Union and Reunion With Jesus

Union and Reunion With Jesus

by Starr Daily

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

That the mother-in-law was coming to live with… And he developed an ulcer immediately. Badwin who perforated ulcer. He resented that fact that she was coming, and then she wrote that… There was a little romance in the air and there was a possibility that she may… get married. And of course in that case she couldn’t cut. And he was instantaneously…

Done immediately. The resentment went and the ulcer went. Take these three words now: reconciliation, and reunion, and resurrection. We are living in an entirely new age that was brought here 2,000 years ago, and we haven’t yet discovered it. And it’s the age of a new creation.

We can not only be new creatures, but we can be entirely in a new creation. But first we must be reconciled with ourselves, and with others, and with God. So long as there is any negative emotion existing anywhere, we are out of tune with God. For God isn’t negative. He is positive and redemptive. And so one of the hardest things to get reconciled with is the self. We can’t get rid of the self except by being reconciled with the self. And people are always trying to get rid of the self without being reconciled with the self. And the harder they try, the worse they get, the more self they have to contend with.

And so that’s the first big job, is to get reconciled with the self, so that the self can come into harmony with others, and through others with God. Now how is all this new creation achieved? Is it achieved by receiving these fruits of the Spirit? Or trying to receive the fruits of the Spirit?

Is it achieved by seeking after the gifts of God? No, it is not achieved by that. That is all compartmental. And we can have all these fruits of the Spirit and still have resentment, and still be negative. The way to do it is through the acceptance of one of the oldest and simplest things in the world. And that is the redemptive love.

Receive God’s love and let it flow through. And receive nothing but God’s love. And give God’s love and you’ll be led of the Spirit. And all these fruits and gifts of the Spirit will come naturally, and evenly and well, and be integrated.

I want to base this upon Scripture. So I’ve got a few Scriptures here on it that I want to share with you, and all of us think about it together. We can be new creatures in a new creation. We can be resurrected from the dead.

And we can have reunion with the Father exactly as the prodigal son found reunion with the Father when he went home and received His love. It’s all that simple and it’s very wonderful. And we can receive, along with the many other gifts of the Spirit, a gift of divine trouble. Which is a wonderful thing to even contemplate. It brings a joy beyond all comprehension.

To receive trouble because of our union with the redemptive love of God. That’s a wonderful thing. To receive trouble because of our disunion with the redemptive love of God is horrible. Because it isn’t redemptive. Back in 1927 I went running to an old friend of mine with a great discovery, that I had found three great promises in the Bible that Jesus promised. And he said, “What are they?” I said, “He promised me light…

And He promised me courage, and He promised me faith.” “Well,” he said, “there’s one more. He promised you trouble.” I said, “Why bring that up when I’m so happy?” “Because,” he said, “it’ll make you more happy.” For I was in trouble at the very time that I received these great gifts. When I came into reunion with Christ, I had to be reconciled, not only with myself, but with my brothers in the prison.

Before I could be reconciled with God. And I was in trouble because I went under persecution. Because of my reunion with Christ, my fellows didn’t like it, and I lost all my friends. They dropped away from me one by one, until the time came when I stood alone and walked alone.

And if I came up to a little group of old friends talking together, they would fall silent. And I was being reviled. And I was being reviled, and I had no authority to revile back again. I was being hurt, and I was under the commandment not to hurt back.

I was being abused by every conceivable means, and I was under the great necessity… Necessity of not doing that back to any of them, but of loving them. And so the wise old man said, “You must love your brothers.

“You must love the troublemakers. You must love your jailer, who turns the key on you every night. After you have learned to do this, you will be reconciled to them. And then you will be able to kneel here by the side of your bunk and pray.

“And pray effectually and with power, and adequately.” So I found that these troubles that were mine because of my union with Christ brought me into great joy and satisfaction. In fact, there were times when the ecstasy was so great,

and the peace and tranquility so pronounced in the midst of all this trouble, that I had to use special means to modify it so that it wouldn’t be seen by those on the outside. We are here to be overcomers. That’s our destiny. And the only way we’re going to be overcomers is to become overcomers in the overcomer in Christ.

In Christ. And in Him we receive His love, and that is the overcoming power. And in that we overcome everything that causes us to resist life. Now suppose we’re not in that love, and we’re in resistance and rebellion.

