19. Honesty Dispels Dishonesty

© Daniel Yordy – 2020
 

Honesty: The absence of any need to pretend, but rather, in its place, the sheer delight in being human as God made us. The lack of any “need” to be something in self, but rather, in its place, the profound joy of knowing that God shows Himself with and through my weakness.

Dishonesty: The spinning of identities of self in denial of the good speaking of Christ; the attachment of self-identity to anything and everything in this world; the enclothing of “self” with rightness; the outward garbs of superiority and contempt.

This is the door of expression, face, or image; that is, Door 6 is Image.

And this is why God placed the most important verse in the Bible as the ruling verse.

With the image of His Son – Already glorified.

Two images or faces – the face of a real human, even in agony, drawing God and others together inside of Mercy – or – every pretending face, hiding in self rightness, hurling ridicule and blame at others for the justification and solace of self.

What is the face of the Son of God? What image are we? What do we see when we look in one another’s faces?

The Door of Image closed is dishonesty, hiding behind whatever chances by; but the Door of Image flung wide open is honesty, being real as God made us, humans, without pretense or guile.

What does that Door of Image wide open to God mean in our lives? And what is God free to be inside of and through us as He enters as that Door?

Think about the human practice of wearing many different faces to present to a threatening world, a world also held in contempt.

Humans are judges, which is the final Door of this passage, and human judgment is almost always to condemnation. Since we are always looking down on others, finding that they are fallen short of us, we just naturally assume, and usually rightly so, that they also are looking down on us, finding that we have fallen short of them.

Yet as self-assigned “gods,” in claiming that we humans are coming out from ourselves, it is highly offensive to us that others would “see” our nakedness and shame and not our superior image of ourselves.

And so we have practiced all our lives to put a face upon ourselves, the face we think this other person expects to see when they behold our superiority, and a different face for different people and circumstances. Most people are quite skilled at wearing a mask; most of those don’t even know that they are.

Then, consider the face of Jesus upon the cross, the very face of God. Here is what Isaiah said about that face and image.

He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted (Isaiah 53:2-4).

The face of Jesus upon the cross, as we know from David in Psalm 22, was the face of a confused human soul in utmost agony, knowing that he had failed in everything. “I am a worm and no man.”

Image is that face which we “stretch forth” towards others, the identity we wish to project, that is, how we want others to define us.

The face of God that Jesus extended towards all creation, was a human face, utterly real in its nakedness, agony, and sorrow.

Defining the Open Door:
Virtue #6: The proof of Christ through me, that, since my only identity is all the good speaking that is Christ Jesus, the only face I need to present to anyone is my own human face, gentle and real. My face, then, reflects me as I am, in all my abilities and inabilities, joys and sorrows, triumphs and failures. I never have any need to pretend, for no shame exists in me and I have nothing to cover over. Yet my face is also quick to share joy or sorrow with others, in being part of their lives as well, and the gentle kindness of my brow and the delight in my eyes makes others feel welcome and needed.

Virtue #6: My own human face as the very face of God in tender compassion.

Yet the meaning of this open Door 6 goes much deeper than face, for we are talking about the One who bears our griefs and carries our sorrows, that we are just like Him. And so this Door 6, the Door of Image, is matched as the practical application, God together with us, of the first truth of Door 2, the Door of Purpose. Door 2 fulfilled in us is when we accept our brothers and sisters, and all who believe in Jesus, as Jesus Himself, that just as Jesus lives as us, so also He lives as them, that as we need all Salvation ourselves, so we withhold that Salvation from no one.

And so this Door of Image includes you and me, just like Jesus, and out from our shared Hheart with Father, setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

God-in for Us:
I want to take you back again to the fall of 2011, to that moment I now see and have long thought, was the most significant turning point in my life, greater even than the prior union with Christ or the soon-to-come being sealed into God and turning around inside the Holiest.

I was walking with my family out from a wonderful service at Lakewood Church to our car, through our chosen path across a green lawn and by springs of water. It was the season of Tabernacles. As I was walking inside the beauty of the Lord, God turned me right-side-up, and I saw God as He is, for the first time in my life.

