16.2 The Knowing of Perception

The knowing is the knowing of the Father, and the perception is the seeing of all things as God sees them, through His eyes. We are speaking of the law of Love, sharing Hheart with God. The other pathways of power move around and through this pathway; it is the center. Inside the classroom, however, we want to distinguish this power at the center, how it is unique.

It is first God, the Father. We do not think “three,” but One, the One True God. And we know this God who is Love by the entrance of the Son and the Spirit out from God. The other six pathways of power are the Word and the Spirit together, giving and receiving. Even the knowing is by the Spirit, but the Father is the One whom we KNOW.

The Power Flowing Through. God as Love is found only in the Church. God is known by all creation as Love, yes, but always through the Church. We think of God-Love as the One who is among us. He is God inside of us together, and we are a people together inside of Him, as the Covenant reads. When we call all our interactions together, pleasant or unpleasant, joyous or difficult, as God-Love among us, regardless, we honor God as God. We honor the Father.

Yet we are calling this Power “the knowing of perception,” very much including – how we see. God speaks – Word. It becomes – Spirit. Then, the Father Himself sees – It is good. The power that is God, the knowing of perception, is goodness. God is Good, all the time.

The Pathway Itself. Our diagram actually portrays the same picture as the seven-branched lampstand, with God-Love as the highest and central flame, and the other six, paired, as the pathways of power that are Word and Spirit, giving and receiving.

The Lampstand is the Church. Committed Christian Community is the pathway of the Father. Our relationship with the members of our local Church is our relationship with the Father. Our relationship with the Father is our relationship with the members of our local Church. God is Love; Love is marriage. There is a power of Goodness inside fellowship together that we have never known, not even a taste. We have never actually known the path of God.

A Flow of Gospel Words. And all shall know Me – immerse them into the knowledge of God – Out from His own desire He gave birth to us by the Word of Truth – God’s desire inside of Christ Jesus entering into you – that we might know the things already given us by God – we possess the mind of Christ – God energeoes all inside of all – Love [Father] is long suffering and kind – [Love – Father] covers all [for all], believes all [for all], hopes all [for all], carries all [for all]. Love [Father] never fails. – that God may be all inside of all – the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort and encouragement – God was inside of Christ, reconciling to Himself – I will dwell inside of them, and I will walk about among them – I will be Father into you and you will be sons and daughters into Me – so that the power of Christ may rest upon me – Christ lives inside of all that is me – you are sons of God – crying, “My Daddy, the Father.”

– God is the One continuously giving life to the dead and calling into existence – the love of God has already been poured out and shed abroad inside of our hearts through the Devoted Spirit, the One given freely to us – those who love God are synergeoing with God, directing all things into goodness – nothing has the ability to separate us from the Love of God – to whom God desires to make known – inside of Him dwells all the fulness of a Personal God – enclothe yourself with compassion and kindness – put on Love, which is the binding together of completion – God actively abounds into us – through His great Love with which He loved us – A dwelling place of God – being rooted and grounded in Love – know even more the beyond-all knowledge of the Love of Christ – be filled with all the fulness of God – to Him be glory inside the Church – Be kind with one another, tenderhearted – be just like God as beloved children – into one flesh the two will be.

God is the Energeoing inside of you, both to desire and to Energeo – that I might know Him – The kindness and Love of God became visible – let us approach everything inside the Holiest – you have been conceived from above – a Spring of Water inside of him, bubbling up into [knowing the Father] – what He perceives the Father doing – whatever the Father does, the Son does also – the Father has given all judgment to the Son – My judgment is just, because I seek the desire of the One who sent Me – I know My own, and I am known by Mine – in that day you will know that I am inside of the Father and you inside of Me and I inside of you – Dwell inside of Me and I inside of you – dwell inside of My Love – this is My full completion, that you love one another just as I have loved you – this is age-unfolding life, that they may know You, the One True God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent – that they might be one – inside of Me inside of You.

You have loved them just as You have loved Me – Father, I desire that those whom You have given Me might be with Me – Father, I have known You – And I made known to them Your name and will make it known, that the love with which You loved Me might be inside of them, and I inside of them – our fellowship is companionship among the Father and His Son - Look and perceive what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called as children birthed out from God – by this we have known Love – love is always flowing out from God – everyone who loves out from God has been conceived of God and knows God – completed love casts out fear – We love because He first actively loved us – we know that the Son of God is come and has given us a through-mind so that we might know Him who is the true; and we are inside of Him who is the true, inside of His Son, Jesus Christ. We are speaking of the true God and the life that unfolds the ages.

Acknowledging God as Father. Acknowledging God as Father begins with knowing that God is, literally and actually, our Father. We are conceived of God. We don’t just come out from God’s thoughts, as created things, but as sons. And as sons, we come out through God’s Desire, by God-Seed, which is Word. – The one who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son.

Life is knowing the Father. God does not have us worship Him because He is a “narcissist” and likes to be told how great He is. Nothing in creation can live without knowing that all things are out from God, and God causes them to know through our acknowledgement of Him. Our worship opens the Door of Life to all creation.