Do you think that you can conquer the fear of death? Not in a million years. There is no conquest of the fear of death except in union with Him who has overcome death. The fear of death will linger on to the very end of the days.

Unless it is overcome by the one thing that overcomes it, and that is the love of Jesus the Christ. Wherever we receive His love, there is no death. There is only life. There is no death in love. It is perpetual. It is eternal. It goes on. It eliminates all fear from the personality. And it is the love we have got to express, the common, ordinary, homely love. It’s got to be expressed in these terms. Just common, it isn’t abstract. It isn’t remote. It isn’t something hanging up here in the clouds. It isn’t something far off. It isn’t something you can’t analyze. It is only down to earth, common, ordinary love for people.

And this is what it says in 1 John: We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love our brothers. That’s 1 John 3, 14. Love is abstract, love is abstract and useless so long as it isn’t connected with persons.

It’s got to be identified with people. And when we have it identified with people, we know that we are identified with God. The way to overcome the fear of death then is to receive this love of God and give this love. Receive it this way, and give it this way.

You put the left hand into the right hand of Jesus. His left hand is in the right hand of the Father. And if this hand is hanging limp at your side, nothing happens. No power comes through. But the minute you reach out and touch the need of another person, then the thunderbolts of God’s power come through to that other person.

There is a perfect illustration of it in Peter healing… The Peter and John healing, the cripple at the Gate Beautiful. They had no power until they had received the baptism of holy affection up in the upper room there in John Mark’s house at Pentecost.

They had gone in before that and had seen that man at the gate, I suppose a hundred times. The dead man. And he was crippled beyond all human form. His legs were all twisted up under him. His back was all bent over, and filled with rheumatism.

And his ankles weren’t over that big around. And he had never looked anywhere but right straight down to the earth. They would come and put him there, and he would sit there all day and beg for alms. And this day after they had come down from the baptism of holy affection, they looked upon him and saw him for the first time.

They had seen his body there before, and perhaps had tossed a coin to it. But they hadn’t seen him through the eyes of holy love. And now Peter said to him, “Silver and gold have we none, but such as we have give I unto you.”

And he reached down and took the man by the hand. And he said to him, “Rise.” And the unbelievable miracle happened. This man that was twisted out of all human shape and form, and had no legs at all to speak of, tiny little ankles he’d never walked on, all bent over, earth-bound, looking right at the earth, had never seen the stars perhaps.

Peter said, “Look upon us.” And in spite of that arthritis in his spine, he was holding his hand… He was holding his hand. Peter said, “Look upon us.” And the man actually began to raise his head against those frozen stone-like vertebraes, and looked in his face. And then Peter said, “Rise.” And believe it or not, that man began to untwist,

and climb up on those legs, and then he leaped and began to praise God. He… Now that was the love of God. Peter had his hand in the hand of Jesus. Jesus’ hand was in the hand of the Father. And then Peter reached down and made the contact with this man’s need, and the necessary power to heal him came through. And he was he. Now it’s always a connection with other people. Another thing against which we are in war and rebellion, and out of reconciliation, is with our work.

And now this problem is tremendous. Because people are out of work because they are too old to work. You get to be 35 years old, you’re out of work. And the reason why you’re out of work is because…

Of insurance. If I were an employer and you came and you were over 35, I wouldn’t want to hire you, if I was in the worldly way. Because if I hired you a few years later, I’d have you on my hand for the rest of your life.

And I’d have to be paying you compensation and insurance while you did nothing. So the world has worked itself into a very complex situation. People of experience are no longer wanted. And people of inexperience are hired. Because they’ve got a longer life span of work.

Experience is far more valuable. But people and employers do not want to get harnessed with someone they’ll have to let out in just a few years, and then pay them insurance the rest of their lives. Tremendous thing. And so people now, as never before, are in conflict with work.

And what’s the answer to it? For… Is there? Resistance against work when we have a job is there. And resentment against work when we don’t have a job is there. And so we’re in a perpetual state of negative conflict.

What is the answer to it in the Scripture? This is Paul’s answer in 1 Corinthians 16, 14. And this is love versus duty. Let all that you do be done with love. No one who is in union with the love of God can ever be out of work.

