4.  I Speak Whom God Says I Am

And just as God speaks His word, expecting that word to return to Him fulfilled, so we believe what God said, and we speak what He said. We speak who we are; we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus.

© Daniel Yordy 2008

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into that same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:18

God has already made us alive in our spirits. We are looking forward to the redemption of our body, when our physical body is swallowed up in the resurrection. We are in this in-between state, in-between our conception, when we were born again, and our birthing when we come forth in the full light of day as the sons of God. This development of Christ in us, the transformation of our souls, happens in us as we behold Jesus. He is the One we see living in our hearts.

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.1 John 3:2-3

With our eyes fixed on Jesus, we are transformed into His image as we see Him as He really is. Now, although our view of Christ includes Jesus as He walked on this earth, revealing to us the nature of the Father and showing us how we live and walk, yet that is only a part of our view of Jesus. We also see Him as He is now. And we see Him as He is in two ways. We see Him as the resurrected Christ, exalted above all the heavens, seated at the right hand of the Father. And we see Him as the one who lives in our hearts, become flesh once again inside of us.

I would like to show you a law of God, a principle of His being by which He operates. Understanding this principle of God is essential to our transformation.

I have made you (Abraham) a father of many nations in the presence of Him whom he believed – God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things that do not exist as though they did. Romans 4:17

Who calls those things that do not exist as though they did!

Isaiah speaks of this same manner in which God operates.

Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other . . . declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying ‘My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure’ . . . Indeed, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass, I have purposed it, I will also do it. Isaiah 46:9-11

When God begins a work, He has the completed state of that work fully in His mind. Everything is with God right now. There is no such thing in God as things that will be future and things that are past. Everything with God is present. But then God moves into the realms of time, and from our point of view, it looks like past, present, and future. Things that to us do not yet exist, exist fully in God.

God begins His work by speaking a word. God said, “Let Us make man in Our image and after Our likeness and let him have dominion.” What God had in mind when He said, “Let us make man” was the end of His work, not Adam.

When Isaiah says of God, “Declaring the end from the beginning,” he means that from the very start, God speaks into the realms of time that which He intends to bring out of the workings of time.

“For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be, that goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to Me void (unfulfilled, without fruit) but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:10

The Word that came forth from God’s mouth is Jesus. In the beginning, when God said, “Let there be light,” that Word was the son of God, forever issuing forth from God as the pattern of the creation, as the energy by which all creation exists. God sent Jesus into the earth with a purpose. The words that are on the page just represent to us the Word that God speaks. All that God speaks is Jesus.

God’s word will not come back to Him without first accomplishing what He purposes. Jesus will win. Before this thing is over, Jesus will return to the Father having accomplished everything God sent Him to accomplish. Jesus was sent to seek and to save what is lost, He was sent as the Redeemer to give His life as a sacrifice for sin. When He accomplished that part of His mission, He said, “It is finished,” and then He returned to the Father.

But Paul also teaches us that the final return has not yet happened.

“Then comes the end when Jesus delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet . . . Now when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God might be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15:24-28

This verse is the final verse of the ages of creation and of God’s work with man. Here we see the Word God spoke from the beginning returning to the Father having accomplished all the Father sent Him to accomplish. Jesus will win.

God speaks the word first before it comes to pass.

“But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:8-10

With the mouth, confession is made unto being transformed into the image of Jesus. With the mouth, confession is made unto being all that God has called us to be and doing all that God has called us to do.

There is no verse in the New Testament connecting salvation with going to that temporal place, heaven. Salvation is fulfilling the purpose of God. Salvation is His will being done in earth as it is in heaven. Salvation is all the fullness of God in us. Salvation is being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Eternal life is to know the Father and the Son, to know them intimately and personally. Salvation is me in Christ and Christ in me.

Believing with our heart is seeing Jesus. When we face anything and everything, where are our eyes set? On ourselves, as we imagine ourselves to be in our own sight as grasshoppers in this world? Or do we see Jesus?

We see what we believe. This is true of all mankind. Believing comes first. Whatever we believe to be true about ourselves, about God, and about this world, that is what we see.

Where are our eyes set?  We see Jesus.

Then, the next step is – with the mouth confession is made unto our transformation into the image of Christ. We speak what God speaks.

