6. A World of Life
6. A World of Life
The problem with just writing Knowing Jesus as He Is only, is that, primarily, I am writing out from what we have learned inside a prescribed box. For that reason, there is no place for those things the Lord is presently teaching me. The solution, of course, is to insert a letter now and then on random topics that are not “assigned” to any outline.
Completing Symmorphy V: Life did two things for me (among many, I’m sure). First, it brought a level of completion, and thus, satisfaction inside, that I have accomplished my deepest purpose in setting forth all that has filled my heart for many years. Second, it has given me a completed framework of thinking that is 100% Biblical, yet that lays out the gospel of Jesus Christ as something very different from Nicene Christianity.
In writing Knowing Jesus as He Is, since I have twelve chapters, I need three points per chapter, and thus I have increased the “rules of Christian thinking” to thirty-six. In doing so, I see that a number of critical gaps have been filled. More than that, I am fully aware that the strict shortness of each explanation creates an overwhelming “firehose” of truth, so much, so fast. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I console myself with the realization that what I am presently writing is the “rough draft.” For that reason, when I work on the final draft, I may soften and spread out the explanation a bit, without worrying about an increase of pages.
The point is this, what I am doing now, in writing the present book and then Let My People Go coming up, is to set before us in full clarity these thirty-six large genetic structures, one might say, that are the building blocks of a new creation, a world of life designed by Word.
At the same time, reducing the lie of the serpent down to one simple thing is also of critical importance. You see, the serpent is the most “subtle” created being. Although he is the smartest as well, the breadth of his mental capacity is a tiny pin prick compared to the Word by which you and I are sustained every moment. For that reason, our great weapon against the lie is the simple understanding we have come to. – God says, “You are.” – The lie says, “You can be if you try, loser.” And out from that one thing comes all the falseness of Nicene theology and the abuse of the gospel. From that perspective, then, the “opposing verses” that rule in Nicene thinking are seen as they are, a very small and limited hangout without defense against the good speaking of Christ.
Our problem, then, is this. We have become the greatest enemies of the evil one upon this earth since the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows he has a short time, and he is desperately angry.
Now, that is the setting for the first part of what I want to share in this letter I have titled “A World of Life.” The larger part is the clarity that is coming to us regarding our place now upon this earth, in the church, and in the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Since completing Symmorphy V: Life, I have been pondering two closely related things, both of which are grounded in the layout of “Designed by Word.” The first thing is my own inability to bring forth anything of which I have written coupled with “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit.” The second thing is the realization that God placed man as the master, as the source of either a river bringing forth a world of death or a river bringing forth a world of life.
The ONLY thing any created being in heaven and earth right now knows is a universe, a world split apart by good and evil bringing forth death. NO ONE has the slightest idea of what a universe, a world of life might be. When I consider the various “futuristic” worlds or scenarios set forth in present day cinema or fiction, I see that at no point is there ever even the slightest intrusion of a universe of life into the human imagination. Even any definition of “utopia” one might create, including the Christian “heaven,” is still bounded entirely inside all definitions of the present split-apart universe of death.
A world of life is not known, yet all creation groans in eager anticipation for such a world, even while mocking its very existence.
Let’s put that thought on hold and continue, now, with my present dilemma. I have gone through quite a series of great pressures (tribulations) the last few weeks, within and without. I have kept a backup copy of all my work for some time. Nonetheless, as my aging computer was coming to the end of its usefulness, and as I was transitioning over to a new setup, the hard drive on which my first copy of my work was found went bad. Then, before I copied from my backup on an external hard drive to a second storage point inside my new computer, that external hard drive got just a bit of water under it and also went blank.
This was last Friday. Just before then, in my work on the text copy of Symmorphy V: Life, I had written that if the Lord chose not to make use of what I write, that is fine with me; the only thing I want is to be inside of Him and He inside of me.
From Friday until Tuesday, everything I have worked on for the last twelve years was GONE! When I researched data recovery, I discovered that it could easily cost over a thousand dollars to retrieve stuff from a dysfunctional hard drive, and sometimes it can’t be done. Yes, I have my books and the rough drafts of my articles online. But all of the printed forms would have to be re-built in In-Design, etc. – an unimaginably large amount of work. More than that, much recent work, including the JSV, was completely lost. At the same time, I have been blocked out of being able to work inside any of my websites because of an unknown technical glitch.
