30. Sent as Life
© Daniel Yordy – 2020
Defining Life
The word “life” has many very different definitions, just as the word “death” does. We could set life as the antithesis of death in each of its definitions. Let’s try that just for starters.
The primary and clearest definition of life is knowing the Father through Jesus Sent into us. In correspondence with that, the largest definition of death is not knowing God and all the awfulness that exists in such a state.
And so, by saying that the knowledge of God enters into our world through our hearts and shows itself to all as our love for one another, we are saying that life is entering through us to cause all things to live.
God never intended a creation that would live by any other means than the knowledge of God coming through believers in Jesus. There is no such thing as a universe of life apart from the Church.
God created all things innocent, but nothing created can know God of itself. It was God’s full intention that life would come to all things in creation through Adam and Eve as they rejoiced in a symmorphic relationship with God through Jesus and as they loved one another.
Our problem here, however, is that we have not actually defined “life,” what it is, but rather how it comes and part of what it does.
Before continuing, let’s set out two very different things that are both called “life,” and that both figure in any complete definition. On the one hand, life is that animating force that causes an otherwise inanimate gathering of chemicals to function as a living thing. And so for us, life is the energeia of God energeoing us. On the other hand, life is the human story, as “the days of my life.” I am writing my autobiography, that is, my own life story written.
It is the Spirit who gives life; the words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life (John 6:63). Life, in both of its realms of expression, is Spirit and Word always together.
And so, my life story, the words of my account, merged together with the knowledge of Father with me, a knowing that comes by the Spirit, is LIFE.
I am becoming alive.
As I was finishing my series, The River of Life, I shared a dream I had in which the resurrection came upon us as gently flowing bubbles of life, transforming our bodies into youthful wholeness. Here is another way of saying the exact same thing. – Put the Lord Jesus Christ upon every particle of your being and upon every moment of your days.
This letter, however, is not about defining life, per se, but about you and me sent into creation as the life of that creation, giving life to all, that is, giving the knowledge of God to all.
This is why FIRE must always come first and why Water as Life must follow immediately after. You see, the world’s first problem is not it’s ignorance of God, but it’s knowledge of all sorts of things that are not true. And – each individual person is fixated on a story of self that is perverse and unreal.
Fire as judgment comes primarily to elicit one response, and that is to get this one person to close their mouth about their own self-story, just for a moment, so that, in that moment, they can look away from themselves and see Jesus trading His life for theirs.
Life is the entrance of Jesus as the knowledge of God into the heart of each individual person. Thus judgment, in and of itself, cannot benefit anyone. Judgment opens the door for Life to enter.
Here, then, is a clear expression of being sent as life.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone should hear My voice and open the door, I will go in towards him and will dine with him and he with Me (Revelation 3:20).
Jesus lives in us as the words of our self-story as we are filled with the knowledge of Father-with-us.
To synergeo with God, turning all things good, is to share Life with God, God and you together coming to each one and showing them Jesus upon every moment of their life and every word of their story.
It is not we ourselves who “enter into” this one as their life, for that is not the symmorphy of God. Rather, our symmorphy with Jesus is known inside the Church as fellowship, as knowing one another as the Lord Jesus through each one.
To put it very simply, our role as life-givers is to show, by our own lives and by kind actions and gentle words, how this one’s self-story has always been Jesus with them, if they would but acknowledge Him. And so, we must know this Father who is coming through Jesus in all of His words and we must know this one human, lonely and afraid, in all the words of their own self-story, so that we might show them how the two sets of words have always been one.
Be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5).
This has always been the ministry of the Church towards all creation.
Four Actions of Life
We looked at what water does in its action with itself, with earth, with air, and with fire.
In itself, water dissolves impurities and carries them away. This is also one of the primary functions of blood in the human body, to carry away the built-up waste from each cell.
Water springs forth out from the earth, springs of living water. And thus the earth is as the origin of that life inside of us, that is, earth speaks of God deep in us, certain, firm, and solid. Then we realize that blood originates out from bone marrow, the deepest part of firm “earth” in our bodies.
Water also comes with the air as rain. Rain speaks of abundance of growth and the flourishing of all living things. Blood in the human body, while taking away the wastes, on the one hand, also brings with it all good things needed by each cell in the body.
Finally, we would think that water with fire would cancel each other out, water quenches fire and fire boils water away. But think of a car engine. The fire in the cylinders powers the car, but the water flowing through the block keeps the metal parts cooled down so that the fire does not melt everything. Of truth, this same function is why water is always flowing through a plant, to moderate the heat of the fire from the sun.
Then we see that the most important thing carried by the blood is oxygen, which, when connecting with the form of hydrogen in the body, that is, calories, causes them to burn, or to “oxidize,” generating the energy by which the body moves. It is said that a person can survive a few weeks without food, a few days without water, but only a few minutes without oxygen.
Let’s transfer all of these qualities over to LIFE, then, Life that is knowing God through knowing Jesus Sent into us, that is, Life going forth from us to all.