I saw a God who walks beneath, a God who is meek and lowly of Heart and who sees others, including me, as better. I saw a God who carries all inside Himself, all the way through the darkness and into life. And most of all, I saw a Father who utterly carries me.

Out from knowing, now, a God who is so wondrously different from what everyone has claimed, I wrote “God Is Beneath Your Feet,” in The Kingdom Rising.

When I write to learn, which is the majority of my writing, I do not plan. I just have a topic, but no idea what might come for that topic. And I do not “figure out” which “verses to use.” Instead, as I am writing, I hear a verse arising from deep inside my heart, coming up to touch the first part of my topic. And then as I write about that verse, I hear another verse, also arising from deep within, and then another and another. Typically, by the time I finish each letter, I am utterly astonished at what just showed up on the page in front of me.

From the moment I saw God as the One who carries me, a verse I had never noticed or considered in my life “stuck its nose under my tent,” one might say. This verse just kept popping up unexpectedly and uncalled for, and I had no choice but to include it over and over, though I had no idea what it meant, this practice of sharing Hheart with God.

By this we have known love, because He set forth His soul for us, AND WE ALSO are committed to setting forth our souls for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16).

Inside that word “image,” and inside this open Door, is God with us, sharing all our agony with us, our travail together for the sake of others, that we would allow God and them to meet together inside our hearts, inside of His love outpoured. This is our true face.

Defining the Door Closed
In complete contrast, holding that door tightly closed and locked is a simple thing. The contempt people feel of other humans simply results in the wearing of every mask under the sun, a life of dishonesty, of pretending to be something they are not.

Of truth, all false identities in the Christian world, all the stories of self that are not Christ my life, including the stories of “I am a pastor” or “I am an apostle,” all of these faces worn to prove “superiority,” are the very faces that hurl their abuse against the “ugliness” (no beauty) of a bloody man hanging stark naked upon a cross of wood, God manifest in the flesh.

Keeping God Out
It is astonishing to me that these people, including Christians, who are hiding themselves behind every dishonest pretending, are also the ones who accuse God that, when He appears in this earth, He “must be” a God of WRATH.

They know that they are fake, and they hate knowing it. And indeed, it is this false definition of our Father that inspires all the trying and lying and crying going on in Christian circles.

Image, of course, comes out from likeness. We present the face of that which we imagine ourselves to be, on the one hand, and then, because we are social creatures as well as judges, we also present the face that we imagine others expect us to be.

The definition given to God (likeness) rules the performance of the human and the manner in which they present themselves to others (image). Really, it becomes “what other people expect that God expects me to perform out from my own expectation of superiority.” This is the hades in which so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ labor.

Because of this expectation of performance, then, the identity Christians create for themselves and the image they wear for others becomes a shield of self-rightness, the driven need to make other people imagine that “I am lining myself up with Christ,” the incredible conceit that “I am mostly successful in doing so,” hanging over the awful abyss of God’s displeasure.

There is a term for this image Christians create – self-righteousness. And self-righteousness, woven as a great armor of superiority, “I am more righteous than all those other Christians who fall short of my definitions of Christ,” Self-righteousness is the greatest barrier erected against the Lord Jesus; as such, it is the greatest Christian sin.

The False Call
What, then, is the “God” who is called falsely through an otherwise closed Door 6 into the knowledge of Christians?

 Calling God in falsely through a closed Door 6 is every preaching of outward human performance as the requirement of God. This is the real dance of the serpent. God is – you ought. Every aspect of this type of preaching, found in almost every sect or church, is, in actuality, the constant injunction of the serpent – “You are not, but you ought to be like God.” – “You are not, but you ought to be like Christ.”

The dance of faces, everything Christians wear, every self-identity Christians weave, is to pretend that “I am more like God than you think,” in response to the deep inner contempt for all those others who are so clearly “fallen short of me.”

