45. Our Five Superpowers
Note: The audio is from the Zoom meeting. It contains what is written in this chapter with further commentary throughout.
© Daniel Yordy – 2021
When I started the last chapter of this text, “Joining Heart with Heart,” I had no idea what would be in it, nor how on earth I could write eight pages on something I am incapable of doing. Yet from the moment I started writing, everything simply flowed naturally up from my heart as the singing of Jesus, with very little mental thought. That chapter, then, is the clearest expression I have known yet of “sharing Hheart with God.”
It is also the core and climax of this entire book.
We turn, now, to the final outworking of our ministry as the Highway of God into our world. At this point, all thought of “preparing a highway for God” is gone from our minds. We are that Highway; this is what we do.
“I am the Highway of God; God enters my world now through me. Everywhere I go, in every place and in every moment, God enters my world through me.” – And yes, that is exactly what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:14. – The aroma of His knowledge made known through us in every place.
“God enters my world now through me as every Word He speaks. God enters my world now through me as the Comfort of every broken heart.” – And yes, you will find these two things specifically in 2 Corinthians 1 & 3.
Explaining “Superpowers.”
I have always attempted to counter the image of a “superman” Jesus, and rightly so. God sent Christ into the world in weakness in every way He could underline weakness. Yet humans are so against God coming through the weakness of Jesus that they have recast their images of Him as something super-human. All through His ministry, Jesus insisted that it was God the Father coming through Him as an open channel. Yet Jesus remained weak His entire life.
Nonetheless, as I have thought about the rise in popularity of the “superpower” theme in movies, I have wondered why it is that all super-powers seem to be violence in one form or another.
Why is it that no writer of entertainment ever thinks about a human with an extraordinary “superpower” gift of kindness? Or one who brings abundance everywhere they go?
As I mentioned earlier, J.R.R. Tolkien did just that in his story of Middle Earth, but those qualities of the power to do good for others rarely showed in the movies. In fact, people today just aren’t interested in the power to do good.
During my years in move community, we believed in and experienced regularly the miraculous and uplifting power of the Holy Spirit. It was part of our daily lives and our constant expectation. We always turned to the Lord first and then to other means only by His direction. For most Christians, however, the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit are unusual; they remain an oddity, a spectacle. But for us in the communities, the gifts of the Spirit were just normal parts of everyday life, which is God’s intention.
Although our experience with the power of the Spirit among His people continued since we left that fellowship, and with a measure of blessing added, nonetheless, it was limited because Church was limited to just brief periods of time. And a “power” service was almost as much a spectacle as anything else. The Spirit of God fills whatever form we offer, but He is made for life together.
What I mean to say is that I want to set aside entirely the view of the power of the Holy Spirit as an occasional display, when someone “anointed” comes through for a “miracle” service. And along with setting aside that concept, we also set aside the view of you or me, on our own, “mighty” in ourselves, going around the world we have built, being “Godly.”
God does not send solitary prophets, but the Church together.
Nonetheless, though we know the “superpowers” of Christ only as a Body together, and as normal, everyday sorts of things, each of us are members in particular and are gifted in surprising and unique ways.
Inside of that context, then, what do I mean by a Christ “superpower?”
It is the Spirit that gives life. – Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit. – In Him we live and move and have our being.
Everything that exists, dwells only inside the Spirit of God. Think of birds in the air or fish in the sea. The Spirit is the universal medium, one might say (for want of a better term). You and I affect others only through the Spirit.
Inside that Spirit, the connections among humans provided by demons are stilted and unnatural; that’s why they always feel wrong.
But inside that all-pervasive Spirit, you and I, as sons of God, are the agents of the Spirit. Jesus used the term “rivers” as a specific metaphor, but in the larger sense, what we call an “outflow” of the Spirit is simply the movement of waves inside the depths of a lake. In fact, we could consider the Gulf Stream flowing into the North Atlantic to make northwest Europe far to the north to be green and warm, a great river in the midst of the sea, as a perfect example of “rivers” inside of Spirit.
