1. What Will It Look Like?

© Daniel Yordy – 2020

A question has arisen inside of me and I must know its answer. The problem is I have only a sense of it; clarifying the question(s), then, is the first part of this exercise. I want to give an outline of various things first, then I will expand on each as I attempt to weave them together.

First, here is the larger issue.  – The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 40:3-5).

Prepare a highway for God – I am suddenly faced with the realization that this is the most important thing to God, that only humans can do such a thing, and that we have not.

We have not because we have refused.

Second, writing my life story is bringing something into my life and reality that I have never known or considered. I had always imagined my life to be haphazard, that I had bounced around from this to that with little purpose or direction. That foolish bit of nonsense has vanished completely, BUT – I am simply astonished as I begin to see what really is the straight arrow-shot of God through all my years.

I am realizing that God arising in me has always been wondrously true and that my judgment of others has always been embarrassingly false. This effort of God to persuade me that the word arising in me has always been God Himself on the one hand and His effort to persuade me that my outward judgment is wrong, wrong, wrong on the other hand, has been as the continual and heavy beating of little hammers through all the years of my life.

I sit here inside of a profound realization. When I judge God arising in me, I am always right. When I judge others by outward projection, I am always wrong. I can show you “ten thousand” instances of God’s effort to persuade me of each, to convince me that one is God and the other is not-God.

Third is the issue of the anointing – I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh. Why does God anoint the flesh? You see, in a sense, God’s practice of anointing human flesh has deceived or at least distracted us. We see the anointing resting upon powerful humans. We recognize rightly that it is God. But – we do not realize that the purpose of the human rules that anointing and that they are not necessarily going in God’s direction.

You can do anything you want with the Word God speaks, anything at all. You can do anything you want with the Spirit God gives, anything at all.

Consider a fully equipped large wood shop set up for the use of many students at once. Picture thirty 8^th grade boys rushing into that wood shop with the instructions to do anything they want without supervision. Then picture five professionals with graduate degrees in fine furniture-making working in the same shop (no junior high boys); they also are free to do whatever they want without supervision.

Give the junior high boys a month in that shop. You will undoubtedly have a number of crude wood products at the end of that time. I suspect, however, that the number of injuries, including serious injuries, will far outnumber any actual results.

Consider the anointing of the Spirit as a “Spirit shop.” You and I have zero experience, none whatsoever, in graduate level work taking place in God’s “Spirit shop.” All that we have ever known is the work of junior high kids playing with power tools. This includes our own personal experience with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Place is junior high school. Most of God’s people have refused even to leave the primary grades and enter junior high. Yet all Christians in the Holy Place have, until now, refused to leave junior high and go on to know the Lord.

All of the power tools in God’s Spirit shop are of great importance to professionals, but junior high boys have no idea. Nonetheless, a season in junior high is entirely in God’s order. What is not in God’s order is grown adults still playing reckless games with God’s Spirit.

Fourth, think of the absolute law of God that rules this issue.

And God said to them, “Subdue” (Genesis 1:28). – “You have put all things in subjection under [man’s] feet.” For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under [man] (Hebrews 2:8). – For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29).

Man is the master; humans are fully in charge of God seen and known.

“Prepare the way of the Lord” is not up to God.

I just saw the phrase, “the devil made me do it,” again recently. NO, rather, “you made the devil do it.” It is always the human who forces demons to anoint his or her perverse intentions.

When God spoke “Subdue” to humans, in those words, He placed all created things under human control. The terrible part of such an action is that it never enters God’s mind to change that role given only to mankind.

Creation cannot and will never know God apart from humans.

The great accusation against God is that if God is so “loving,” then why does He allow all these horrifying things to happen to children?

It never enters God’s mind to remove human control over all of heaven and earth.

It is humans, you and me, who are fully responsible for all those horrifying things happening to children. We are the ones keeping God out.

Then, fifth, I am thinking about this assertion that I have made a number of times, that we have never known a world of life. The only outward reality in both heaven and earth that we have known is Adam’s split-apart world of sin and death.

The arising of a world of life, Father seen and known, is something we have never tasted or considered. Everything we know of God at present is clutched fiercely inside the paradigm of good and evil, a reality that only kills.

You and I may have entered high school in our knowledge of God, and are now considering serious purposes for all the knowledge and power in the school shop. Yet we have not yet gone on to college in our knowledge of God, let alone graduate school.

“College” is walking together as a local church inside the full knowledge of Christ our only life, and practicing together being the Mercy Seat of God towards one another and towards all. God will be known and creation will be set free only out from Church together.

Nonetheless, from where we sit at present, this “Church together” is simply a necessary part of God proceeding down the highway you and I are placing before Him right now.

Now, the source of this question is this issue of a problematic “anointing” and God with me.

My trip to Tennessee this last October to share this word of Christ our life with a small group of people gathered in a brother’s home was a big deal in my life. Through my experience for those several days, God drew a deep and wide line in the concrete and showed me quite clearly on which side of that line He had fixed me.

God slammed the door shut on something very specific and He allowed my tail-end to be caught in that slam just enough to give me the right amount of “sting,” so that I would never look in that direction again.