He’ll be working for God to the end of his days. And after the end of his days are over here, he’ll still be working for God. But as long as work is a duty, he may be out of work here, and may find work over there a duty. So Paul said, get in union with love. And then the right job will come. You’ll not do anything according to duty. You’ll do it according to love.

Oh, I caught this secret years ago. Way back in 1930, on the second day of March, I was released from the penitentiary without a trade, without a profession. And I guess one of the worst depressions we’ve ever been in was on.

I had never worked, actually. I actually didn’t know how to work. There were millions of people out of work, far worse than it is now. And I was told the day before I left there that you don’t have a chance.

Even if you went to look for a job and it was kind of favorable, you’d have to fill out an application blank. Then you’d get to a place down there where it would ask if you’d ever been convicted of a crime.

And you would either have to say yes or no. And quite naturally, I’d have to say yes, therefore I would pass that job up. There wasn’t a chance, apparently, from a world point of view, of my ever being able to work and cooperate with society again.

And a man told me, you will have to come back. Because when you get hungry, you will not beg, you will steal. And you know what I… my reply to him was? I really don’t know what you’re talking about. He was a brilliant man. He worked in the identification bureau there in the prison. Very brilliant fellow. Well educated and well traveled.

She’d been in prison three times. She was especially educated. He knew his stuff. I said, actually, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You talk as though I’m interested in a job. I’m not interested in a job. I’m interested in only one thing.

I’m interested in Jesus. I’m interested in only one thing. I’m interested in trying to receive His love and give only His love. And that’s the only job I’ve got. And if I can do that, do you think for a minute that He is not capable of taking care of me in the most honest way possible?

Well, he said, you’ve lost me somewhere along the line. That’s a little bit too thin for me. Well, I said, it’s too simple. Too simple for you. You can’t grasp that. You want something more complex. Something like my being attached to a job when I go out.

No, I need only one attachment, and that is Jesus. Well, he didn’t know Jesus. So he didn’t know that kind of attachment. And I have followed that lots of times very inadequately. Very poorly. Many, many times it has been rejection of Him. Many, many times it has been anxiety and detached from Him.

Many times worry has come to separate me from Him and His love and the confidence in His ability and capacity to take care of me. And every time this has happened, there has been unredemptive trouble. I mean trouble that has no value to it whatever.

And the only value it could possibly have would be to worry you back into Him. But to the extent that I have been able to go with Him, receive His love and give His love, He has never one time in all these years ever failed to meet my need. There is no failure in Him. The only failure there is in life is through fear.

Fear is faith in folly. And the only reward that folly can bestow is failure. Jesus never fails and the reason why He never fails is because love can never fail. We are going to experience that here. I am quite sure that Pat, our wonderful song leader here, has a sense of it. We are going to, at least for one week, we are going to experience the corporate love that comes to us from Jesus Himself, now operating in and through His marvelous Holy Spirit.

Now, this room is full of messages, you know that, including this 401 that is being delivered. It is just full of messages. You know if we had a television or radio that we could tune in, we could turn dials here, and we could get millions of messages. They are all right here in this room.

You know there isn’t anything in the universe that isn’t in this room right now? Past, present, and possibly future. There are just untold, limitless, billions and billions and billions of voices speaking right here now. And what message are we going to, out of that welter of messages, what message are we going to accept?

You know, I believe the time is coming, and I don’t think it’s far away, when we’ll be able to create a machine that will tune in the past as well as the present. As scientists say, that nothing is lost. It’s all right here. Right here, right here where we’re sitting. Not only right here, but within us.

And I think the day is going to come when we’ll have a television machine and a radio that will be able to tune in the past, and we can tune back to a certain time in the Bible, and tune in Jesus Himself as He was in history, and see Him sit down and see His disciples come unto Him and hear Him begin that magnificent Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The reason why I think this is true, because these televisions and radios are in us. They’re in our nervous system and brains. And nothing is invented out here that isn’t already in the nervous system and brain. It’s all an imitation of what we have on the inside of us. And the scientists and inventors merely create a machine that are able to tune in. Now we can tune in, we can go back with our mental radio and television, and we can visualize Jesus sitting down. And His disciples coming unto Him, and we can hear Him give the Sermon on the Mount.

