Tape Talk
by Zerubbabel Press

TAPE REVIEW: First John
by Norman Grubb

In recent weeks, I have struggled with questions about faith, love, obedience and the law. Norman describes this conflict as the "wilderness period." In his tape on First John he answers many of the questions that I had about these issues.

Norman stated that how we operate from the basis of inner truth is the object of John’s letter. He discussed at length what it means to be born again, what faith is, being in harmony with God’s will through living in the light, what happens when we slip into the darkness and how to be Christ fussy, not sin fussy.

Starting with the background of our union with spirit, Norman reviewed God’s purposes for our lives. God created a family of sons to be co-managers of the universe by operating as human sons, conscious of their union with spirit and gaining motivation and direction from this spirit with-in. This process begins with the first step of coming to God as a sinner, asking for Christ to accept us, being for-given and being cleansed. Step two means that we transfer our attention to His blood. He has given us a transfusion and the new blood in our veins is the Christ Spirit joined to the human spirit. We step into the inward union with the Father and it is no longer us but Him living His life by us.

By defining faith as the capacity to take something and experience it, Norman taught that all of life is faith. Our first act of faith was to take a living Jesus who was dead to sin and experience Him through our union with Him.
This was an act of faith because we could not see, hear or touch Him in outer circumstances. The next challenge of faith is to walk as God expressing Himself through us which means that we have to accept that we are–not we have–certain qualities, such as peace, power, love and wisdom and that we are dead to sin. By choosing our union, we have freedom in living a more spontaneous life–one that is free from condemnation but allows for correction of error.

I found this tape quite helpful in answering many questions and in providing an interesting means of studying the Bible. First John is a book about hope, love, setting boundaries and spiritual growth. I would recommend this tape for its encouraging message about the foundation of inner truth.