17.3 Shelter and Protection

The third pattern of home is “a sheltering roof.” A home is a place of shelter, a place in which one feels protected and safe. Isaiah and John both saw the City of God as a place wherein no one who would cause hurt can enter.

[I drew a blank here, and thought to come back after I write the other topics to complete this first “definition.” However, before we finish this lesson, our whole viewpoint is going to change. I will now continue through what I have already written, even though our approach to these four chapters may well change to something remarkable.]

Elements of the Pattern.

• Fit the most important social spaces of the plan to the roof. Let the form of the roof make you feel that you are living in the roof.
• Let the roof plan grow from a traditional and elementary roof form, so that a large house may be understood as a combination or transformation of a simple primitive roof.
• Use a roof to mark the entry.
• Make some spaces atticlike, with the roof shape visible.
• Make sure the roof can be experienced from inside and outside. If possible, make spaces on the roof—roof gardens or terraces.
• Use the naturally high and low portions of the roof to create a variety of interior ceiling heights.
• Use overhangs to shade and protect walls and openings but also to create outdoor places and covered paths.

Applied to the Kingdom. When we apply the concept of shelter and protection to the Kingdom, we are speaking of governance. Yet the Biblical term we will use is “covering.”

Our first metaphor of covering is the coverings placed over the Tabernacle, four great coverings, one on top of the other, that covered both roof and walls and back. The front entrance was the Door only, a single cloth representing Jesus. The first covering is fine linen, the same as the Door. To be inside God’s covering is first to be inside of Christ Jesus. The other three coverings are goat’s hair, ram skins dyed red, and a final outer covering translated badger or porpoise, an unknown term. The point of the outer covering is that it is waterproof, impervious to the elements. (More on this later.)

The Entire Ecosystem. The Covering of God over all heaven-earth is clearly the nature of the Lamb revealed now through many.

In order to touch the life of any created thing, God must have two things. He must have hands to touch and a voice to speak. Thus His House and His Body are the same thing. God must be invisible, undetectable, forever. He makes for Himself one form only inside creation – the Church. God can be All Here Now all He wants, but no one can know except through faith. Thus created things can know their God only through humans walking together inside of Love.

Covering, then, is that which takes each created thing, sentient beings first, into the heart, and envelops each inside all that is Jesus, protected and safe.

The Ruling Verse. The Ruling Verse of the pattern of governance is Revelation 12:10-11, a verse that sums up the seven overcomings as well.

A great voice calls. – Now is come – the salvation – the power – and the Kingdom of our God. – And the authority of His Christ. – The accuser of all our Christian brethren is cast down, this voice that accuses them continuously inside the presence of God, inside their own consciousness. – THEY did it. – THEY cast down the accuser of their brethren. – THEY overcame that accusation by three things. – By the Blood of the Lamb. – By the Word of their testimony. – And they loved not their souls unto death, their shared death with Christ Jesus. – Symmorphosed with His death.

They did this out from the Father for the sake of others.

Key Companion Verses. First, we have the layout of the seven points of overcoming, out from the abilities of Jesus which He imparts to us, against the seven principal demons preventing the Church. We have all the verses on the authority given to Jesus, which He shares with us as our Life. Then there are all the verses of the travail of the Spirit which we share for the sake of others, giving thanks, turning all things towards goodness.

As the covering over all, and as against the ruling verse that is the site, the foundation, positioning all, this ruling verse draws from all the others to give it full scope and meaning. Sharing life with the Father for the sake of others, the meaning of Gospel Word and of the Lamb.

Words & Phrases Related to the Pattern. [I will not now finish this, as this subheading will likely vanish for lack of space. Continuing with this present topic, as much as I have already written, is important however, because the topic of “covering” will be a major part of “Being a Witness of Christ.]

How Word Shapes Power. The power of a life shared with the Father for the sake of others is the power of influence, not the power of control. The power is the Spirit flowing out to all, convincing, leading, and teaching all, as the Spirit inside each, which is the next pattern of home and the verse that pairs with Revelation 12.

It never entered my mind, neither did I hear any different from all others within Christianity, but that “to overcome” was for one’s self against evil. Only when I wrote Symmorphy V: Life did the obvious words break through that darkness. THEY do it, not for themselves, but for the entire Church. The simplest of words could not penetrate our darkness because we could not see. Gospel Word removes that which blinds, that which prevents Jesus from being seen as He is.

