17.2 Spaces for All

In My Father’s House are many dwelling places, many dwelling places in the Church for God, many dwelling places in God for us. Time is our every next moment with God; space is every next place He shares with us.

Pattern two is “rooms inside and out.” A room is a relatively small space bounded in some way that distinguishes it from other spaces and used for a unique purpose by the inhabitants. Each one of us is a room for God, and God contains many rooms inside Himself for the use of each of us, as well as rooms for many gathering togethers. Yet the concept of a “room” reaches out to fulfill larger purposes, thus our pattern also includes each space of the earth inhabited by a particular ethnic family.

Elements of the Pattern.

• Let the location of the indoor rooms shape the outdoor rooms, both the natural outdoor rooms partially created by the site and the new ones created entirely by the building.
• Imagine the entire site as a sequence of roomlike places, a checkered pattern of indoor and outdoor spaces.
• The sequence of rooms will have a natural hierarchy: Some will be large, more important, and more central; others will be supportive and transitional. Some will be for cars and people; others will be for people only. Make them all part of the pattern and make sure none is useless, leftover space.
• Use wings of the buildings, exterior walls, outbuildings, and breezeways to help create the basic pattern; use plantings, low walls, terraces, and furnishings to underscore and strengthen the pattern.

Applied to the Kingdom. The deepest desire of every human is to belong. Because humans don’t give thanks, they feel that they don’t belong. Because they feel that they don’t belong, other normal desires become perverted in their pursuit of what they are refusing. Thus a very large part of our task in building the Kingdom is to bring each individual person into the contentment of giving thanks, the contentment of grace, God with me. This is the first real room of God for each. Out from the contentment of grace, rooms filled with adventure and expression are then also full of God-with-us.

A room “of my own,” a space inside of God and on this earth that is “just for me,” that place where “I most belong,” this is central to our watch-care over every living thing. Then, rooms for “us together” are also fully enjoyed.

The Entire Ecosystem. There is no room for each except it be a room shared with the Father. When God has a “place of His own,” many such places, then all creation lives inside of Joy. This is the great importance inside of God of “property rights,” the full respect for what belongs to another, the absence of theft. I suspect there are species of angels that stay far away from humans, for we have brought ruin into their lives as much as our own. Will part of our Kingdom task be to restore their trust, to give to them spaces of harmony?

Humans create rooms for all sorts of purposes, from art to industry, from sleep to differing styles of exercise. A dwelling place. The entire inhabited realms of heaven-earth.

The Ruling Verse. The ruling verse for our pattern of rooms inside and out is Ephesians 3:17-19. I pray, I engage with God for others – Christ Jesus lives inside of your heart, His own special room – Your room and His is rooted and grounded inside of Love – This pattern of rooms also includes places where you gather with other believers to know together the great extent that is God. – As you know God together, so the room of the love of Jesus beyond knowing opens that you might enter, and as you do, so God your Father finds for Himself MANY ROOMS to fill with all that He is with all overflowing Joy.

This is our ministry, to build such incredible dwellings for God and others in every corner of heaven and earth.

Key Companion Verses. Part of God’s purpose for the ruling verse of the Bible, Romans 8:28-30, is to give full place and scope for all the other Gospel verses, that they might come into their own.

We have this Treasure inside an earthen vessel. – That earthen vessel is the ROOM God has chosen for His own. It is the marked out boundary of His special place. The Ark of the Covenant is a room, a space designed to contain that Treasure most precious to God and to us, the Covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we think of the boundary lines that separate one room from another, one purpose or use from another. Be devoted to Me, for I am devoted to you. – Seized into God and into His throne.

Words & Phrases Related to the Pattern.
Rooms, Spaces, Many Abodes, Dwelling places.
Living room, patio, rose garden. Gethsemane. Devotion.
Inside of, habitation, temple, tabernacle, Most Devoted Place.
Country, region, county, courtyard, plaza, market.
To belong. A place of my own. To gather together. The Tabernacle. The school. The woodshop. The kitchen.
Boundaries, fences, walls, screens. Walls and doors mean “no theft.” No disrespect. Full honor towards others. Entering only through permission. Welcome. You are welcome here.
Green fields, still waters, finding pastures, sheepfold.
The knowledge of God is as a series of new rooms into which we enter forever, ever larger, ever more glorious, ever more special. An infinite God always close, always a space for us.

How Word Shapes Power. The eighth ruling verse is Love through us, but the second is the Love in which we dwell. We live inside of Love. In fact, the entire scope of “inside of” throughout the Gospel is referencing rooms in which we dwell.

Symmorphy is space; synergeia is movement. This all sounds very esoteric, yet we are talking about God beyond-all, that we live inside of such a God who is always fixed and always fluid.

