15. At the Heart of the Church

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The One sitting [in the throne] was in appearance like a jasper stone and sardius (Revelation 4:3). A man after My own heart… (Acts 13:22).

“I Sit inside His Throne,” means “I Sit inside His Heart.”

My perception of my own heart has changed forever. I see my heart as a jasper stone, my own heart of flesh, made of this earth. And my heart as a sardius stone, the living and pulsating Blood of the Lord Jesus shed for me, yes, but along with that, the Heart of Jesus out from which His Church has come. Now I know why I have wept over the Church all my days.

Jasper and Sardius. Jasper on the right. Earthy, with broken lines healed.

Sardius below. First mottled, vibrant and pulsating. Second striped, blood and water flowing out.
 
The Father’s Throne. Then, in the last lesson, I said that this is the Father’s throne, not the devil’s throne. Part of the great importance of pointing out what seems to be obvious is that inside of much Christian thinking is the idea that the Kingdom of God is patterned after the kingdoms of this world. This comes from the conviction that the devil spoke the truth in the garden and that the desire to be “like God” is the path to becoming evil. Then, because they imagine the Kingdom to be a top-down rule of control, they are convinced that present Christians placing themselves into this throne become controllers.

Love Poured Out. I bring that false way of thinking in because we must understand that God’s throne and God’s Kingdom is something entirely different.

In complete contrast, the entirety of Chapters 4 & 5 in John’s vision is given to us by God to show us the power and reach, the glory and authority of one little gospel verse, hardly noticed by most. The love of God has already been poured out and shed abroad inside of our hearts through Spirit Devoted, the One who is given to us (Romans 5:5). Conversely, these two chapters show us that the meaning in this gospel reality is living and energeoing authority.

This Lesson. This lesson is titled “At the Heart of the Church.” Although we will draw some thoughts from Revelation 5, this lesson is a step back for another look at God’s desire. And in looking at God’s desire, I want to place us together at the very heart of the Church of Jesus Christ in all heaven-earth.

This is a Jesus Secret page, entirely a Jesus Secret box, but with two columns. Inside those two columns I will have several paragraphs so that the thoughts might be orderly. I am pondering deeply inside of God the topics and their order.

I Am Writing upon You. In essence, I will write “What God wants with me.” Except I will word it as “us” because essential to what God wants is my walk in commitment with others of like faith and heart. In other words, what is God. personal to me. becomes an invitation to whosoever will. God has never been more real to me than He is now.

Here is the first line in the Jesus Secret box, which shows the direction of my thoughts. My Beloved, I am writing upon you My new name, and I have been working inside of you for this purpose your whole life.

A Quality of Being. What is Jesus’ new name and what does it mean? Jesus is clearly not talking about being named Bob or Henry instead of Jesus; neither does He mean the meaningless contention between an English Jesus and a Hebrew Yeshua. Rather He is speaking of a quality of His being, coming out from resurrection. Here are two lines describing that quality.

I am the living One, and, although I was dead, look and see, I am living into the unfolding of the ages, and I possess the keys of death and of hades (Revelation 1:18). I saw… a Lamb standing, set and appointed, a Lamb who was slain, but now [lives].

Something Far Deeper. What is a living One who “was dead?” What is a Lamb standing who “was slain?”

We are talking about something much deeper than the 39 hours from 3 PM Friday afternoon until 6 AM Sunday morning, the time when Jesus’ human soul was separated from His physical body. We know that during those hours He was speaking inside of hades and that the Old Testament devoted ones followed Him out of the murkiness and into the knowledge of God. In a sense, that separation of physic and soul was a metaphor, a representation in time and space of something far deeper, a quality of God’s very Heart.

Died to Sin Once for All. Notice that He “was” dead and “was” slain. Something that “was” does not presently exist. Yet forever He is the One who has “come out from” such a place. May I suggest that this is a quality of Being. Then, on the other side, He is always living “into the unfolding of the ages.” This also is a quality of Being.

Paul said in Romans 6 that, in that Jesus died, He died to sin once for all, but in that He lives, He lives unto God. Let’s define “sin” in this context. Sin goes beyond refusing to acknowledge God, sin is the acknowledgement of self in God’s place.

At the Very Edge. We will see in our study of the pattern of story that for a story to be satisfying, the hero must be at the edge of losing everything just before winning everything. Here is the closest Jesus came to the edge. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

As David heard Jesus falling inside His soul, he also heard the words that cost Jesus everything, “Father, You are with Me; Father, You hear Me.” But John heard the words Jesus spoke out loud, “Father, forgive them.” The disciples who ran away, the actions of Judas and Peter, the mockery of Herod and cynicism of Pilate, the screaming of the leaders of God’s people against Him, all of these things were OVERWHELMING to Jesus.

