, the reverence that is needed with respect to our own words. Do you have a sense of reverence with respect to what you say? Human beings seldom do. Anything slides out of the mouth. But what comes out of the mouth is rightly, for us, the Word finding expression because of our particular unique personality as individuals. We make no claims for anything. Maybe you get impatient with people sometimes because they seem to be so dumb; they don’t understand. You explain something to them, probably trying to lay something on them—the truth, you think. But they don’t understand and they argue about it, get into a hassle. We need to keep our expression sacred, remembering that it can only be fitting when we are; the concern is to be what we are. Then the expression will appear accordingly. Actually it does all the time but because most of the time we have been what we are not, the expression hasn’t been very dependable therefore.
Someone made a comment in a letter I received—today, I believe. It said, “It is safe to love what is right.” We may see this in terms of the Word. Wherever rightness appears it is safe to love that because you are loving God; it is His spirit. The trouble with people has been that they have associated the rightness with some pattern of human nature, and in loving the rightness they thought they were loving the human nature. If you start loving human nature you are going to be disappointed; it is going to be a letdown; it is not dependable. But if you love what is right, that is dependable. You may have seen something expressed through somebody that was right; you loved that; but they may never express anything right again! If you are alert to see what is right as it finds expression anywhere, through anyone, and you always love that, you always rejoice in that, then you do what you may to enhance it; not so much because of the person through whom it may have appeared but because it was the spirit of God and you love and you worship God. If by what you are able to offer, that expression of rightness becomes more consistent and more full, then that is wonderful and you are delighted; you love it.
When a particular personality begins to allow this to happen, then that personality is included in your respect and your love. If you have felt that I perhaps have loved you I am sure you know it wasn’t because of the things that were wrong in you or the expression that was wrong that came out of you. It was because of whatever measure of the spirit was finding expression. You may have noted for yourself that when someone who has perhaps been allowing some measure of the tone of life to be sounded turns away, so that that tone begins to fade, very quickly you forget that person. You don’t forget the tone of life but you forget the person, because that person is no longer allowing it to sound so that you could remember him. I have forgotten more people! But I remember you because it is the sounding of the tone of life that is impressive. That is supreme.
You very well know that there must be someone present to sound it, so we rejoice when there is someone present who is sounding it; but we rejoice in that person not because of the person but because of the sounding of the tone. Human beings are very much inclined to cling to external forms, even when they are long gone. This is done very often by a worship of death, isn’t it? Remembrance Day—remembrance of what? If we remember the tone of life we don’t have to look back to find that. It is right here now. In fact we can’t find it anyplace else. We may remember that it did sound once, but that is of little value now unless it is sounding now.
Remembrance Day relates chiefly to form, doesn’t it? to past personalities which are no longer. Why imagine that it is important that they should be remembered? The only thing of importance is life itself. There wouldn’t have been any personality to remember out of the past if it hadn’t been for the life, but the life is now present with us. If we have looked back on occasion in a historical sense to various things, it was not to try to relive the past, was it? but that by what we examined we might be in better position to live now. As we become proficient in living now we don’t need to look back anymore, because what is happening now is without precedent anyway. It never happened on earth before. Let’s not try to live now on the basis of some concept somebody has about the past. Let’s find out what living now entails. So it is quite safe to love God, and we love God by loving His spirit.
We love His spirit wherever it may appear, but in order to appear it must appear through form; there must be a form present to make it evident. Sometimes the forms are flowers. Some people say they love flowers. Do you love that particular material that composes the flower? You love the beauty, don’t you, the aroma, the color, the spirit that is finding expression at that level. And if, as is usual, a flower passes away after a little while you don’t have a funeral service. You anticipate that another one will come, maybe shortly or maybe next spring, whatever. When we are oriented in the vertical component we are oriented in spirit, and it is always the spirit that impresses us. When the spirit does find expression we rejoice in the particular form that lets it, and we love that form because it is letting the spirit find expression, but supremely we love the spirit. If that form ceases to allow the spirit to find expression we are content to let it pass away.
There is a balanced view here which human beings have found it difficult to encompass, apparently. They get all mixed up about loving spirit and loving forms. But you only love forms because of spirit; you do not love them in and of themselves. It is the spirit which gives life, and we are here to live; we are here to increase life. We worship God through His spirit. We are constantly alert therefore to see His spirit as it finds expression anywhere. The more clearly it finds expression the more beauty there is insofar as the means for that expression is concerned. On this basis we get a little different view of what beauty is too. There are very stereotyped ideas as to what is beautiful insofar as human beings are concerned, particularly as it relates to the human form. But I have seen human forms that conformed to the stereotyped view that they were beautiful but were really far from it because there was virtually no expression of the tone of life, whereas other forms that weren’t considered to conform to the requirements were indeed vibrantly beautiful because the tone of life was sounding loud and clear. I’ve observed some rather crippled forms at times where this was true and the person was really beautiful. We begin to associate beauty with spirit then and we delight in the form simply because it allows the spirit of God to be made evident. We are willing to relinquish structures that life may increase, because wherever there is a structure life is being inhibited. The structures of human viewpoints kill: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
So we have the opportunity of sharing the expression of spirit and the observation of the spirit, and on this basis the world becomes a different place. Beauty emerges that we never really saw before because we were trying to make forms be the beautiful thing, when spirit is the beautiful thing and the forms that make it evident share in that beauty. This evening we have been making right use, I trust, of our time together to find a greater orientation in the vertical spiritual component, so that the forms, the horizontal, begin to lose their dominance. Finally we may come into a balance, associated with spirit and aware of the necessity of form. This is wholeness, wholesomeness, health. So may we give glory to God in the bringing forth of His spirit into expression, that the beauty that was referred to as the Garden may begin again to emerge on earth in all its wonder. I rejoice to have shared these things with you this evening. Let us continue in the spirit of the living God as we move forth to assume responsibility for our worlds.
