21. Giving an Account

© Daniel Yordy – 2020

I started my autobiography, Prepare a Path, with the silly idea that it would be fun to share with you some of the experiences of my life. I had no idea that God meant something entirely different.  

Instead, here is where I find myself caught. – And there is no created thing unseen in His presence; all, moreover, are uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we give our account (Hebrews 4:13).

Then, consider these words of Jesus. – This moreover is the judgment, that the light has come into the cosmos and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone doing evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, that his works might not be exposed. The one, however, practicing the truth comes to the light, that his works might be made visible, that they have been done inside of God (John 3:19-21).

To bring every season of my life out into the light, that all that I have been and done might be made visible, is indeed, a placing of everything I have been and done INSIDE OF God, that is, inside of Fire.

Writing has always been fun for me, until now. Writing my life story is excruciating, yet when I am finished with each chapter, such peace and certainty comes, that I AM inside of my Father.

I just wrote these words in my autobiography.

Giving an account of one’s life in the presence of God is a terrible thing. It could not be done except we know how utterly embedded we are inside of Father’s Love. You see, there is also the realization that every person with whom one has interacted will also be giving an account, and their account must include you and your actions and responses towards them.

The shadow of darkness first entered God’s creation with the accusation against God that His words are false. Every offense of angels and humans since has been an extension of that same accusation. God will answer every single accusation ever uttered against Him through Jesus, the Word that He is continuously speaking, proven faithful and true.

