Duncan Smith
By Ashley Andrews, 700 Club Interactive
CBN.com –IT STARTED WITH A DREAM
Duncan grew up on the mission field. He knew how to "give his life to Christ" and be "saved," but he had very little interest in living that way. He was a rebel, an adventurer. He got into drugs and alcohol, chased after girls and built his life on his desires. But no matter what he fed his body and his ego, he couldn't escape conviction.
"I was so full of deceit, pride and rebellion...I was acutely aware of how awful my heart was...I remembered a vivid dream I had...I was taking off in an airplane with my family...the plane went down a few seconds after takeoff...the airplane burst into flames...I felt searing pain all over my body, and yet I couldn't see my body or touch it. I screamed for my parents but there was no answer...Suddenly I could hear others screaming just like me...I could hear millions of voices screaming...I realized I was in Hell."
As Duncan remembered the horror of that dream, he was gripped by fear. He knew he deserved the reality of that dream, but more importantly, at that moment, he felt just how real and infinite God's grace is. He surrendered his whole life to God at twenty-years old, and he has been living "a very exciting life in Him" ever since.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIRE
Before stepping into ministry fulltime, Duncan worked as a police officer for three years. He asked God to help him find crime, and he shared about God's love to everyone he met. He realized anyone can be a light, and believers can witness no matter their occupation or title.
"Jesus told the disciples they were 'the light of the world.'...When we become born again, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, who is the everlasting supply of oil from the Anointed One, Jesus who dwells within us. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the fire that comes and lights the oil so we, the light of the world, can shine in the darkest places wherever we are. We are Jesus' missionaries whether we're at work in a career job, at home, at church, in the shopping malls or in the pubs or bars."
After graduating from Bible College, Duncan started working with an evangelist. There he saw the power of God and what it was able to do for a boy who was paralyzed from the waist down.
"...I asked her to hold him up on his feet as best she could. I commanded him to walk in the mighty name of Jesus...the boy clumsily moved on of his feet forward, then the other. His mother pulled back, as her son leaned and tottered for a second on his terribly thin legs. I raised my voice and commanded the boy, 'Walk in the mighty name of Jesus!' The boy took a couple of very unsteady, weak steps almost collapsing, then, as if hit by a bolt of power, his legs instantly seemed to strengthen. Immediately, he began to walk towards me. I walked backwards away from him and he chased me, walking faster and faster."
By the end of the chase, the boy's legs had grown to a normal size. From that moment on, Duncan knew that the Gospel is more than words - it is miracles, signs and wonders. And those very things can be found in ordinary men and women who chose to believe that they are filled with the power of God.
A REVELATION – BECOMING ONE
While studying Scriptures, Duncan had a revelation. When we join God, we become part of Him. We cannot separate. Naturally, that means we become one with Him. And, he shared, out of all the Apostles, Paul had the most to say about it.
"Before his conversion, when he was first called Saul, he encountered the resurrected, glorified Christ on the road to Damascus when He appeared in brilliant, blinding light and asked, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" He didn't ask why he was persecuting His disciples and I believe that Paul could never forget that first encounter. As a deeply theological scholar he would have wrestled with Jesus' profound words. Since when did Jesus become His disciples and more the point, when did His disciples become Jesus?"
What's more, Duncan believes that we were created not just to be like Him but to become truly one with Him. And when we acknowledge this, we step into full oneness with God.
"The revelation of our Oneness with Christ changes absolutely everything...He got into the icy waters of the Jordan because of his great love for you and me...throwing his reputation away. It was precisely because Jesus had come to identify with us as sinners and take all our sin, guilt, shame and even punishment we deserve...this was necessary so righteousness could come to all...Jesus came to show all humanity our Eternal Father who loves us with an everlasting love. He demonstrated the full extent of that love at the Cross. He came to lay down His life, so that by believing in Him and by receiving Him, every one of us would become sons of God just like Him...Jesus came into this world to show us God so that we could see ourselves; who we are created to be as humans. Because God is invisible it's easy to live so far below the full potential of who we really are. Jesus came to change that forever for each of us...Love Himself laid down His perfect life in death, so we could each live in His perfect resurrected life for all Eternity...Our Oneness with Christ came at a price so beyond our comprehension that no book could ever do justice in attempting to describe the horrors of the Cross as He who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we could all be the perfection of God in Him."
FROM A WATERY GRAVE TO AN OPEN HEAVEN
Everything Jesus did was to bring us all closer to Him. But, as Duncan pointed out, we have always focused on His life, death and resurrection - not His burial. Yes. As far as he sees it, Christ's burial also has significance.
"We need to understand that not only have we died with Christ, we have been buried with Him. This means we are really, really dead! We no longer live. In the tomb, nothing of this world matters any longer, there is only one thing that matters: 'I must live again!'...At His baptism...Jesus had a foretaste of His burial...The battle of faith would have been enormous, perhaps with the question rampaging through His mind: Now that He was one with us, in our sin and death, would the Father be able to raise Him from the dead?...In that perfect moment, when the Son of God comes out of the watery grave, figuratively 'covered' in humanity, the Father speaks in the most dramatic way...the Father opened the Heavens, the Spirit descended like a dove upon Jesus and the voice spoke when Jesus came up from the water, not when He first got in. This moment was not just for Jesus' sake, but for ours. The Father's voice spoke over us too. Jesus had to go through extreme suffering so we could live under an open Heaven and have the Spirit descend and remain upon us. He suffered so we can hear those words spoken over us for all eternity."
INFINITE TREASURES & HIS PLAN
For Duncan, Luke 15:31 says it all: "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." In our oneness with God, we will find His abundance and purpose.
"Our oneness with Christ gives us direct access to the infinite treasures of God as sons of God, from which we can make endless withdrawals. There is no demand that we could place upon God that will ever diminish His resources. He has given us all things and there's nothing left out of all (1 Corinthians 3:21). Oneness is the key to enabling us to accomplish all that God has planned in advance for us to do in this life, whatever our calling is (Ephesians 2:10)."
In the end, Duncan insisted that we all become one with God, so that we will be consumed by love and become an eternal fiery one.
"We are the glorious Bride of the Heavenly Man, a fiery, passionate, intimate Bride who is making herself ready, maturing in her Oneness with the Spirit. She is preparing for the ultimate return of the King, her glorious Eternal Bridegroom. Soon, at the end of all time, God's ultimate purpose will be made complete when we are given our new fiery bodies just like Jesus' glorified body. All things will be made one. We will forever in the New Heaven that will be the New Earth (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1).