The preacher of outward human performance (You must obey God) is driven by the need to be above, to control, and to be seen as “the man of God.” Every practitioner of human self-righteousness is driven by “what will they think about me.” Yet the one who preaches obedience is too dishonest to admit “I fail to obey” or “I am wrong, please forgive me.” And the one who wears the masks to get the “man of God” to think highly of me, is too dishonest to admit that they are utterly empty.  

The real sadness of this whole way of defining “the Christian life,” however, is that “Jesus alive in my heart” and “Father with me,” are left far away out in the cold.

Thus the real crime of this false “God” coming through, the trickster God, the “Do what I say or I will kill you” God, is all the self-noise going on in the Christian mind, noise that keeps the good words of Jesus unheard. And thus God’s true answer is – “You are guilty, Okay, end of story, so close your mouth and cease all your words” (Romans 3 – paraphrased).

The True Call
But look at the true face of Jesus Christ, something utterly different. The true face of Christ is your face, your human face, honest and real, open and kind, gentle and true.

Face and image, however, come from our view of others, not our view of ourselves. Let me say that again. The face people wear never comes from their view of themselves, but always from their view and attitude towards the people to whom they are presenting that particular face.

In other words, just as Door 5 Life/Energeia corresponds with Door 1 Likeness, in the human definition of self, so Door 6 Image corresponds with Door 2 Purpose, in the definition one holds of others.

Specifically – “Receive one another in just the same way that Jesus receives you” (Romans 13:14). The one who practices this true command to “be just like God” is not the least bit concerned about his or her own face, but about the heart and hope of the other.

The result of “receiving one another as Jesus receives us” is an honest face, a human face, the face of Christ.

Nonetheless, Door 2 Purpose is an acceptance that Christ lives as all who believe in Him, whereas Door 6 Image goes much deeper. Image, then, is what comes out from our active involvement with God for the sake of others. It is how we are, right now, most like the Lord Jesus Christ.

Consider the image Jesus extended forth to others during the first three hours on the cross, before the full awfulness came upon Him. Towards His enemies, He extended the face of forgiveness, towards His mother and disciple, He extended the face of honor and regard, and towards the thief beside Him, He extended the face of acceptance, all in His human agony.

And so the God called truly through the Door of Image is our Father, meek and lowly of heart, together with us as Himself, that is as Love, covering all for all, hoping all for all, believing all for all, carrying all for all, just like Jesus.

Comparing False with True
And so calling God in falsely through Door 6 is turning the face of the All-Carrying One into the face of the “All-Pretending One,” the trickster “God,” the God of false fire, both the fire of motivation and the fire of consummation. This is the expectation of a “God of wrath.”

This “God” is preached through “what ‘God’ expects of you.” This is a God who sets out requirements you cannot reach and who punishes you when you fail to reach them.

“You ought to be like Jesus, but you’re not. So get with the program (my definitions of what being like Jesus must be), and pretend to be something you are not, like you have never pretended before.”

And yes, this “God” is preached in every sect and church of my knowledge, in every version one could find of “hear and obey.”

Two types of calling God-IN. Try really hard, and when you fail, don’t let anyone know until you are found out, then cry and cry – or – be yourself; be real; rest utterly in Jesus living as you. Then turn and be compassion with God towards your brethren; enjoy them; love them; set forth your soul, with Father, for their sakes.

To a false prophet of Door 6, there is a need to present a Jesus completely different from the congregation, an image to which they do not measure. This allows the false prophet to impose obligation of performance on the people, with the underlying assumption that he or she is also more righteous than the congregation.

To a true prophet of Door 6, the face of the congregation is the very face of Jesus. As He is, so are they (1 John 4:19). For that reason, the true prophet desires only to encourage and lift up, and to restore those who forget that Christ Jesus is their only life. The true prophet has no need to be righteous in self.

To a false prophet of Door 6, the expectation of performance, performance that no one ever actually fulfills, and all the subsequent dishonesty and wearing of masks, is the rightful way of living to be imposed upon Christians. Dishonesty of self and towards others is encouraged, with all its subsequent trying, lying, and crying. And so the congregation is called to cry before God on a regular basis.