When Paul said that every knee will bow and every tongue will speak the same word that is Jesus, the way that must happen is the giving of thanks for every moment, circumstance, and person in one’s life. This giving of thanks is central inside every giving of an account from every created being. God requires that every accusation ever uttered be shown to be false by the good speaking of Jesus and to be recognized as false by the one who so foolishly spoke it. That’s what “every knee bowing” means.

~~~

It seems, mentally, that I must be entirely presumptuous to claim that what I am doing is the very “account giving” required by God of all. Nonetheless, I am convinced that is exactly what I am doing as a firstfruits to God. And indeed, I am also convinced that this IS the doorway of Firstfruits.

This is the completion of the opening of the seven Doors, that is, the removal of the seven seals that bind up Christ from being read and known by all.

Nonetheless, placing one’s life out into the open to be seen and judged by all, is stark, raw, and almost terrifying.

I want to look straight at the reality and implications of God’s clear requirement that ALL will give an account of their every moment, action, and interaction through the entire course of their life. We’ve never really thought about what that means.

And being inside of Christ does not remove the trauma of doing such a thing, but it does place all of it inside of Love.

Forgiveness is Fire, and Fire brings all resolution.

For me to give an account is to look squarely into the eyes and through the eyes, into the heart, of every individual person with whom I interacted through all the course of my life. It is to recognize their heart, yes, and to see Jesus there, but it is also a presentation of my own without any hiding.

Nonetheless, that is not the worst part of it as I have only just realized.

The other part of giving an account is that I will be featured in the accounts being given in the same way by thousands of people, every individual who has interacted with me through the course of my life.

What will they say of me, in honesty, and of my meaning in their lives?

This is the most sobering thing I have ever considered.

There are no secrets. Don’t imagine that you hold any secrets. Jesus said that it will all be shouted upon the rooftops. Every single person I have known WILL present my involvement in their lives.

And suddenly, for the first time, something Paul said finds its place.

Let a man prove himself before eating of the bread and drinking of the cup. For the one who eats and drinks without discerning the body [of Christ], is eating and drinking judgment on himself. Because of this, many among you are weak and sickly, and many have fallen asleep [spiritually]. If we discern our own selves, we will not be judged. Being judged under the Lord, however, we are disciplined or trained, so that we should not be condemned with the world (1 Corinthians 11:28-31).

Here, then, is another definition of light. – Other people giving an account before a holy God of your involvement in their life.

My writing of this account of my life is the only thing that has prepared me to withstand the FIRE of such a light, to live inside of that FIRE in all peace, rejoicing in each one being set free into thankfulness.

I can assure you of this, if such accounts had been given in my presence regarding my time at Blueberry, before I have looked in the eyes and into the hearts of each one, seeing them with the Lord Jesus through His eyes, I would never have survived the fire of such a light.

This is what it means, being judged “under the Lord” rather than being in the condemnation of the world.

All judgment is to life, but ONLY through the path of honesty, of admission of fault, and of the giving of thanks. There is no other path, for this is the path of the gospel.

Every one of us must climb down off our “high horse” before we will ever go under with Father for the sake of others. And such “high horses” come in so many different colors and sizes.

Pretending, pretending – the deepest sin of Adam and the greatest Christian evil, the one thing that is never Christ living as us, but is always DEAD upon the cross of Christ.

We never boast in a rotting corpse; we never see ourselves as more righteous than other Christians.

To be a true caller of God, the thought of dishonoring others, whether the least or the greatest, must be utterly abhorrent. Yes, we still do it, but it must make us sick at heart.

We define all of these seven “overcoming’s” as the proof of Christ in us, for there is no other proof of God. Yet if we could ask God to change us in one way, that one way would be that we never again would exalt our own superiority by finding fault with Christians who do not measure up to our self-exalted notions of what being “like Christ” has to mean.

You see, this contention goes to the very core of standing in that brightest of lights that hearing others giving their account of your involvement in their lives must be.

On the one hand, any sense of superior self-rightness will send you scurrying back out into the darkness where you imagine your evil self can remain unseen. But on the other hand, the full knowledge of Christ your only life, never withholding the same from any other Christian, will allow you to stand fully in the light, regardless, rejoicing that your deeds, even if you were at fault and must ask forgiveness, that all your interaction with them was taking place entirely inside of God and inside of His love.

This sharp dividing line, then, will pass through every moment every other person in your life shares of your interaction with them.

To those of us who know that we share Hheart with God and have practiced being the Mercy Seat, setting forth our souls for the sake of those who offend us, such judgment will be always through us as life to each individual person as they give their account.

This is very much a part of the meaning of – And I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was given to them (Revelation 20:4).

Indeed, it is very likely that all those whom you have offended will be giving their account of your involvement in their lives with your full awareness and participation. AND YOU ALSO, as Christ through you, will set forth your soul for their sake, for the sake of the one against whom you did such offense.

You will be willingly and openly WRONG, for their sake.

This is the joy of redemption.

Calling God into the knowledge of creation is the action of one who stands already fully inside the light, willing to bear full responsibility for all offense, so that the other one, either one who offended you or one whom you offended, might be free inside of God to enter into joy.

Indeed, this is the opening of Doors 6 and 7, the costliest Doors of God through us. – And we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters.

Calling God into the knowledge of each individual person is a willing sharing with Jesus of the lack, the agony, the deprivation, the offense, of the one into whom you are calling the knowledge of God.

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, of which I became a servant, according to the stewardship of God having been given me into you, to make the Word of God full and complete (Colossians 1:24-25).

This is exactly what Paul is saying. This is the quality of firstfruits; it is the quality of a true caller of God. This is not “taking the place of Jesus.” In complete contrast, it is allowing Jesus to share His glory with us, in the winning of every treasured heart.

That is one aspect of giving an account, but now I want to share with you something else I am discovering as I write through these most difficult years of my life, the 1990’s, and which category will include even recent years as I have continued stumbling through life even while writing these Christ Our Life letters.

My life, all the way through, has been perfect. At no point could anything have been “better,” for all the course of my life has come out from my Father and every moment has brought me to this moment when I can place the Lord Jesus Christ upon myself, my circumstances, and all those other people in my life.

As I have done that, put the Lord Jesus upon myself in that moment AND put the Lord Jesus upon all those with whom I was involved in that moment, has changed everything in my perception. My eyes are opened wide. And I see the incredible intent, the wondrous purpose, and the intense determination of my Father, in every turn, in every difficulty, in every misunderstanding, in every joy, in every achievement. I see it all as one straight path à into the knowledge of God made known through me.