My point is this. Yes, through that first night of such utter loss, not knowing if a recovery was even possible, the evil one came.
Now, I write about myself only to give expression to Christ as me and to set before you (and before myself as well) a tangible and personal example of living inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us. My own personal experience is also the backdrop and context inside of which come the things the Lord teaches me.
The accuser came and found nothing in me because of one reason only, because I would not turn my face from Jesus my ONLY life and from Father sharing all things utterly together with me, including the pain and the loss.
On Tuesday, I took my external hard drive to a gentleman who has helped me in the past. It turned out that the files were still accessible and for minimal cost, he was able to transfer everything onto a new external drive including many of Maureen’s pictures and things that I had thought were long gone.
Thus I came home inside the experience of all things restored.
Now, there is no question, putting it like that, that the Father is sharing with us His own broken heart, having lost everything, and the joy that is arising as He together with us through Jesus makes all things new.
It is inside this context, then, that John 7:37-39 has become ever deeper and clearer in present reality than I have known. He that believes in Me, out from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Coupled with – Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit.
It has never entered God’s mind and never will, to remove you and me as humans from our original place as the origins of life flowing out or of death flowing out. By man, death, by man also the resurrection of the dead (1 Corinthians 15). More than that, this authority we possess in full confidence is always Today, this present moment. Indeed, a world of split-apartness in heaven as much as earth continues ONLY because Christians, through unbelief, continue sending forth the same river of death that started with Adam.
Nonetheless, we place ourselves only as we have learned, as the Mercy Seat of God, utterly together with our Father, connected always in all ways by Christ Jesus, a living and personal Spirit Word. Here alone is our place; here alone can we be what we are.
And in this place our human weakness is our glory.
Now, since completing Symmorphy V: Life, I am also sitting here in complete inability regarding having any part in Christian Community as I set forth in that text, life together as I committed myself utterly to without thought of turning. I know well the human abilities by which such communities of Christ can come forth. That is, I have observed those qualities and abilities working through others mightily anointed of the Lord to establish and bring forth such places for hundreds, even thousands of people.
And I look at myself, weary and incapable, having expected God in earnest zeal for years and years, yet with nothing. And we are all facing the imminent destruction of our whole way of living inside this Babylon that presently provides for us. There is no recourse; we are all up a creek without a paddle. And I can do nothing about it.
For years the voice whispered in my ears – “It’s not your place. God did not give you that anointing. If God wanted these things to come through you, He would have given you the ability to make it happen, ability you have known in many.”
Yet even as that voice comes to me again in this present place of loss and inability, another word arises in my heart. It’s not by inward fortitude nor by outward ability, but by My Spirit, says the Lord.
All that has ever been brought forth by those who are capable is nothing other than a continuation of the universe of death, of refusing to believe God, of going for the “way that seems right to a man,” the way of death, the way of trying and lying and crying. “You can be, if you try, loser.”
And I am overwhelmed and astonished at the realization that most of the word I have ever heard preached is just an extension, in one way or another, of the serpent’s nonsense in the garden. “You should be like Jesus, but you’re not; so get with the program, loser.”
Yes, that is what they have all preached, all the capable and anointed ministries I have ever known. And through Christian men and women, the river of death continues to flow, splitting everyone apart, dividing all from Christ and casting everyone by the false story of gehenna.
My inability is my glory. I expect, that is, Father and I together expect our Holy Spirit to go forth in power and to draw together that property, that provision, and those precious brethren who will walk with me in life together.
Inside of that immediate and concrete expectation, however, something far larger is growing, the thought and reality of a universe of life as no one has ever known, a practical heaven and earth that even God has not experienced, that is, as He fits Himself into time.
I want to draw a simple picture contrasting the one creation and the human role in whether that creation is ordered by death or ordered by life. The point is that it is the SAME creation either way. A world of life is not a different world, but the same world moved upon by life instead of death.
You see, we begin with a neutral creation, neither living in the knowledge of God, nor living in that which opposes God. NOTHING is or can be good in itself, even though all things are sustained every moment by the good speaking of Jesus. Nothing can be good in itself BECAUSE God cannot sin, that is, God cannot force His knowledge on anyone, such a thought has never entered God’s mind. God “controlling everything” is one of the false concepts of death.