The POWER that is found inside of great contentment, dwelling inside of God in utter rest, has never been tapped. That Power is released as God is free to dwell in our present contentment, and thus to move through our authority. The power and actions of Love impacting others, then, is shaped entirely by the contentment we know inside of God.

In the Old Creation. We have already touched on the chief cause of human distress, the refusal to give thanks, which blocks any knowing of God’s room for us, the place we might belong. The actions of human sin, then, are every manner of theft, stealing from God and others, by stealth or by violence, what belongs to them, in a never-fulfilled quest to build a “place that is mine,” even while denying such a place to others.

Theft, then, is the purpose of all human wars, and the thing called “human power” is nothing more than an accumulation for self of what belongs to others. Free market trade benefits both parties; the “political” is the way by which theft is made “legitimate.” The thief comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy. – We come to give life.

The Unveiling. Rooted and grounded inside of Love. The Kingdom is built on such a profoundly deep and absolutely solid foundation, such that as it arises, all disrespect of others must vanish away. Those who give space to others create ever more space for themselves, even while setting all others free. This is the God whom we are making visible.

With “Here am I,” we place ourselves inside of Jesus inside the Most Devoted Room in God. Then, with “I, and all my brethren whom You have given to me,” we repudiate and throw off all that is Adamic in this world. This is the deepest quality of the Lord Jesus, His open Door to the Father. When it is our deepest quality, Jesus is unveiled.

Our Story of Victory. Just as our reward consists of how much value we place upon others, so our increase consists of how much space we give to others, yet without ever infringing on our own dignity.

Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow Me.” I have never known what He meant until now. Indeed, Jesus’ failing outwardly blows away all the false definitions. To “follow Jesus” is to be made just like Him, to walk with the Father just as He walked. And to “carry your cross” means to place yourself utterly into a God who gives His life for others.

Our Triumphus is the opposite of the Roman triumphus. The Romans marched all their defeated foes behind them in chains and slavery. We carry all whom God has given us inside our hearts, set utterly free into JOY.

Our Story of Love. A Story is a place in which to dwell. Love is our story, our dwelling place. Yet this story that is a place is also filled with and defined by movement. Indeed, I am seeing how powerfully Ephesians 3 and Hebrews 10 fit together. God-Love is the spaces into which we have entered – BECAUSE we are filled with God.

And what is this great and vast Room into which we have entered? – A God who so loves the world that He gives His Son, His only Seed/Kind, so that everyone rushing into Him might escape awfulness and might KNOW this God they have entered (John 3:16 – paraphrased). To be inside of God is to be just like Him, the same God-Love through us into our own personal world, our Story of Love.

Prayer – God In. Prayer, then, is our lives as a place for God to dwell. – My House is a House of Prayer. Contentment, giving thanks, inside every moment God shares with us, is only part of the equation, for prayer is our continual active welcome of God at Home inside of Jesus inside our hearts.

Celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, indeed an entire Age of Tabernacles, is simply an aspect of prayer, for we actively welcome God-in at every level, personal, community, and the entirety of heaven-earth. We actively give God space. To the extent that we together give God space in all our daily living, to that same extent, God opens Himself to us together. Indeed, Ephesians 3:18 is a description of the boundaries of the room that is God, opened to us.

Provision – God Out. Movement and space, space and movement, these are FOR one another continuously and in all directions. Yet which direction comes first?

John 14:20 comes before Ephesians 3:17-19 and John 7:37-39 comes after. (Think dwelling inside of a ROOM made just for the one dwelling there.) 1. Jesus inside of God. 2. We inside of Jesus. 3. Jesus inside of us. 4. The Father inside of Jesus inside of us. 5. Christ inside our hearts. 6. We inside of Love. 7. God fulness inside of us. 8. God-Love filling our thirst by the Spirit. 9. Rivers of Spirit flowing into all. 10. Creation now the dwelling place of God.

All Abundance of provision, God-Out, is the fruit, the out-movement, of a life shared with God, two inside each other through Jesus, a life of Grace and of continual giving.

The Person and the People at the Center. I will be God inside of them, and they will be a people inside of Me. – The Covenant.

The design of modern cities tends to split everyone apart, isolated and alone, and to cram everyone together into amorphous masses – both at the same time.

The two most important spaces in a Christian Community are a place of one’s own, for each, and the Tabernacle where all gather daily to eat and to worship God. When both spaces are honored, both are treasured. I have suggested that such Communities in every land on earth will be the influence, as the nucleus of a crystal, to cause the ethnic families to return to the village/home style of living that honors the individual and the local gathering equally. Thus all will “go up to the Feast of Tabernacles.”