Let me get specific in the story of my life. As I am writing this, I have completed my account through May of 1992. Next, I must write about June – December, 1992, the first and lesser most difficult time of my life. Then, soon coming up, I must write about June – December 1995 followed by all of 1996, the second and far greater most difficult time of my life.

I have found, however, that every piece of understanding I need to write about these upcoming years, has come into place, and I have been able to express that clear and true understanding in my recent letters.

I have paused, again, for a couple of weeks, before I plunge back into such strong current. Nonetheless, two things have shifted mightily inside of me towards these times.

First, in writing about Blueberry thus far, I have seen the joy and goodness that was my life there, and especially the treasure of the people of the community. This has made me pause and ask myself, “Did I imagine the trauma?” “Was it all made up in my own head?”

The answer to those questions can be a partial, “yes,” when it is directed towards other people. And indeed, the painful feelings lessen considerably as I acknowledge all the goodness and joy and all the giving to us that was my experience of the brethren there.

Nonetheless, I can only take myself as I am and was. And the difficulty I endured was very real to me, whatever its cause. More than that, it was inside of that difficulty that God led me and revealed Himself and His Word to me.

You might be one of those for whom offensive things roll off, like water off a duck’s back. You hardly remember those things and are not bothered by them. I know some people are like that, but I cannot be one of them – that is not a quality one can “achieve.”

My purpose here is not to get back into the mind of writing my life story, however, so I had better get right to the point of this letter.

What I will share with you in Part II of “Glory in Great Pressure” is that moment when “YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE” hit me full in the gut, harder than it had ever hit before. When I saw that, I realized that this same rejection continued to come at me from then on, indeed it has been the story of my life. And I will show you incident after incident, until 2014, when that same “not belonging” happened in the agony of life circumstances.

The question was – where was it that I did not belong? Do not answer that question hastily lest you fall into your own trap of self-exaltation, that is, the icy waters of death beneath of Eliza as she fled across the St. Lawrence (found in the chapter “In the Womb of the Church). 

It was not Blueberry where I did not belong. It was not the move fellowship where I did not belong. It was not even “this world” where I did not belong.

“YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE” is what every infant feels when they are forced out of the only life they have known inside the womb of their mother into a stark and unknown world.

Wow – what a fascinating rabbit trail. Think of the infant, now laid upon its mother’s stomach, drinking from the breast. The heart of the infant is beating with the heart of the mother, the one right above the other. I wonder if we will discover that, for those whose life has been hostile as adults, that they never knew that place of return to belonging.

The voice, “YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE” was God to me.

Here is where I BELONG.

Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, My word he will keep [guard and watch over], and My Father will love him, and we will come to and will make Our home with him in intimate closeness. – That where I AM, you might also BE – I am inside of My Father, and you inside of Me and I inside of you (John 14:23 & 2 & 20).

NOTHING in the entirety of Nicene thinking, preaching, and theology, has ever taken anyone to where they belong. Yet Nicene preaching is filled with Bible words. And all of it serves to convince every Christian that they DO NOT BELONG in the only place they DO belong.

Even more than that, every attempt by wise, anointed, sincere, and well-meaning Christians to “correct” me, has been a powerful effort to pull me back into the false “belonging” out from which God Himself was expelling me.

What I mean to say is that ONLY ONE PATH could ever have taken me from the little boy of seven asking Jesus into his heart, to my life now inside my Father’s Heart, sharing with Him travail for the sake of all those who have been part of my life. ONLY ONE PATH.

And that one path has two parts. The first part is my design, as I have been, exactly as God made me. And the other part is every specific circumstance through which I have lived all the way through.

To end up in the only place where I BELONG is to have followed a perfect path, regardless of all the difficulty I have endured.

And thus to see every agonizing moment as the PERFECTION that it was is to place my entire life into the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because the path of my life brought me home to Father’s heart, then my entire life can be only the perfection of Christ. – And thus, in giving my account, I call it to be so.

As I do, however, the most astonishing thing is happening, something I never expected.
It is. It is become the perfection of Christ.

But here’s the thing. The action of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” is the universal practice of all humans, including all Christians.

My writing of my time in move of God community is an offense to many who lived in those communities for a season. When I look across the Internet, I see growing numbers of accounts of people who did spend time in those communities, now declaring the whole thing as evil and the people of that fellowship as wicked.

How could a man run through such a gauntlet, holding tightly what is true, not falling into the death of accusing others, and yet finding all that God meant on the other side?

It can be one thing only – a miracle of the grace and kindness of God.

Yet a huge part of my purpose as I am writing my life story is to show you exactly how God did such a wondrous thing with me.

This is why Jesus commanded not to pull out the tares until the completion of the age. I see everyone gleefully pulling out what they call “tares,” not caring if those are tares or wheat, and especially not caring how many fine root hairs of the wheat they are destroying in the process.

Those who rip out tares are also servants of the enemy.

You see, it’s a simple thing. I am harvesting the wheat, all the goodness of God through all of those with whom I interacted. And in doing so, even in those circumstances where I must show the roots of the tare, still, I am not harming the wheat that the brother or sister also is. In those few instances, however, where there is only a tare, I leave such a one entirely in the hands of my very capable Savior, the One who knows exactly what He is doing and who does all things well.

A large part of my purpose, then, in giving my account inside the presence of God, is to set before you an example of Christ. By that I do not mean that you should “copy me.” What I mean is that Jesus would walk with you, in your own way with Him, through your life as well, in those ways that fit you, very different from me.

Yet it is the same FIRE into which your life is cast, and it is the same pure and perfect rest into which you also enter where you BELONG, inside Father’s Heart.

This FIRE, then, is that burning FLAME of a God who answers by Fire, a God coming through, a God entering out from your heart and into His creation to be part of His creation that all might know Him.

I want to change tack, now, and talk about an issue I raised at the beginning of my life story. Here is what I said.

So, if you are willing to entertain my foolishness for just a bit, we together must ask the obvious question – Why in God’s good name would He, in fact, pick such a bumbling failure of a man as this unknown “Daniel Yordy” to speak the revelation of Christ as He is to His church?

I am writing this account of my life for two reasons. First, it is my intention to prove to you that God has no good reason whatever to speak to His church through me – and many, many good reasons why He would not…