Humans are God’s channel into His creation, who, by their seeing and by their speaking, turn all things towards life flowing over them. By channeling the accuser – “You can be like God IF you try, loser” – humans, and especially Christian preachers, instead send forth death through their eyes and through their tongues. And God remains not known.
First, we see a neutral creation, neither life nor death; that is, picture not just the whole of creation, but also every individual particle in it and every distinct arrangement of parts.
Now, in our thinking we do not lose sight of the original and continuous good speaking of Jesus by which all things are sustained in substance. You see, God placed man, not as the turning of substance, for substance cannot change, but rather as the turning of appearance.
The appearance of anything is altered, not by the absence or presence of God, for God cannot be absent, but by the absence or presence of the knowledge of God. And it is the knowledge of God over which man is the master and by which the universe and everything in it appears as personal life or as good-and-evil death.
And man is the master over the knowledge of God because man is God’s image, the visible appearance of God in creation.
So here is our picture of Christ sustaining all.
You can see, however, that although the figure representing the Christian who knows union with Christ is turned in full face towards the good speaking of Jesus, as I was turned the other night in the midst of all loss, that is not our present view of bringing forth a world of life.
Let’s insert first the river of death sustaining the outward appearance coming out from the knowledge of good and evil. Then, we change only one thing, the eating, that is, seeing and speaking life.
Now that I have laid all this out, I can finally talk about what I have been pondering the last while.
You see, in the third most important verse in the Bible, Jesus said, “Those who believe in Me, out of their bellies will flow rivers of living water.”
This is a BIG deal. Jesus is speaking entirely of the knowledge of God flowing forth from us as the river of life turning every entity, particle, and circumstance towards goodness. And this calling into which God placed you and me from the beginning is not “someday.” It is all right now. We are not waiting for a different set of circumstances or a different group of created things in order for us to begin turning all things from death to life.
God has waited for six thousand years for humans who believe in Jesus to start turning all things towards life by the river He placed in us from the start. One of the reasons He has had to wait is all the capable people jumping into the program, and in their ability and in their anointing perpetuating the serpent’s nonsense as the “gospel of salvation.”
You and I are qualified for this task entirely BECAUSE we are incapable of accomplishing anything. Yet we have chosen to believe that God is telling us the truth, that is, to believe in Jesus.
Only one thing is required for the river of life to flow forth from us turning a world of death into a world of life and that is our CONFIDENCE that God is utterly together with us as His Mercy Seat. Yet even that confidence is not ours, but rather the faith of the Son of God.
You see, when the accuser came to me in my utter loss, it was not God “proving” me, but rather God proving Christ through me. It was the confidence of the Son of God in me that alone was my unwavering seeing of Jesus in giving thanks inside the loss of all my work.
In that place of feeling awful (Asperger’s includes the tendency of fearing the worst), I gave thanks in and for the loss of everything, And, though I FELT “far away,” my feelings could not move the Word of my Design spoken into me as Christ alive in my heart. Thus, inside that place, I acknowledged Father utterly together with me in all of my loss and vulnerability, sharing even that awfulness entirely with me. Then, together with Father, I spoke good grace into my loss and towards you through my loss.
I KNOW that the river of life is flowing out from me right now, turning every particle and circumstance of my present world into a world of life BECAUSE I believe in Jesus.
You see, here is a critical thing we must know. As I said, the concept of a “utopia,” of a world of outward perfection, is entirely part of the universe of death, the “everlasting victory of good and evil.” A universe of life is something no humans know anything about and cannot envision at all.
Nonetheless, I am convinced, out from what God has taught us (see Lesson 21.1 Perfection in Symmorphy IV: Covenant), that everything remains as it is in a universe of life, that is, humans remain bumbling and foolish. What changes is how we see and how we speak. Yet as we see and as we speak Christ sustaining all, the outward appearance of everything WILL change in ways that will be utterly surprising and wonderful and good.
Here is the point. By man death, by man life out from that death.
Nothing is waiting; nothing is preventing. You and I are fully capable of sending forth a river of life out from our bellies through our seeing and our speaking that changes every entity, particle, and circumstance of the present creation out from the old and into the New.
And we do this entirely with our Father as the Mercy Seat together.