Water that Dissolves – Life that Carries
Human weakness is forever, for that is God’s perfect design of us. Forgiving one another, giving space for one another, is forever, for that is how God shows Himself through us.
Life that carries is truly the first part of life. Of all the glorious displays of the meaning and power of life in the Bible, only one stands above all others as being the most precious to us, and that is Gethsemane, that Jesus, in His agony, took you and me into Himself that He might carry us, in all of our shame and perversity, through every stumbling step, all the way through death and into life.
Webster’s Dictionary says that water is the most useful of all solvents. There are more powerful solvents for specific things than water, yes, but they are not nearly as useful, for water is benign to the human touch and it is more universal in its carrying capacity. Without knowing for certain, then, I wonder if the carrying quality of water isn’t part of its homeopathic ability, to come into harmony with whatever frequencies it touches.
Jesus came into harmony with my sorrow and grief, that’s how He was able to carry me inside Himself. Jesus won my heart mostly because He received ME as I am.
Of all the good people God has placed into my life, John Eldredge and Joel Osteen hold a unique place together in my heart, for it was those two whom God sent into my life as water that carries, receiving me as I am and gently washing away all the incredible hurt of my soul. God sent them as life to me, life that carries me, even while dissolving and taking away all my shame.
When the blood comes to each cell in the body, it carries energy and sustenance for that cell, both essential parts of life. But, of truth, that cell is “in pain,” with the accumulation of normal waste products. And thus, even as the blood imparts energy and sustenance into the cell, the first most important thing for the cell is that the blood removes its pain.
This “pain” is important, for how else does the cell know to get rid of the build-up of normal process toxins? In a similar way, we would never know to go to the bathroom if we did not experience discomfort.
For God, then, to send us as life into the world, the first thing it means is that we carry others, each individual person whom God places into our lives, in all their human weakness.
To carry each one as life means that we receive that one as they are, that we value their persons as our great treasure, that we highly respect and regard them, that we enjoy all their quirks and idiosyncrasies, that we forgive their offenses, that we bear with their “stink,” without “wrinkling our nose,” that we soothe their hurts, that we carry them inside our hearts before God every moment.
This is life, age-unfolding life, life forevermore.
Water that Springs Forth – Life that Originates
Whoever might drink out of the water that I will give him, will never thirst in this age, but the water that I will give him will become inside of him a spring of water bubbling up into age-unfolding life (John 4:14).
Springs of water are always bubbling up out from the earth. In this case, the earth represents God’s Pro-Knowing, God our Rock, fixed and certain, out from which the waters of life spring up inside of us every moment.
Specifically, God uses water springing up, water of life, to represent to us Spirit and Word always together arising out from God’s thoughts concerning each one of us, to become us through the speaking of Jesus in every moment.
People put on a hard exterior primarily because they are in pain deep inside themselves, lonely and afraid. It is as we carry away that hurt inside our regard for them that they become willing to consider Christ living as them.
And so, this second action of water follows the first. To be sent as water springing up is not for ourselves to become part of that flow of God’s thoughts becoming this person. Rather, our part is to show each one that the song of their human heart has always been the Father inside of them, and that God designed them as the humans they truly are as an expression of Himself.
We connect people to their only Source, out from whom they have always come. We do this with gentle words of speaking Christ made personal as them, following our action of receiving them as they are.
Water that Blesses with Abundance – Life that Gives all Good Things
I came that they might possess life and may possess it abundantly [excessively – beyond all expectation] (John 10:10).
Life is provision and sustenance. To be sent as Life is to carry with us for others all good things that they need in their lives. And when we say abundance of all good things, we mean good things of the heavens, good things of heart and soul, and good things of the earth, that is, all material blessings.
Those who teach a “Christ of poverty” do not know the Father.
This now: “The one sowing sparingly, will also reap sparingly, and the one sowing upon good-speaking, will also reap upon blessings.” As each one proposes in the heart, not out of grief or of necessity; for God loves a hilariously cheerful giver. Now God is powerfully able to make all grace abound into you, so that you may abound always, in every way, having all sufficiency in every good work. As it has been written: He has distributed abroad, He has given to the poor, His righteousness abides and continues into the age (2 Corinthians 9:6-9).
God does not give thoughtlessly, however, but with great purpose. We humans tend to sit back and take it easy to our own detriment. We are most “alive,” however, when we are “on a mission,” when we have great purpose at hand. Yet the emptiness of sloth is not as great as the emptiness of the diligent when they discover that they do not have sufficient to finish the work.
Life is all sufficiency in every good work.
I recently visited again the Homestead Heritage Christian Community just north of Waco, Texas. This community serves the larger public around them daily, customers who come to them to receive much good benefit. I saw that they have prospered in all their work. This action of life is an essential function of Christian Community, life forevermore, inside every local area. There are always entrepreneurs who create the larger amount of abundance for society, whose work does not fit into the life of a Community of Christ. Nonetheless, the abundance coming out from each local Community is an abundance of culture, of life meaning, of purpose and direction.