~~~

I am an inconsequential man. If you were to walk daily with me it would not take you long to form two conclusions concerning me. First, you would know of certainty that I am an inconsequential man, and second, you would know that I believe with all my heart what I teach in spite of all my inabilities.

I suspect that, in my recent “ministry trip,” a number of people thought to themselves first, “Hey, this is interesting, I wonder what ideas this Yordy fellow can add to my ideas.” That thought would have been followed, after their observance of me, by, “Wow, this Yordy fellow is completely inconsequential. Why on earth should I imagine that God is speaking through him?” Followed by, “Well, that was interesting, but strange. It’s also irrelevant because it’s not possible that God would have given His mighty Word to such a little man.”

I cannot tell you how important this fact means to me. I have known many ministries of great consequence, men and women of power who could hold the attention of thousands, people whom, when they spoke, inspired thousands of people to sell everything in order to be a part of the word they were preaching.

Not one of those ever took me to the one place I will go – home where I belong inside of Father’s Heart. More than that, a “God” who comes through outward power and the demonstration of human strength, is not a “God” whom I could ever know.

If the Word of Christ is not accessible to the least and to the littlest, if the most inconsequential of people cannot, by that word, run with all joy into the Heart of Father, if the one in whom such a Word dwells is not just a brother, walking alongside of you, someone entirely at your level, then it cannot be the “word of Christ” I would know. Neither could such a word ever do anything real for you in the long run.

God fooled all of the powerful leaders among men by sending His revelation into the form of a human infant, the weakest of created forms, born in a barn.

The fact that God is fooling everyone again by sending His Word of the revelation of Jesus Christ through you and me is the same.

I am glad that you, my readers, are not people of consequence, for how, then, could I ever walk with you?

And so I continue to stumble through the sharing of my life story, giving an account in the presence of God. I do so with tears, in scary honesty, in willingness to pass through all the agony of years and to see goodness, to see Jesus, inside the heart of every individual person with whom I interacted.

There is a page of world literature that has always spoken to the deepest center inside of me, a page that has always drawn tears upon my face, from the first time I read it at age twelve and then after, no matter in what dusty book store aisle I opened it to read it once again, a page from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

No one answered. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo’s side in Rivendell filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.

“I will take the Ring,” he said, “though I do not know the way.”

Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. “If I understand aright all that I have heard,” he said, “I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will…”

~~~

Yes, this is a bit melodramatic – but it speaks to that whispering of God in my heart since I was a little boy and to that covenant I made with Him when I was just turned twenty-one, that somehow, God would use all my pain for the sake of others, that many could run freely and without hindrance into Father’s Heart as a result of all my years of confused agony.

You see, the Ring Frodo would take to the fire contained two powers. First, it had the power to hide the wearer so that none of his evil deeds could be seen by others and second, it gave the wearer the power to dominate and control other people. No one in Middle Earth could ever be free until such power was dissolved by fire into nothingness.

This is exactly the picture by which I now understand the meaning of my giving an account of my life in the presence of God.

You see, the desire to hide the deeds of one’s life corresponds entirely with the desire to hold everyone with whom one has related in contempt, to control them for self-exaltation.

As I place my entire life into the FIRE, so God is removing all contempt from my heart even as I choose to see each person whom I have known as the Lord Jesus Himself, so that all might be free inside of God.

And this is the meaning and the purpose of God COMING THROUGH.

It is an offering made by fire to God, His own sweet-smelling Aroma.