A Flow of Our Words. God, You are our Father, for You have conceived us by Your incorruptible Word through Your great Desire to know us as sons. Just as You know us as sons, so we know You as Father. Father, our worship of You in Spirit and in Truth is our close intimacy with You, our participation in Your Fellowship with Jesus. We live inside of Your Fellowship forever.

Father, we see You with us in every interaction together, in every circumstance, in every particle of our beings, and in every next step we take. As we acknowledge You, sharing all with us, so others are enabled to see and to know You. This is the power You have given us, Oh Father, the manner by which we enable You to flow into the knowledge of all.

The Tension. The Goodness that is the Being and Essence of God is not a static “perfection.” Rather, it is as a living, breathing “heart.” When we consider our own hearts over many years, we see that our hearts have been shaped, they have been enlarged, not by what happened to us, but by how we responded.

There is no more intense metaphor in the Bible than the shaping of a single lump of gold into the Mercy Seat and another into the Lampstand with the beating of tiny hammers. Yet sharing Hheart with God is a living essence that continues forever. Paul told the Corinthians to “be enlarged,” and he gave himself as an example of being enlarged, with the single greatest value in his own heart – above all else, my anxious CARE for all the churches.

The Entrance of Perversion. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). This defines the human heart empty of the knowledge of God. The great pain of my life was the imagination that it defined my own heart. How could I know or live with such a horror? The great turning point of my life came in December of 2001 when John Eldredge taught me to say, “My heart is good; my heart is filled with Jesus.”

From the moment Adam accused God of knowing evil, of being the cause of his own wicked actions, until now, billions of humans and billions of angels have screamed accusation non-stop, that at the core of His heart, God knows evil. Just as God is bigger than us, so is His PAIN.

A Flow of Darkness. The years of 1985-86 was the time of God exposing the rebellion of my own heart. At the center of that time, I read the single most powerful book ever written, The Brother’s Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The central accusation against God is this. – If God is all-Love and if God is all-Power, then why does He allow such evil things to happen to innocent little children? The answer all give to that question is – “God-Love” is just a pretense, at His core, in the depths of His Heart, God is “evil.”

This is the God preached by all Nicene Christianity. As Jeremiah said, who can “know” such a “God.” Indeed, it took the Nicene definition of “faith” for us to sing, “God is Good, all the time.” We “believed” it, yes, but against our perception of knowing, against our better judgment.

Knowing Evil. Rather, the deepest word of our fellowship was, in fact, “God loves you, BUT!!” The essence behind the “but” was the center of all perception – BUT – if you don’t do what you cannot do, then your torment will remain forever. I have heard mighty sermons preached, out from the Bible and anointed of the Spirit, showing with great care that those who teach “a God of Love-only” are truly of the evil one.

I know all Christian thinking and all Bible argument. I know the agony of travail that has been my close companion since I was nine. I left the move fellowship because I could not agree with the arrogant superiority found in all who teach a God who “knows evil.” I could not know a Bible that has a “God who knows evil” forced upon it. And having removed evil from all my knowing of God, I know that I am a Heretic.

The Actions of Overcoming. When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour (Revelation 8:1). Consider that right now there are somewhere between 30 and 50 billion sentient beings screaming all accusation against God every moment. We do not perceive it because of God’s mercy and the skin of a beast. God has wrapped Himself in darkness and blocked the way to the Tree of Life, yet He cannot silence the screams nor assuage His PAIN. Consider that moment when it all goes silent.

 A line in 2 Corinthians 5 is, in some ways, the most incredible line in the Bible. Picture a man on his face in the mud under a cross he cannot carry. – God was inside of Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting to them their false steps [not knowing in His mind any disconnection from Himself]…

The Meaning of Victory. Here is the meaning of all Victory. – and now this same God has placed inside of us the Word of reconciliation with God. God, in His mind, in His Soul, and all through His Heart, does not know anything about any sin committed against Himself, though His pain is without measure. And this God, who knows no evil, shares this Heart with us.

When Jesus said, “I am the faithful and True witness,” He was speaking of Himself on His face in the mud under a cross He was incapable of carrying. And when He said, “Sit with Me inside of My throne, as I… sat down with My Father inside of His throne,” He meant, see as God Sees, all things GOOD, know as God KNOWS, with no shadow of evil. Be the very Heart of God.

Personal Fellowship. This knowing of perception is the deepest level of worship inside our own souls. Sharing Hheart with God is an exercise between two equals, an exercise of continuous personal sharing. Then, when you and I engage in this same fellowship together as full and completed sons, knowing the Father, knowing the same Hheart in one another, we become the center and source of all Life flowing out.

And yes, when Jesus said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink,” He meant every part of this fellowship in Joy. It is good to be stunned, to place our forehead upon the ground, for this place in which we live is Devoted.

Relationship with other Pathways. All POWER ascribed to God and all ENERGEIA speak of one thing only – God KNOWS. God knows Himself, and He knows His thoughts out from which comes every created thing. Here is Love, from 1 Corinthians 13. – I shall KNOW, just as I am KNOWN.