The Thoughts of Jesus. What is it that saved me? (Put your name instead of mine.) It was the thoughts of Jesus inside the confusion and agony of His human soul, “Father, Daniel Yordy is Your enemy; his life has been utterly offensive. Yet You have placed Him in My life, You have given Him to Me. Father, I place Daniel with You, that You might receive him into Yourself, utterly free of Me. Yet I stand always as surety to You for Daniel Yordy’s sake. I live into the ages for him.” – Here am I, I and the children whom You have given Me.

Jesus’ willingness inside these thoughts is the entirety of the mechanism of my redemption.

Our Topics. My salvation, however, is that Jesus writes this new name upon me, that I might be as He for the sake of my brothers and sisters, the Church. This is God through me.

I can see now that our Jesus Secret box must have at least these four topics, maybe in this order, although I don’t yet know how to weave them together. First, the meaning of Jesus’ new name, second, how He prepares me to receive that new name, then, the writing of that new name upon me that I might be the same as He out from God for others, and finally, at the heart of the Church, that place where Jesus establishes me as His firstfruits.

For Father’s Sake First. Jesus “was dead” for the sake of all; Jesus lives now for each one of us. The quality of Being, expressed as the Lamb who was slain but now lives, is a life, a soul, a story of self, that is always “for Father’s sake” first and then, “for the sake of others,” second. The second always comes out from the first.

Here is Jesus’ new name, the quality that He is now writing upon us. – “I give Myself for you forever, for Father’s sake.” Here is His new name, now written upon us. “I give myself for my brothers and sisters, the Church, each one whom God places in my life forever, for Father’s sake.”

To Father for Others. Notice that it is “for” others, not “to” others. We give ourselves “TO” Father “for” the sake of others.

Someone might say, “Well, Daniel, so-and-so is offended with you. Why don’t you do something outwardly to win him or her back?” Yet my actions inside the agony of my own soul are TO Father and for His sake, and the giving of myself to Father is doing more FOR so-and-so than can ever be known.

Yet in a lifetime of grief and tears, mingled with goodness and joy, this is the costliest thing I have ever done. Why would I do such a thing? – “Because I like You, Father, and I want to be only with You.”

The Great Battle. And YES – that is the GREAT BATTLE of the ages, to want to be with Father and thus placing this one whom I would prefer to hold in contempt into Father in my own heart, and there to live to God for their sake, just as Jesus does for me. The battle is desire meeting with DESIRE for the sake of others.

You see, when this battle is won, when God’s desire and our desire are entwined together in our knowing, then all the outward fight and outward victory is a given. We enter into the outward battle having already won. “Father, You are with me IN ALL for their sake.”

Preparing to Write. How, then, does Jesus prepare someone through their lifetime so that He might write His new name upon them? Of truth, that is the primary purpose of all that I teach.

I want to create a list of eight things, all of which are familiar to you, but I want to define these things as the necessary pre-requisites in anyone’s life to being able to receive this wondrous work of Jesus that is Salvation. I am also placing them in an order of what things must become part of one’s life before other things can then enter. At the same time, I want to limit how God shaped me for my own task, so that these points fit with all appointed tasks.

A Heart towards God. 1. A heart turned towards God as Father, to know Him, to receive His Word as He means it, and to willingly embrace His Spirit and His people. This is a given, something underneath any present ignorance of God or any stumbling confusion of soul. In the end, this becomes the quality of honesty, treating God and what is important to Him with utmost respect.

2. The willingness to acknowledge giving thanks inside of and for the sake of all things, even when doing so is a struggle. This includes coming to terms with “Yes, Lord,” and the awareness that God directs all your steps. This is the first enlargement and application of God as God.

Receiving Jesus in Full. 3. Embracing the faith in God that He intends to make you just like the Lord Jesus Christ in this present life, whatever that actually means. The absence of this faith will always strike down the Covenant and prevent God from an active involvement with a person towards being His Salvation now.

4. Receiving a Jesus who enters into union with you, becoming all that you are, and now living as you. This is the most important surrender of all. It includes asking God to fulfill His Word in you as the Lord Jesus and then speaking Christ as your only life.

Embracing God as I AM. 5. Justifying God in all things and finding Him right and True. This is a quality of surrender in the HARD places, in the open rebuke of God, in public humiliation, in those times when nothing seems right. This is a willingness to place NO blame on anyone, including yourself. This is the full embracing of God as I AM.