As sons of God, we have the power in the Spirit to do good. That is, as agents of the Spirit, out from our rest-filled confidence in Christ our life, we release the Spirit to move in the lives of others according to our own personal giftings.
We have the authority; the Spirit of God has the power. Together we affect people’s lives.
Yet all that is invisible. You can’t see the Spirit any more than you can see the wind. What is visible is men and women who, by their touch or word or gesture, bring life and joy, healing and release and love into the lives of those around them. This is the purpose of power. It is God’s original task for humans.
When God has a people who know that the Father shares their lives with them, and that, in response, they share life with one another, then the “miraculous” realms of the Spirit in the heavenlies will become the normal experience of all.
I think that the normal powers of the Spirit through individuals will surprise us.
I Am a Son of God
Knowing God and knowing ourselves are two parts of the same thing. The two kinds of knowing happen only together. Those who try to know God separate from knowing themselves as sons of God, sharing life with the Father, only succeed in knowing a bunch of half-baked ideas about God, ideas that cannot be real. Knowing God is fellowship inside one’s soul. Conversely, those who try to study the human apart from knowing God sink into a mire of hopelessness.
Instead of sharing here concerning my growing sense of certainty that I live only inside God my Father, and that He shares all things with me as a son, I would direct you to the text Symmorphy VI: Mankind. That text is one to be studied more than anything I have written thus far. I would especially recommend that you speak out loud the confession of what you are as a son that is found in Lesson 9.3 “I Am the Entrance of God.”
The truth is that I had paused in writing this text in order to explore the meaning of being a son of God, that is, a normal human, in that text. Much of what I would include in this short space is developed much more fully there. Nonetheless, I want to continue the focus of this text, which is our role as sons to call God into our world, that is, the ekenosis. The ekenosis is calling God into visibility through our human form, sharing our lives with us.
This calling comes out of the full meaning of knowing the Father – AND – ourselves – AND one another. Because God-Revealed is Christians loving one another in full reciprocity.
Word as Life
It is the Spirit that gives life, natural abilities profit nothing. The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life (John 6:63).
There are no such things as words without spirit or spirit without words, whether in God, or in the evil one. Inside of God, our words are alive and filled with transforming power.
Thus power, the ability to impact people’s lives for good, flows through us as Words anointed by the Spirit and accompanied by the gentle touch of our hands, or, as James calls it, our “good works.”
Yet those who are impacted by the “super-power” flowing through us see only us. They hear the Words that we know are Christ, as flavored by our human persona, and they glorify God in us, as Jesus said, as their life is turned to all-goodness by that power.
And, as Paul said, our human personas differ in uniqueness and expression. – There are many varieties of graces or spirit gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord. There are varieties of operations, that is, effects of Energeia, but the same God who energeoes all inside of all. To each one is given the appearance or disclosure of the Spirit for shared profit (1 Corinthians 12:4-7).
Converting Solomon’s Prayer
In our study of the heart relationship with God enjoyed by Old Testament men and women, we have learned so much, especially about prayer. A close look at Solomon’s prayer in the dedication of the temple showed us the very same five “superpowers” I had penciled into the outline of this text.
I changed the order of those five, then, to fit Solomon’s prayer. That order is the power of FORGIVENESS, the power of DELIVERANCE, the power of ABUNDANCE, the power of HEALING, and the power of LOVE.
In our study of Solomon’s relationship with God, we converted his prayer, found in 1 Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles 6, into our knowledge of the gospel. Here, then, is that prayer in gospel terms.
“God, our Father, we acknowledge with all certainty that You have bound Yourself to us and us to You through Covenant inside of the Blood of Jesus.
“Father, the Lord Jesus, who is our life, covenanted with You by great Desire that ALL whom You have given to Jesus would be with Him inside of You. And God, You say that You have bound Yourself to Jesus and thus to us not only by Word, but also by Oath. Therefore, God our Father, now keep what You promised Jesus, that all whom You have given Him would be with Him inside of You, inside His glory.