I am talking about the use of the anointing.

All we have ever known of the use of the anointing is what we have known by observing and practicing and being impacted by powerful men and women playing games with power tools in junior high school.

Let me set before you three anointings I have known, those anointings upon Sam Fife, Buddy Cobb, and Joel Osteen.

Now, we use the plural form – “anointings” – because God pours out from His Spirit upon ALL flesh. That means that what each person is, as an individual human, rules the flavor and purpose of the Spirit of God upon them.

Human flesh is always in charge of the manifestation of God’s Spirit.

I doubt that any ministry in the Christian church during my life-time was anointed by God with power greater than that anointing which was upon Sam Fife. And the evidence for that assertion was apparent in every direction. More than that, although Sam Fife remained in most of his understanding and practice in the Holy Place, in a junior high usage of the power of God’s Spirit, he did have one foot inside the Holy of Holies.

Half of what I teach you now came to me out from that portion of Brother Sam coming out from the Holiest. This was the power to know God; a power moving through Sam Fife with which I connected with all my capacity. Nonetheless, the power of the anointing upon Brother Sam to affect people, to bring Spirit realities into people’s lives, to transform, to set people into the way of God, was still only Holy Place, that is, junior-high use of power.

Somewhere between 3000 and 5000 mature believers in Jesus were compelled by the power of God coming through Sam Fife to sell all they owned and move into Christian community towards the vision, coming out from the Holiest, of God revealing Himself through His Church.

I went to Tennessee in the slim hope that God would prove that the word I share is of Him by anointing me with a slight portion of that in which Sam Fife moved. And please understand this, there is no doubt in my mind that if I had been as Sam Fife preaching in that home, the Spirit of God would have come upon that whole group in mighty demonstrations of power, Bob Taranjo would likely have become a prominent ministry alongside of me, and all of them would have sold everything and moved into Christian community. They would have been caught in the power and vision of God.

That is what happened over and over everywhere Sam Fife went.

I will not complain about the circumstances, but God made sure I knew that He was doing no such thing through me.

Here is the problem. Those who followed Sam Fife into Spirit-filled Christian community knew only a junior-high, Holy Place, in-part level of the anointing. And the vast majority of them count their time in move community as the biggest mistake of their lives. Even those who draw some good out of it do not speak of their time in the move publicly, at least as far as I know.

Though I certainly cannot know for sure, I am not aware of anyone else coming out from that experience who is sharing now those many things that were truly of God in the way that I do.

Everyone wants God to show Himself through outward demonstrations of power – and there is no question that God’s Spirit power tools are vital to the revelation of God inside of creation.

But then I wrote of my last year at the Bowens Mill Christian Community. And I said this: “This was a mighty piece of evidence in God’s years-long campaign to persuade me to trust that it is He who is speaking inside of me.”

Here is part of what I just put into The Jesus Secret II.  True/Truth (from Webster’s 1926): God is true to me in what He speaks. God’s words to me are steady, adhering to me as His friend in His promises and allegiance to me. God’s words are faithful and loyal to me; they are not false. God’s words are a true friend. What God tells me is always honest, just, and upright. There is no trickery or pretense in anything God speaks to me. God’s words to me are conformable to fact; they are the actual state of things. His words are the true likeness of the Jesus who speaks them. They provide an accurate history of me and of Christ. God’s words are a genuine reflection of what He is inside of Himself; they are a true account of me.  

Without any self-assertion and with tears in my eyes, I can truly say that the Word that has always arisen inside of me has always been purely out from God.

And without any self-abasement, but in simple honesty, I can truly say that all judgment I make and have ever made by outward appearance has been utterly and painfully WRONG.

Yet as I am placing the Lord Jesus Christ upon every season of my life, bringing all offense and all whom I love into the Mercy Seat of my heart, and there releasing them into God, I am discovering a level and quality of the ANOINTING that I have never known or heard tell of or perceived in anyone.

And by that present perception, I can see the role towards me of the differing anointings that were upon Buddy Cobb and Joel Osteen. Notice I said, “role towards me.” I am not a judge of anyone else. Why these two? Because I have sat under the teaching of these two men more hours almost than that of any other ministers of the word.

That foot that Sam Fife had thrust into the Holiest was the portion that Buddy Cobb cut off from acceptable move theology. Yet Buddy Cobb was mightily anointed of the Spirit of God as well. Nonetheless, all I perceived coming towards me from his ministry was a barrier, a stone wall, a dead-end canyon, keeping me out. This was absolutely necessary for me. You see, it was only after I finally caved in and began to teach the same things myself that I came to the utter despair God intended. You will see this story unfolding in my autobiography.

My only conclusion regarding Buddy Cobb towards me is that he was the same as Eve, deceived. No one would imagine that he was not sincere and fixed in his commitment to God.

In complete contrast, although Joel Osteen had much less knowledge of Holy Place things than did Buddy Cobb, my perception of his role towards me is entirely different. When I sat under Joel and Victoria’s teaching, and even more, inside the anointing of God coming through them, I received wondrous views in my own spirit of God in the heavens. And all I ever knew from Joel was a finger pointing forward – Go on to know the Lord in all that God intends.