6. Placing the Lord Jesus Christ upon every moment of your life, both present and past. This is a most important exercise of faith. It is acknowledging Jesus as everything. With this exercise comes all healing and knowing of “God with me.” We cannot know God-with-us going forward if empty holes remain in our memories.

Living “For Father’s Sake.” 7. Embracing “for Father’s sake” in all things. Knowing that God’s focus is set on His Church, that He might reveal Himself to all as Christians loving one another. This is a commitment to Christ Community, to walking together with others. This is to acknowledge that “for Father’s sake” must always become “for the sake of His people.”

8. To allow the complete and final limitation of God down to a shared life together, that your every next step is with Father, as He wishes, sharing all things with you. This is a turning away from all foolish desire to be or do something God has not given to you. This is the bottom line of everything, “I want to be with Father, regardless.”

Metamorphy and Surrender. I want you to notice two things about how Jesus prepares you through your lifetime for this moment when He writes His new name upon you. First, every one of these points is metamorphy, an active receiving of Jesus towards you. None of these things are “human achievement.” And second, every one of these is a surrender to Jesus and to the Father; they are a progression of surrender.

Two things are required from you at every point in Jesus’ preparation of you to be one with Him in Salvation. The first is, “Yes, Lord,” and the second is believing into Jesus.

Your Own Sending. One of your own joys of discovery as you place the Lord Jesus Christ upon every moment of your life is how Jesus has skillfully prepared you for His own sending of you. Your sending and task are different from all others. The Spirit knows your ministry now and in the future. He knows the many that will look to you for help.

You have a future ahead of you of astonishment. For, as you have given thanks in all things, so each difficult moment of your past becomes the present wisdom and understanding through you now that reveals Christ and that brings comfort and wholeness to each one whom you love, each one who looks to you for hope.

From I to We. We must now place this new name written upon us at the heart of the Church, for the how and the where go together. Of necessity, this must also be the transition in our study of John’s vision from “I” to “we.”

Only one thing is at the heart of the Church and that is COMMITMENT and DEVOTION one to the other among specific individuals in the practice of giving ourselves to the Father for the sake of others. Yet for me, this commitment and devotion is a quality I must extend out from myself to embrace individual people, regardless of any response in return.

Suffering with Him. I want to recast the words, “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him,” away from external stuff, and away from a Nicene effort to “approach” God, and place them as they are, out from Father’s Heart.

I rejoice in sufferings for your sake, and I am filling up that which is lacking of the travailing pressures of Christ in my flesh for the sake of His Body, which is the Church (Colossians 1:24). Is the suffering of Christ “lacking?” Is Jesus not sufficient to bring God’s Salvation into His Church on this earth? Those are the wrong questions out from seeing wrongly.

God’s Appointment. Here is how we see. – This One, moreover, having offered one unlimited sacrifice for sins, sat down inside of the right hand of God; from now on waiting expectantly for His enemies to be made a footstool for His feet (Hebrews 10:12-13). Jesus limited Himself to God’s appointment for Him. Now He is waiting for others to do the same.

God appointed a portion of Salvation to Jesus and He appointed a portion of Salvation to us. Here is that verse. – By this we have known love, in that He set forth His soul for us, AND WE ALSO are committed to setting forth our souls for our brothers and sisters.

Thy People Shall Be Willing. The verse from Hebrews 10 comes out from Psalm 110. “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” It means every knee bowing, that is, giving thanks, and every tongue speaking Christ. And it is in this context that the Psalmist then says, “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.”

Willing for what? Willing to be the same as the Lord Jesus Christ. Willing to say with Jesus, “I give myself for my brothers and sisters, the Church, each one whom God places in my life forever, for Father’s sake.”

God’s Release and Rebuke. It is when Jesus has written such a name upon us, having placed us as the heart of His Church, that God can say to all who love Jesus, “Be what I say you are.” And God can say to all rebellion, “Be silent before Me, for My Word is faithful and true.” As I wrote in Symmorphy VII: Completion, 7.3 “The Seven Dispensations,” this is how God rebukes the whole world, when a people together are willing to be just like the Lord Jesus.

I still don’t know how I will weave this all together, but I will listen to Word read this to me several times and then have a go at it and see what comes out.

The Jesus Secret. My Beloved, I am writing upon you My new name, and I have been working inside of you for this purpose your whole life. My new name is a quality of Being, expressed outwardly by My death and resurrection. I am the Lamb who always “was” slain and always now lives. In living, I give Myself for you forever, for Father’s sake.

To know My new name, you must know the moment of Truth inside of Me in My last moments upon the cross. In the agony and confusion of My soul and in the pain of My body, I looked into Myself and saw the abyss of horror that I imagined I had become, Adam’s rebellion, the cry of rejection - “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Those whom I had loved struck against Me and fled. Those who should have honored Me cried against Me. I had failed in all. In the pain of My soul, I knew Adam’s desire to despise and to control.