“Father, we do not ask for ourselves, for we are utterly inside of You and You share Your very Heart with us, but we ask for all of our brethren, millions of Christians all across this earth, who do not yet know You as the fulfillment of this mighty Day of Tabernacles. Father, You say that this House, Your Church, is Your dwelling place forever, the revelation of all that is Love. Father, You say that this Church IS already the fullness of Christ, though she knows it not.
“God, our Father, we call You into our world, to fill Your House with Your glory, that millions of believers in Jesus all across this planet would turn in one mighty stroke to be the revelation of God through them, that they would love one another with pure hearts fervently and with no more thought of ‘someday.’
“Father, cleanse away all consciousness of sins by the magnification of the Blood of Jesus. Cause Your people to know the full purity in which they already walk (Forgiveness). Father, defeat all enemies inside Your Church, those that prevent the knowledge of Your gospel and those that harass the gathering together of Your Church (Deliverance).
“Father, pour out Your abundant provision upon Your people even in this hour of their greatest need, that as they are cut off from this world, so they would find all sustenance coming out from their own faith in You (Abundance). And Father, draw whosoever will into Your abundant LIFE to drink freely of You. Heal them, and make them whole (Healing).
“Arise, O Lord God, through us, Your resting place, as our hearts are the Ark of Your Strength. Let Your people, O Lord God, be clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ in all Salvation, and let Your holy ones rejoice in the good-speaking of Christ through them.”
As you can see, these first four fit directly. I have added a fifth super-power, however, and that is Love. I have said that I have the authority from God to love you. We will see what the power of the Spirit flowing out from that authority might mean.
We know, however, that these powers do not “emanate” from us; rather we think only in terms of our Father, coming through us into our world, being what He is.
Our Five Superpowers
In the next chapter, I will devote two pages to the proving of each of these five powers now released through us. I will introduce them here, however. And when I use the metaphors of fire, water, earth, and air, I am speaking only of Christ Jesus as every Word God speaks. These four qualities are not “pagan,” for they are woven into God’s design of the physical world and they fill the Bible as metaphors.
Forgiveness is the power to release someone from personal sin. Forgiveness is the power of Fire. As we have seen, an individual must receive judgment first before receiving forgiveness. If someone is dishonest towards me, I can forgive them all I want, but they cannot know the meaning of that forgiveness unless they first accept the meaning of their wrong. And thus the Fire of the Spirit moves out from me to open the eyes and to bring such a one to Godly sorrow.
Yet this shows why the power must be the Spirit moving out from, and thus at a distance from me. If I were to try to persuade another of their “wrong,” it would never work. Spirit as Fire alone can bring repentance. – And having come, [the Spirit] will convince the cosmos (and the person) with evidence concerning sin [disconnection from God], and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment (John 16:8).
Deliverance is the power to release someone from demons, from this world, and yes, even from death. Deliverance is the power of Water. Bondage is the human effort to hide in ignorance of the God who carries them. Water represents those soothing qualities of the knowledge of God that enters gently as life and offers to carry away all the hurt inside itself. Yet this power also quenches all thirst so that the person has no desire to turn back to the bondage, as Jesus warned.
Life is the antidote to death, and life is the knowledge of God. Thus this super-power that we possess, sending forth rivers of water into our world, is the power to expose the inadequacies of all hiding places and to persuade people of the just innocence of God. People are convinced that God is up to no good, that He is against them. We have the power to show them that God is good all the time. This is a great power.
Abundance is the power to bring increase of blessing into someone’s life, that is, into the outer parts of their life. Abundance is the power of Earth. In fact, earth as the source of abundance is not just metaphorical, but also literal.