In the Old Creation. First, the world rules by two things, fear created by the threat of violence and the spinning of many false stories. No one feels safe inside this present world. More than that, the ones who rule are typically psychopaths, who claw their way to the top. These embody the opposite of the Lamb, that is, the beast.

But there is something deeper that shows itself in Nicene Christian thinking. The mind of good and evil conjures up “go to heaven” as a false story or “go to hell” as fear – someday. One thing ONLY makes the difference. Each individual, all by themselves, must “please” an implacable God “by getting it right,” whatever that might be. Even Jesus did His thing, and is far away right now. Thus it’s all up to self, Self, SELF, Self, self. Such a mind is easily manipulated by fear and false narratives.

The Unveiling. Revelation 12:10-11, the sheltering roof, is the ruling verse of the Apocalypse, of the Unveiling of Jesus Christ. This verse positions an extraordinarily different way of thinking. Truly, truly, all my knowledge of Christian thought and the reading of every verse in the Bible is that it was all about self. I must please God myself, and no one else can do anything for me. I am on my own. That is “the bottom line.”

The Apocalypse is a different way of thinking. I think now only God through me for others. When I think of myself in that equation, it is a life shared with the Father. When I think of the future, I see age-unfolding life every next moment. And when I think of others, I know that God has made my heart a dwelling place for them.

Our Story of Victory. There is one obligation resting upon me, and that is that I be found faithful. I can tell you that to be found faithful has grown into something of great importance to me. Yet this “obligation” is not a burden, for I live only inside of Jesus (the linen cloth, the first covering), who imparts all that He is to me in every moment and in every way. His faithfulness must become mine. Thus, my story of Victory is not “I must,” but “I am.” “I am faithful for the sake of others, God through me.”

The Blood of the Lamb is our way of boldness inside of God, a newly sacrificed and a living way, the goat’s skin and the Ram’s skin died red, the covering now become us. And the Word of our testimony is our confidence going forth to all as the very Face of the Lord Jesus to each.

Our Story of Love. The BIG story of the entirety of Revelation is the Lamb of God imparting Himself to us that we are just like Him, the nature and qualities of the Lamb, in all things for others. And the heart of that BIG story is Chapters 11 & 12, the second witness of Christ, the Church clothed with Jesus, the normal Christian life birthed out from her, and those who give themselves to the Father for the sake of all. And the heart of that Love is the badger skin, that places its “back” against all that opposes, that nothing might touch those whom we love inside this Hheart shared with God.

Thus it is the Lamb of Gethsemane, as He shares with us His Life given for others, His union with us becoming Salvation for all. This is our True Story of Love – symmorphosed.

Prayer – God In. God enters my world because I give Him my heart that He might do so. And I give Him my heart by placing there, together with Him, all people and things He has given to me. Prayer, then, is God through me for others. Prayer is Revelation 12:11.

Think of those four coverings, with the face of Jesus on the inside and the thick, hard covering on the outside, with its back to all that would hurt. This is the meaning of covering, this is how God comes through us into our world. Inside such a place, people are safe.

Inside such a place, God is safe.

A Change of Viewpoint. Let’s now bring in our change of viewpoint, something that has been happening from the first lesson of this chapter.

I had noticed even before I completed the first lesson that my words were painting a picture, as it were, of the essence and being of our Father. Yet this “painting” was of the impressionist style, beautiful in itself, yes, but in no way matching the greats, like Rembrandt or da Vinci, who were able, somehow, to portray the very soul and meaning of their subject on their canvass, more human than any photograph. As I continued to write, and even more in this lesson, I noticed that the words coming through me from the Spirit were not fully in line with the titles of my slides.

Needing a Definition. Then I read a comment from a reader who shared that she wasn’t quite grasping the meaning of this chapter thus far. This comment confirmed to me that I needed to discover why I was seeing this difference between the portrait my words were painting and the structure of the outline I was attempting to follow.

Something similar happened in writing Our Glorious Salvation. When I read Chapters 7 & 8 in the proof copy, they seemed murky and dull; they did not measure to the power and clarity of the other chapters. I realized that I needed a definition, and then I extended that definition throughout as an outline. I changed no more than 5%, but it made an enormous difference.

A Problematic Definition. It is the same here. My outline comes out from an unstated definition of the Kingdom, and thus of my purpose in writing these four chapters on “Patterns of Kingdom Building.” Here it is. – Building the Kingdom is how we structure human society during the Age of Tabernacles. – Yet that definition could never have been my true intention.