The other six pathways are simply the various expressions of this KNOWING flowing out from God to us and our same KNOWING flowing back to God. Being filled with the knowing of a God who knows no evil, a God of Life, a God of Love, is the flow of Power greater than we have ever conceived – RIVERS of living water.

Two Principles for Kingdom Building. Synergeia: The essence of all energeoing is Love, and Love is two in sweet communion together. To be of God, Energeia must always be Synergeia. All action in the Kingdom, all going forward, is God as Love shared among us together as completed sons. As we see as God sees and as we speak Christ together, so the Devoted Spirit causes all to be GOOD.  

Symmorphy: Every place we build, every space in the universe, is a space made for Love, a place of knowing the Father and of being known by Him. The dwelling place of God is a place of romance, yet a romance that is always bringing forth Life. The purpose of romance is many sons inside of glory, just like Jesus, sharing all purpose and form with Him. As we make all places Good, so God finds His Home among all.

Guiding and Influencing. I believe that the metaphor of “half an hour” means the real “Great Reset” in appearance, out from the substance of Jesus’ silence on the cross. When speaking begins again after “half an hour,” it contains no accusation. Nothing in our knowing of perception towards our world today can impart to us the meaning of life on this earth wherein NO accusation against God exists.

Yet humans are as sheep; we guide and influence even as we ourselves are guided and influenced. The “rod of iron” by which we rule means that the Shepherd takes upon Himself all CARE for the flock – and we also. We will know one another by name, and we will call those who belong with us by name, and they will follow us.

Building and Protecting. A world built wherein is found no accusation that God “knows evil” is a world we cannot yet even imagine, a world wherein God Himself is SAFE, safe to be Himself. We said this earlier, “the Father Himself sees – It is good.”

My entire life experience inside of construction is filled with the memory of good and evil always together. There are ways in which my greatest triumph in construction is also my greatest disaster. Everything I have ever built contains sorrow. I am brought up short. I want to build a Bible School inside a Community of Christ. I have wanted this every day for decades. Yet the Age of Tabernacles has already begun! HOW on earth do I SEE as God SEES – All things GOOD?

Interaction and Sharing. Putting Jesus upon ourselves in every moment of our life experience, even as we give an account of our lives inside the presence of God, something we ARE always doing whether we realize it or not, is the most important thing for us to do. Part of putting Jesus upon ourselves is Paul’s command to us to put on bowels of Compassion, another way to conceive of sharing Hheart with God.

Every interaction inside the Kingdom, every interaction of humans, angels, animals, plants, rocks, heavenly elements, God, Spirit and Son always together, comes out from and is informed by this incredible Symmorphy we share with Jesus, one FORM with Him. We must know our form through every particle of our human knowing and perception.

Our Conclusion. I have begun to sense, in my innermost being, the distinct difference between knowing and being aware. When we say that God does not know evil, we do not mean that He is unaware of wicked actions and their consequences. We mean that those things are not found inside His thoughts, nor come out from Him as He speaks. Yet the person in that moment does.

This perception of knowing inside of us that is sharing Hheart with God-Love is acutely aware of evil actions, but KNOWS in itself only GOOD. The evil action, though we abhor it, cannot alter our knowing of God and of Goodness. Thus, when we call that person and circumstance into goodness, we are just being ourselves. – This is me!

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is “16.3 How Power Works.” In order to prepare for writing that lesson, I intend to listen to the audios of all seven pathways of power. If you are ambitious and had the time, you could do the same.

Through my years of writing, I have written a number of specific chapters or lessons that changed dramatically my knowing of God. These were typically scattered across the months. In writing these seven lessons on the Pathways of Power, every one of them has equaled anything before now. God has now given to us that completion of His knowing that is essential for us to go forth with Him as the Ark of His Covenant, leading all who belong to Jesus into their place.

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, You have caused us to know You. Even our desire to know You is of Your hand, given to us by our Devoted Spirit. Father, we acknowledge You in all; we rejoice in You in all; we worship You in all, with all celebration of Victory.

“Father, You say that Your Love abounds in our hearts through our Devoted Spirit. You say that You are inside of us, reconciling all things to Yourself. You instruct us to enclothe ourselves with Jesus, with bowels of Compassion. Father, we believe what You say. And we place ourselves utterly inside of You, that You might be and do all that You speak. We belong to You, Father, for You first belong to us.

“Inside of the name of Jesus, we speak the Compassion of God towards our brothers and sisters all across the earth. We are fully aware of the darkness that is even now engulfing Christianity, of the great snares of evil that have entrapped our Christian brethren. Yet we know Your Heart, Father, for You have given us to share such Love with You. And we know Your intention of Goodness towards Your people, with no shadow of evil.

“Inside of the name of Jesus, we extend that Compassion out from You and us together, out over Your Church, out over every little one who truly calls upon You in this hour. Father, we clothe Your Church with the Lord Jesus Christ, for we see no other, we perceive no other power. You are God in all things, and we proclaim You, even our very Source.”