It’s all here. All on the inside of us. Not only is it all on the inside of us, but the kingdom of God is on the inside of us. And all these messages are here, but what message… What message will stand up and remain true among this bewildering welter of billions of messages that are going on all the time? Well, this is what John, 1 John 3.11 says.

“This is the message that ye have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” And this message… One message above all other messages. And he said that we have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, and this message to never fail. All other messages will fail at some point, but this is one message which totally will succeed.

And then… We must forgive. Oh, it’s a wonderful thing to tell someone I’m sorry. But oh, how hard it is. It is better to excuse the self. It seems better. It is awfully hard to say to a person, when you know very well the person caused it, I am sorry. But the person couldn’t have caused it unless you had something on the inside of you to attract it. Therefore, we’re all equally guilty.

I know I have an awfully hard time telling my wife I’m sorry for some of the things she does. And it’s almost like a little whimpering, I’m sorry. But, in the end, I try to do it. But, she’s always criticizing what I write.

And I rebel. And I mean rebel. And then she just shrugs her shoulders. That silent treatment is terrific. I pursue the case. How do you know this is wrong? Well, I don’t know. I don’t know why I know or how I know. What kind of language is that?

Well, go ahead. Go ahead. That’s… I don’t know. I just feel it. Well, you don’t know how to write in the first place. How do you know this is wrong? I’ve been… I took a course in writing. And the course says this is right. Well, I don’t know. Go ahead.

And I’ve gone ahead to my summer. She had a terrific sense for crude words. They’ve got to be the Queen’s English. And if I get a crude one in, she… I slipped them over on her. I like to be masculine.

I like to be robust in my words. She doesn’t like it. And I have learned to change it and say I’m sorry. You were right. You were right. There’s something inside of me and inside of everybody that attracts these negative things from other people.

And we need to forgive them as well as ourselves. Because it’s a joint… it’s a twin proposition. Life attracts life. Then, to forgive, we have to give ourselves for that person. You can’t just say I’m sorry and let it stop at that. You’ve got to do still a little harder thing.

And say let’s kneel and pray together. It’s awfully hard for a husband to pray with his wife. They say if they pray together, they stay together. And how many of them are going to pray together? Wives just love it. And husbands are very awkward when it comes to praying with their wives.

First place, their wives know them pretty well. They’ve seen them with their pajamas on, slopping around. Another thing, there can possibly be a few suspicions. Can’t tell what’s in the wife’s mind. So a man feels very uncomfortable. Kneel down and pray with his wife. But oh boy, when they do it. What a joy. You know what that is? That’s real forgiveness. Forgiveness. They give themselves to God for each other.

That’s forgiveness. Not just say I’m sorry. But let’s kneel down here together and in humility, and a recognition of our tawdriness and weakness, and untruthfulness and deceitfulness and unfairness and unfaithfulness. Let us just frankly and openly and humbly give ourselves to God, on behalf of each other.

And so, here is what 1 Peter 4.8 says on this. “Above all these things being fervent in your love among yourselves. For love covereth a multitude of sins.” Just think. When you do that. What a multitude of sins. Actual sins. Sins of the imagination. Sins of the disposition. Think of that. That one little act of surrender, and humility, and love in frank confession, and giving the self, both selves to God, for each other. And it says here that it will actually cover a whole multitude of sins.

To be a disciple is to lay hold upon this love and practice it. Brother Lawrence didn’t have any religion except to walk in love by faith. I’ve been a greater saint on this earth since Jesus than Brother Lawrence.

He said that to pick up a straw from the ground for the love of God was his religion. And he said, and he said, kneeling at the blessed sacrament was nothing more to him than in the kitchen. Because the practice of the presence of God was a continuation wherever he was. And he took one scripture out of St. Paul, and lived it for 40 or 50 years. And it was this: Walk in love by faith. And when he died, he died in the fullness of his strength, and maturity and power. Wrote his last letter to one of the sisters and said, I’m soon going to my Father.

I won’t be writing you anymore. And he lay down upon his couch, and drew the draperies around him, and passed into the other world without disease, fully mature, filled with the love of God. He was a disciple. “By this shall all men know that you’re my disciples, if you have love one to another.” And that is true.

We want union then, don’t we? Reconciliation. We want reunion. And we want resurrection from the dead. Past. And this is the way it is found. First John 4.16. “He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.” That’s union. And reunion. Reunion.