To a true prophet of Door 6, the expectation of being real as the humans God made us to be, rejoicing in one another’s differences, and a continuous and utter trust in the righteousness of Jesus now the rightness of all, is the wonderful way of living to be shown to God’s people. Honesty of self and towards others is encouraged, along with the willingness to say without any self put-down, “I was wrong; please forgive me.”

To a false prophet of Door 6, exposing “sin,” that is, convincing people that they are fallen short of God, is the right formula for getting them to submit to the false prophet’s superior rightness. The false prophet sees little or no value in their hearts.

To a true prophet of Door 6, joining with Father to carry each one of those who belongs to Jesus inside of a shared Hheart with God, setting forth his or her soul for them, is the right formula for winning each dear one as wondrous treasure forever.

The True Dispels the False
How, then, does the true calling of God into ourselves through Door 6 dispel as a meaningless vapor the dishonesty of pretending?

Here is something we have to understand. Pretending vanishes only by turning around. You see, the one who knows that “I am coming every moment out from my Father,” and “My every circumstance is Father with me for the sake of others,” the one who knows that “I cannot take a step that is not utterly embedded in and always coming out from God-Love,” is someone who is simply unconcerned about themselves.

And since “Father with me,” is where one lives through faith alone, then “for the sake of others” is the only way that one sees by the speaking of Christ.

There are two transformations in the Christian life, first comes the transformation of face from pretending to real (2 Corinthians 3:18) and then, after the real face of a human Christ becomes our face towards others, the second transformation is our bodies swallowed up by life.

And, of truth, I am beginning to see the resurrection, not as our becoming something different, as the pretenders long for, but our finally becoming truly real as humans, just like Jesus, with any need to pretend long, long forgotten.

Nonetheless, in the present time, self-righteousness remains pervasive and familiar, even in those of us who are learning the depths of Christ our only life. And this self-rightness always comes in the expression of “they are not (as) righteous (as I am),” which is the reverse of what’s being declared, which is, “I am more righteous than they.”

Few understandings are more important than the deep visceral knowledge of no sufficiency in ourselves. That means that, on my own, I AM utterly bereft of value or right.

Yet we are going right at the heart of identity, how we define ourselves. And this is why it is so important to go with David into the mind of Jesus upon the cross in Psalm 22, and to know, all through our own souls, the utter failure of the human Jesus. It is only here that the last desperate gasps of needing to be “superior” will vanish away.

Yet that dispelling of the false happens, not by negation, but by sharing with Jesus the setting forth of our souls for the sake of each one who belongs to Him, no matter how offensive they might appear to be, nor how awful we might feel.

Let us Pray
“Father, I know that I am always coming out from Your thoughts concerning me, through the good-speaking of Jesus. I know that every aspect of my human person, as I find myself to be, is an expression of Your character and personality. Therefore, Father, I accept that my every circumstance and situation, my every stumbling step, is You with me, sharing my life with me and sharing Your travail with me for the sake of others, for each one who belongs to Jesus. Father, I receive You always into my soul, as part of me, no matter how awful I feel. And Father, I receive my brother or sister into my heart, no matter how offensive I imagine them to be. And here, inside our wide-open Hheart, Father, we set them free inside of You.”

The Meaning of God-Through
What does this wide open Door 6, the Door of Image, mean, then, for God’s entrance into His creation through and then beyond us?

God cannot enter into the knowledge of anyone except through those who share with Him His travail for the sake of each.

All pretending is a hard rejection of sharing Hheart with God, just as all condemning of others is a sharing of heart with Satan.

And so a world in which Father is free to show Himself as He is, is a world that contains no need to pretend, because each one sees others as better and is on the lookout for their interests above his or her own. There is no self-abasement in such a world, for the winning of one another’s hearts is the winning of all treasure forever.

It is a transfer of value, from valuing a face presented against all, to valuing the hearts of each one above all, from paying a price to be superior to paying a price to see others honored and valued as Christ Himself.