Yet there was something deeper inside of Me than all that horror. I want to be with Father, and Father wants you to be with Me, as I also do. “I want to be with Father” was the choice of My heart. In that moment, I placed Myself in all of My awfulness into God, “You have answered Me.” And I said “Father, forgive ____ (say your own name), for I want you with Me forever. I do not give Myself “to” you, as if you control Me. Rather, I give Myself for you, for Father’s sake, that you and I might share the unfolding of the ages together out from Father sharing all with us. My new name is that I make God part of your life always, regardless.

All that I have shared with you your whole life has been to make you able to receive My new name written upon your own soul as well. I have written Myself as Word upon your heart; I have flooded your soul with the knowing of our Devoted Spirit. I have caused you to walk with your brothers and sisters that you might know them, My people and yours, in their steadfast goodness and in their fickle waywardness, always back and forth, in and out, just as you have been with Me. I have contended with you that I am Lord. I have required you to give thanks regardless. I have led you into the most difficult places that you might justify God in all and find Him right and true, blaming no one. I have limited you in all ways to what you already are.

I know that you want to be with Father and that you know you cannot be inside of Father without taking your brethren with you. It is here that I am writing My new name upon you, for I have placed your heart and My heart, jasper and sardius, beating together as one inside the Mercy Seat. Our love is for the Church whom God drew out from My side. Your willingness is My faith inside of you, that you say with Me, “I give myself for my brothers and sisters, the Church, each one whom God places in my life forever, for Father’s sake.” When you want to despise and control, I am sharing My own sufferings with you. And when you and I together place these others with us into God, regardless of the pain, “Father, You hear me,” then you are just like Me. My new name is now written upon you.

I have also written My name of living for Father’s sake, that others might be with Him inside of us, upon other believers just like you. They are here with you inside of Me as well. I have placed you and them together as My own Heart inside the Church. Honor them. Submit to them in My fear even as they submit to you. Call them into your knowing and you into theirs. You together are with Me, the Mercy Seat; your reciprocity together is My life given for the sake of the Church. Yes, our people are as a prostitute, lukewarm at best, but they belong to us. I charge you together, protect our people, provide for our people, be Mercy for our people. Call all who belong to Me into Christ Community, into the revelation of God-Love to all creation.

To Establish His Church. Through the seven overcomings and into the throne, Jesus has written upon us the thoughts He thinks and the work He accomplishes inside of God for others, for Father’s sake. Now I am writing for and place myself with those who submit one to the other inside the fear of Christ, regardless of the cost, and who do so, not only for the sake of the Church, but for the establishment of Christ Community all across the earth, that is, the New Jerusalem.

And here, at the heart of the Church, we open ourselves together to God our Father, and He is coming through mightily to SAVE and to establish His Church as a praise in all the earth.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “We Weep over the Church.” For that lesson read Revelation 5 again, a couple of times. “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to break away its seals?” And no one was capable… I wept loudly, because no one of sufficient value was found who could open the scroll to perceive what is written in it.

The scroll is the hearts of all Christians as one Body together, and Christ our life is what is written there. There are those who say, “The Church is one, the Church is one,” yet they do not weep with Father, as we do, inside the travailing Spirit, that she might bring forth LIFE.

Let’s Pray Together. Through the last number of lessons, our prayers have just been a sinking into Jesus that we might know Him. From now on, I want to rotate the focus of our prayers between “Protect the Church,” “Feed My sheep,” and “Be ye therefore – the Mercy Seat.” We begin as the Mercy Seat.

“God our Father, we want to be with you. We place ourselves inside of You for Your sake, that our lives might be with Jesus for the sake of others. We are not alone, oh God, for we bring all our brothers and sisters with us into You.

“Lord Jesus, You have instructed us to call those who also share Hheart with you into our knowing and we into theirs, that we might share together Your Mercy for our people.

“Lord Jesus, we do not judge any of our brethren by outward means or by our human feelings. Rather, we receive them in just the same way You received us, as most precious to us. And we give our lives to Father for their sake, just as You did for ours.

“Lord Jesus, thank You for writing Your new name upon our hearts and souls that we might share all with You.

“And we draw together as Your firstfruits inside of You to stand with You for our people’s sake. Let all whom the Father has given to You find Mercy inside the authority of our hearts. And with Mercy, we protect them from all evil; with Mercy, we provide all that they need through the present darkness. Be all Mercy through us as Your name, for Father’s sake.”