When I wrote Kingdom Rising, from 2011 to 2012, I defined the Kingdom as “the Father just being Himself.” I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but it sounded right. And yet the picture of the Father coming through my writing in this chapter thus far, was exciting and beautiful to me, even though it was unclear.

The Father at the Center. Here, then, is the actual definition of the Kingdom that I want to know. – The Kingdom of God is God being free to express Himself as He is inside all creation, that the Father’s desire to know and to be known would flow unhindered, that the portrait and face of our God would display His very soul through the ordering of everything out from our Love for one another.

The Kingdom is God set free. It’s about God; it’s not about us. It’s about His beauty expressed; it’s not about us “lining up with Him” or us “enjoying God forever.” The Kingdom is the Father just being Himself.

 A Changing Perspective. This realization came right after I had clarified for myself what I need to be writing and what I want to be writing. Inside this changing perspective then came a song from the early seventies when I was in high school, by Carly Simon, “You’re so vain, I bet you thought this song was about you.” You see, my outline had positioned the Kingdom of God as being about us, without my realizing it. It’s not and never was.

This thought, then, has gone through all three (and more) things I am writing, like an electric current restructuring everything. The change in what I am writing is very small, but the difference in meaning is wondrous. This is part of what God means by “You have not been this way before.” And I want to include you in all God is doing.

What Happens Next. So, what happens now with my present work on Symmorphy VII: Completion? This project goes back onto the “warming shelf” where it can simmer and percolate for a while longer before I bring it again into present work. I must go back and re-write things just a bit in the laying out of our purpose in the Patterns of Kingdom Building. I must also add an explanation. That explanation could go into the Bridge, and it could be titled “4. You’re So Vain.”

I will leave all that for, hopefully, a few months from now. And instead, I will bring into the Zoom meetings something I really, really, really want to be writing. I want to finish The Open Scroll, and I want to write a simple, yet clear and comprehensive layout of the “Gospel Verses” as a commentary.

Reading for Next Time. I have already written the first part of the next lesson for Zoom in which I introduce what I intend to do as a new “series” that will be titled “Studies in Gospel Word.” And so, I want to finish The Open Scroll together with you, in a similar way as how we finished The Jesus Secret II in this sharing on Zoom.

This first lesson of this new series is titled, “Gospel Comments and James.” I actually explained my intentions in today’s letter, “A Pure Word.” I want to KNOW this Gospel my Father gave me in this Bible He put into my hands, and I want to know it in full togetherness through the flow of all the verses of each book of the Bible, starting with those in the JSV.

Three Projects at Once. I am able to work on three projects at the same time, and thus I must finish one before I can add another. I can explain my three projects in this way. One is my “dessert,” that is, “Being a Witness of Christ.” I have to be careful with that because I can spend the whole week writing future chapters if I did not make myself stop. One is my “meat and potatoes,” that which is substance, which is whatever I am writing for the Zoom meetings, which is now back to the flow of Gospel verses for The Open Scroll. The third is “kitchen prep,” work that I don’t mind doing, though it’s not as exciting. The exciting thing is that, with Completion back on the warming shelf, Symmorphy VI: Mankind is again on the finishing table, my “fill-in” work.

Further Adjustments. This change of perspective impacts “Being a Witness of Christ” as well. Probably in the next chapter of that text I will write something along these lines. ~ The two witnesses are about God. Ultimately, they are about nothing else. If they speak of anything else, it’s only because of God. ~

I can see a high likelihood of a chapter titled “You’re so Vain” coming in quite soon. A line from Revelation has now risen to overarching prominence, giving us the entire problem in John’s vision, in Nicene Christianity, and in the awfulness of our world today. – I wept loudly, because no one of sufficient value was found who could open the scroll to perceive what is written in it (Revelation 5:4). Why? – Because Jesus is an incapable wimp!

I must PREVENT myself from writing that chapter here.

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, You are always so much more than we can comprehend, yet we love Your Beauty as much as You enable us to see. Father, You are always increasing our scope, sharing Your glory with us. Oh God, let our lives no longer be “about us,” but rather, You as our all, You in certainty, You coming through us now into our world.”

“Father, You are our conviction and the entire motivation of our lives. We belong to You in the day of Your Revelation. Father, even as You share our lives with us, so You make us to be just like Yourself, just like the Lord Jesus. Father, let all Your desire be made complete in our lives. We receive all things utterly as You, inside of Christ Jesus our Lord.”