I am convinced that, in the Kingdom of God, the abundance of life in all good things, flowing out from life together in local Communities of Christ, will be the very energeia of all society.
Water that Gives Life – Life that Energeoes
Life is that which energeoes and animates, that which “gives spirit to.”
It’s hard to define the difference between a living, laughing, breathing body and a corpse, not their appearance, but that quality inside that we call “LIFE.” Nonetheless, the testimony of the eyes is profound, that one is dead and the other is ALIVE. That is, we can describe the difference, even though we can hardly “define” it.
I am thinking of Ezekiel’s experience with speaking life into a valley filled with dry bones. I will not bring in the passage here, but you can read it in Ezekiel 37:1-14.
“I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.
As James said – the body without the spirit is dead.
This picture is not life as water, however, but life as air, the breath of life.
Life as water is the springing forth of plant life from the earth.
And so we conclude that water as life operates always in conjunction with fire, water and fire together. It is fire that provides the energy and water that calms the heat. Fire without water would burn up everything in its energy. Water, the water of life, allows Fire to be what it is inside of us without destroying us.
If any man thirst (fire), let him come to Me and drink (water).
You can see that I have no idea what any of this means. I just like putting things out where we can see them, that God might be Life inside of us.
And thus we see that we are Sent as Life to the degree that God is Life in us.
Flexible Change
Then, from Juliette Marillier we receive the understanding of water as that which is fluid and adaptable, flowing with whatever is thrown our way, flexible, willing to change, willing to be, as Paul said, all things to all men. This quality of water might be the most important to us in our sending, for it allows us to connect with people as they ARE in the present moment.
Being flexible for the sake of others might be easy for some, but it’s not easy for me.
Here, then, is the meaning I am searching for. – Our Lord… has come into being according to the power of an indissoluble or endless life (Hebrews 7:16).
This is fascinating. One could say that water can be a solvent BECAUSE it is indissoluble.
I can carry your pain because I cannot lose anything. I can flex when I need to flex because I KNOW Father with me, that I cannot ever suffer loss. This is the power of an endless life, that we can give everything away even while remaining filled with all overflowing abundance.
I think this might be the deepest knowing of Father-with-me, that I could be pulled here and there by others, that their hunger is always requiring things of me, that their stumbling is always forcing me to step aside from what I had intended, for I KNOW Father-with-me, and I cannot ever lose a thing.
Here is the great peace that rested upon Jesus as He was tried before men.
Sent as Life
What is happening in these two letters on Water is that God is giving us what I have been searching to know for over five years, ever since “Sustaining all things by the Word of His power” entered our understanding just before I began the Symmorphy series.
And that is exactly what does it mean and how does it happen that we come into full singing together with God in Word and in Spirit, in chorus and in tune, as all the strings of our lives come into full harmony with the strings of God.
How do we KNOW God? What is this God whom we know?
If God is God, then the word “KNOW” must increase in surprising and unexpected, beautiful and overwhelming ways forever.
To be sent as life, then, is to impart to each individual person the knowing of God in the inside of them. But, of course, that is Jesus, and so we show them Jesus alive in their hearts and living as them.
And the greatest proof of Jesus is Christians loving one another.
That, then, is the other part of life, which is always paired with knowing God through Jesus, and that is knowing one another inside life together.
In a very real sense, then, being sent as life is showing people how to live, how to live their lives and how to live in a world with other humans, that is, together.
Sent as Life Together
Here is something I wrote at the beginning of this letter. – “God never intended a creation that would live by any other means than the knowledge of God coming through believers in Jesus. There is no such thing as a universe of life apart from the Church.”
To be sent into creation as life is to be sent as Community, to be sent as life together.
I want to briefly apply these qualities and actions of water, now, to our life together as the Church, set in the midst of society as the source of the knowledge of God flowing out.
The appearance of God, that is, God seen and known, that is, God made visible, that is, what God looks like, is one thing and only one thing forever. That one thing is the Church, humans living life together, loving one another with pure hearts fervently.
The Church together IS the fullness of Christ. Loving one another IS the full completion of Jesus.
To be sent as life is to be sent as the Church together, as small Communities of Christ in every local place. Those Communities, then, set everywhere in all places of heaven-earth, among all society of men and angels, ARE the springing forth of life to all, life forevermore, as David said.
Humans in all their complexity, in all their human strengths and weaknesses, in all wisdom and foolishness, all stumbling and soaring, yet in all things, loving one another, moving together in full synchrony, this is the revelation of God forever.
A flock of birds turns together in the air because in every instance, each individual bird instantly gives space to the bird next to it, as that bird encroaches upon it, and “voila!” the entire flock moves through the sky in grace and grandeur.
Be fluid as water – in life together as the Church.
People will come from all over to these Communities of Christ because it is there that they find LIFE, water to drink, joy abounding with purpose in their own limited sphere. And they will return to their homes rejoicing, fill with LIFE in all abundant overflow, giving to others what they also received from their visit to Christian Community.
Water is God Himself being life to others through our life together, knowing one another.