Buddy Cobb used the anointing to keep God’s people locked under sin in the flesh, as do most ministers throughout the Church. Joel Osteen used the anointing to point those who could hear forward into all that God is, as God intends.

I now understand why God placed Joel Osteen as the most influential evangelical pastor in the history of Christianity. It has nothing to do with mental ideas. I will also show you later on, if I continue this as a series, how speaking against Joel Osteen is speaking against the Almighty. Not because Joel Osteen is anything, but because God fills His church. Those who engage in such a practice towards anyone demonstrate that they choose never to know God, but only their own self-glory. We are free to not agree or to go a different way, but only rebellion speaks against.

Now, I am driving with purpose towards articulating the great question that is presently arising inside of me.

Consider this great contradiction inside my present experience.

You see, even though you would not be reading me for I would not be writing if I did not believe that I was sharing with you God’s true words, still, it has taken God so much effort to cause me to accept that it is, in fact, He, who is speaking His gospel through me. A strongly rational mind living inside of deep insecurity is slow to accept that “I” would have the true words of God for His Church, especially since what I share seems to be contrary to what everyone else is preaching.

I have been sending out this letter for eleven years. Only a couple of readers from early on are still with me. At the present time a little over 40 individuals open my letter each time. The most ever was “Heading to New Mexico,” opened by 68 people. Yet through the years, it has been about the same number – 40-50 readers. Of those 20-30 are consistent readers over time.

Here is the million-dollar question. If God really is speaking His perspective of what He means by what He says through this bloke called “Daniel Yordy,” why on earth is this word seemingly going nowhere?

And the Tennessee trip put an end to any thought that “power” might come upon me in the way I have known such power for the sending forth and establishing of Word in the lives of many.

Then I write “A Song in Great Difficulty” in my autobiography, and find God with me as I have never known.

Here is the urgency of God that has always rested upon me, the direction of my life, and the hand of the Almighty every step of my way.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

I have titled my autobiography Prepare a Path.

There is no human strength in me that can use the anointing to thrust God’s people into – what? The same horror into which Sam Fife placed us? Thank you God for stripping from me all human ability.

So here is my question.

When we see “the glory of the Lord revealed and all flesh seeing it together,” will we be looking at an anointing never known by any in Christianity before? Will we be looking at something so unlike the playing of junior high school?

And here is God’s answer.

Blessed be [speak well of] the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who according to His manifold mercy, having conceived us again into a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ out from the dead to an inheritance imperishable and undefiled and unfading, being kept in the heavens entering into you who are being guarded, watched over, and kept inside the power of through-faith [through bold confidence against all human seeing and judgment} into salvation ready and complete to be unveiled [the cover taken off so that what has been all along is now made visible] in the opportune time [the right season].

In this you greatly rejoice, for a little while at present if being necessary, you are having been put to grief in various trials, so that the proving of your faith, more precious than perishing gold, through fire being refined, it [your faith] might be found into praise and glory and honor inside the unveiling of Jesus Christ; whom, not having seen, you love, into whom now [though] not seeing [outwardly], believing, moreover you exult with joy inexpressible and filled with glory, receiving the full completion of your faith, the salvation of your souls {your self-story, you entire human consciousness.} – Therefore, having girded up the loins of your mind, being sober-minded, fully set your hope upon the being brought to you grace inside of the unveiling of Jesus Christ… (1 Peter 1:3-9 & 13 – rough JSV).

Let’s re-word that last bit slightly.

Set your hope fully upon the carried-to-you grace inside of the unveiling of Jesus Christ.

Let me expand on my question, putting it out there as I am seeing it.

Writing River of Life brought so many things together in my understanding. One of those happenings is the coming together of (1) our giving an account of our life with nothing hidden, (2) giving thanks for the sake of all, and (3) every knee bowing and every tongue speaking the same word that is Jesus.

I know that it is a provocative presumption for me to assert, yet because I must know God through me, I will do so, that my writing of my life-story contains in it some of the first parts of this full reality in the human experience.

How can I say that? Look what is happening inside of me. The crooked places are all going straight, the rough places are smoothing out, the high places are no longer exalted and the low places are no longer abased.

I have the astonishing experience, beyond astonishing, of looking at my years at the Ridge at Bowens Mill and finding only goodness and the wondrous hand of God bringing me straight to this present opening now before God to rush out into His creation.

Christians have had the authority these 2000 years to keep God out, and they have used that authority to full measure.

You and I have the authority to allow God to show Himself as He is inside of creation.

And as He does, how will it happen and what will it look like?

Supposition #1. Nothing in Holy Place Christianity will show us.
Supposition #2. It will be wondrously sweet and take everyone by surprise.
Supposition #3. It will throw everyone deep into the valley of decision.
Supposition # 4. God is not the devil’s image and gospel.

I walked through the Barnes and Noble book store yesterday looking at all the new titles on offer. Through the entire hour there, all I could see was this realization, that no one knows what is a world of life. No one expects God among us.

If I continue with this topic, I will explore some of the things raised in this letter as well as wherever else the Spirit takes me.