Property – Stand upon Firm. The children of Israel lived in a world in which theft and violence, debauchery and enslavement were the only things known. And the Canaanites were the worst such in human history. Burning your own children in the fires of Molech erases every last visage of respect. Yet the communism of the 20^th century surpassed in disrespect. In complete contrast, God established property rights among His people, including the property rights of women, and banned the owning of others as property. “Do not steal.”

When God gives, He honors the one who has received from Him as the sole owner of what He has given. And God never “takes back” what He gives; that is, God never steals. This is why we can say, “I am part of Christ, inside of Jesus,” with absolute and unmoving CERTAINTY.

Participation – A Shared Life. When property right is secure, only then can reciprocity become a wondrous way of living. Only when each person has an honored space of their own can the enjoyment of the gathering spaces be full and complete. Yet, in terms of “square footage,” the spaces shared together are far larger and more numerous than the spaces devoted to the individual. Even still, working together, playing together, eating together, worshipping together, all of these shared activities, each found in different spaces, are made complete only inside the respect and honor given to each one.

Jesus is inside of me, utterly personal to me. Jesus inside of me reaches out with great desire to include you. Father, must be “my” Father to each one. Father, is “our” Father, together, including Jesus Himself.

Governance. Spaces are devoted. All spaces are devoted to one or to another, to one gathering or to another gathering. Some spaces are shared; some spaces are open to the public, to whosoever will come. The more personal the space, the thicker the wall. The more public spaces, then, are marked by lesser things, wicket fences, a hedge, a line of trees.

To govern is not to intrude, but rather, to protect the walls and dividing lines that mark the devotion of the spaces. I govern by protecting your boundaries, even from myself. The moment I set you free after having joined you with God inside my heart, is the moment I enter into the governance of the Kingdom, the iron rule of Love.

Designing the Kingdom. Spaces are all about Love and Respect, respecting personal privacy and loving each kind of gathering together. “Inside and out” can mean innumerable spaces inside of God and innumerable spaces in heaven-earth. The establishment of such spaces in both directions is our work.

Construction is about building a house, yes, but building a house is about building and finishing many specific rooms. And the job of the architect is to ensure that the final layout fits the lives to be lived from one space to another. Space is designed for movement. Space is designed for life. The world divides and consumes. The Kingdom honors and joins together. I know that this way of thinking must bring forth a very different world.

Conclusion. These pattern lessons are doing something for us I had not seen. Rather than giving us practical tools for “Kingdom building,” they are taking us deeper into God, into knowing our Father, who is ever more different than we once knew. And as God is so different from all Nicene definitions, so is the actual meaning of every verse in the Bible.

Consider this line as the normal Christian life. – Seized into God and into His throne. No one ever “gets lost” into God. God is always turning us around even as we go ever further into knowing Him. “Too heavenly minded to be any earthly good” is NOT God. Rather, the extent to which we KNOW God, to that same extent, God-Love through us shapes creation into Kingdom.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “Shelter and Protection.” We are looking at the covering of the roof; God’s true covering for all. The primary topic of my other writing, “Being a Witness of Christ,” is the meaning of “covering,” being under a covering and then being a covering for others. I expect that writing this pattern lesson will give me the perspective I must have to approach such a topic. To prepare, you could peruse 11.1 “Safety and Protection” in Symmorphy V: Life. In fact, this is one I want to go through again myself, that I might build our pattern upon what is already there.

Feeling SAFE is the first part of feeling at home. Yet in all my years in community, I rarely felt safe. That “danger” was NEVER other people; I now know it was the theology.

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, You have seized us into Yourself that we might know You, for You are our Home, our special dwelling place inside of which we are always safe, we always belong. Yet, Father, You have also turned us around, so that, as we are tucked ever deeper into You, into knowing You as You really are, so our seeing of the expanse of Your Kingdom grows ever larger.

“Father, You are Love, and You give Your Life for others, and we are Your Door. We are Your passageway into Your Kingdom, that You might dwell inside of every tiny space, that You might be known as Love by all. Father, we love knowing You ever more, and we love a creation filled with Your glory.

“God, our Father, in knowing You, inside of You, we know also that Your Church is the key to Your Glory revealed. It is as all our brethren are joined as one body together with us, here inside of You, that Your path into creation becomes Rivers of Living Water. Father, we have come into You carrying all our brethren in our hearts, that they also might enter into Your House. Father, we want them here with us, in all Glory, so that Your Knowledge might be birthed out from our togetherness into Your Kingdom, into the Age of Tabernacles released.

“Lord Jesus, You dwell in each of us and in our gathering together. We belong to You in the Day of Your Power. Be mighty through us towards all who belong to You. Let it be so, inside of Your name written upon us. It is so.”