It was always God’s intention that His people would be blessed to overflowing in the good land which He had given to them. He demonstrated that intention with the abundance that flowed under David and Solomon. It was this overflow of blessing that God intended would cause people to acknowledge their God – the goodness of God leads to repentance.
Healing is the power to bring wholeness into someone’s life, that is, into their inward parts, whether spirit, soul, or body. Healing is the power of Air. Healing is the result of liberty. When Jesus said, “Take up your bed and walk,” it was to liberty that the sick man was released. Liberty is wholeness, every wit whole, with nothing restraining or holding back.
Love, then, is the power that reveals God. Love is one thing only; Love is the Father being Himself through us. The other four super-powers are of the Spirit sent forth, but Love is of the Father. The other four super-powers enable people to come to and to receive the Father, that is, Love.
Then, the one who loves rules. Love is the authority of the throne, that is, of the Mercy Seat.
These five super-powers possessed by the sons of God are specific, direct, and overwhelming. They are focused on specific and immediate needs, they touch people directly, and they overwhelm people with the goodness and love of God. This is what Jesus did in His ministry, the same thing.
We’re not talking about that image of “going around doing miracles,” but rather, about the nature of the Spirit through our humanity, through our gentle touch and kind words, anointed by and in league with the Spirit.
Confronting the False
As prophets of Christ, moving in the power of the Devoted Spirit, calling God into our world, we will be confronted from every direction by false prophets, that is, false words and false spirits. In essence, all false callers are, on the one hand, attempting to call “Baal” into power in people’s lives, that is, a “god” who has gone off somewhere, as Elijah said, “maybe taking a piss.” Yet, on the other hand, the false callers really mean to prevent the entrance of God.
The one thing humans can’t stand is God revealed through another human, through human flesh.
Jesus, of course, gives us the full range of responses when confronted with opposing “prophets,” that is, individuals who purport to “speak the truth” or who “defend God,” yet are doing no such thing.
First, He was never touched by their opposition; they never succeeded in turning Him or even getting Him to look aside. Second, He spoke to them gently, at first, that He might win their hearts. Third, when He spoke to them with strength, it was direct to the real issue and NEVER to the non-issue they were arguing. When He did that, they could not respond, for they knew He was reaching for their hearts. Finally, He simply walked away, ignoring their arguments and works as having nothing to do with Him.
In the Shadowfell story, the false caller tried his best to take charge, but died because his inability drained all his strength. When Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, it was a similar thing. They had no real answer, and they perished by the demonstration of their inability.
The Proving of Christ
What is actually happening in this final confrontation between the sons of God moving in power to set people free and the speakers of the false, all the many bondages that have kept people from knowing and acknowledging God, is that Jesus is being proven faithful and true. This is the great determination of God.
God spoke His Word. That Word was defied as untrue and limiting. God will have His Word, the Lord Jesus, demonstrated TRUE and GOOD at every point and in every minute place. This need is a burning necessity inside of God and the underlying cause of so many things in the Bible and in the outflow of the human experience.
The ‘rapture’ and ‘going to’ heaven are the very opposite of Jesus proven faithful and true, for if that is all God can do – get us out of here – then His Word is as weak as the serpent suggested.
God sent Jesus into the totality of the human experience in all weakness, and He has done so again inside of us. And the proving of Jesus through us in all abundance of power is that which touches the least and the greatest, the most seemingly insignificant and that which is deemed important. In all ways and in all places and in every moment, the Word that sustains all is TRUE and it is GOOD.
And it begins with our certain confidence, our continuous rest in the TRUE-ness and GOOD-ness in which we always live and walk.
Jesus proven faithful and true, however, is only a means to an end. The end is Father seen and known inside His creation, Father in joyous fellowship with all.
The Ekenosis, the entrance of Father as All-Carrying Love, is what our super-powers are about. As we know this purpose above all, so the outflow of that river of power from us has all meaning and purpose. Indeed, this is the essence and meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry, to cause people to know the Father, tangibly and for real.
Our ministry in power is the same.