God’s purpose is the life of Jesus manifested in our mortal flesh.

“So, then death is working in us but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke.’ We also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and will present us with you.” 2 Corinthians 4:12-14

We speak what we know, what we believe.

Philemon 6 now comes into clear focus for us. This is the very nature and essence by which God has His being. God speaks what He sees. God looks at what He intends and purposes in the end, He sees it in its entirety, and then He speaks it. What God makes is not always instantly created. Stars and angels, God creates instantly, but not the son He is after. With us, God’s word begins as a seed, planted in our faith. It begins as a process, with the finished work fully in God’s sight. When God speaks His word, everything of the finished work is in the word God speaks. It will complete the purpose for which it was sent. We, carrying that word, believe, and in believing, we speak what God says. So, the sharing of our faith becomes effective through the acknowledgment of Christ in us.

First, we know. “Knowing this.” We know Jesus, that is the seeing, that’s where our eyes are set. Then we ac-knowledge. We speak what God has spoken.

From my book, The Jesus Secret, Day 5:

An architect ‘sees’ the completed house as he designs it. He sees the rooms filled with furniture . . . He then writes everything he ‘sees’ onto a blueprint. The architect hands that blueprint to a good builder who also sees as the architect saw by looking at the plan. The builder takes the plan to the site, calls his workmen, and the lovely grass knoll, where the architect saw the finished house, turns to mud.

Where the architect once walked, imagining the house that would sit there, that beautiful grass meadow turns to mud. The beginning of the construction of any building is always a mess.

Jesus, the Word, is God’s blueprint. Everything God creates is written, in its entirety and in its final form, inside the Word God speaks. And everything needed to process and form that final creation is in that Word as well. God creates by speaking. But what God speaks begins in weakness.

~

John says that the Word was with God in the beginning. God spoke that word into the ages, “and the word became FLESH,” human weakness, in the likeness of sinful flesh. “And dwelt among us and we beheld Him,” a man, an infant, needing the protection of parents for many years, weak, dependent upon God.

Jesus did not step into the world a fully formed son, say “Abracadabra,” then do a few things to prove His great power. That was what Satan and Israel expected. Nobody expected the Messiah as a new-born infant. Nobody expected the word God spoke to walk on this earth, sweating, smelly, in weakness, in flesh.

The Word walked through the world as every other man walks through this world. The Word endured every temptation and agony of heart. Jesus was tempted in all points just as we are. He walked through the years of His life, working and walking with people, who, though they were intrigued by Him and loved Him, yet, they were human beings, confused and fickle, running this way and that, ready to shout “Blessed is the King” one day and “Crucify Him” the next.

Then the Word endured the most hideous and violent form of execution devised by the mind of evil. The Word brought forth its fulfillment through the passage of weakness. That’s where the word is right now in us, fulfilling its purpose.

When God determined in His heart to make man, He said, “Let Us make man in Our image and after Our likeness, and let him have dominion.” In the beginning, God determined in His heart that we would be just like Jesus. This is man as God sees him in his final state, not as we began. We do not look like what we really are anymore than a caterpillar looks like a butterfly.

More than that, when God looked at me before time began, God saw me as He intends me to be just like Jesus with God right now. I was in the Word God spoke from the beginning, the seed that birthed me. God called what I am into existence. Paul says that in calling me, God already justified me, and in justifying me, God already glorified me. I am already just like Jesus before God right now.

I do not look at myself as I see myself right now in this world. There is no life in doing that. I am not what I see myself to be with my natural eyes. I am just like Jesus in my eternal state which is before God right now.

From the beginning, God determined that I would be just like Jesus.

We then see the definition of who Jesus is, written from the beginning of the New Covenant all the way to the end, as the revelation of who I am. Because as He is, so am I in this world. As I see Him as He is, I am just like Him.

But God has given us a place, a part, a role to play. The Word sent forth by God cannot bring forth its life unless it finds faith. The Word must find and come into union with faith. That’s why Jesus asked, “When the Son of Man returns will He find faith in the earth?” He must find faith, because He cannot fulfill what He was sent to fulfill without hearts who will believe Him. We believe in Jesus.

Because we believe, we confess the Lord Jesus Christ. We confess who He is, and therefore we confess who we are. I do not look at what I see myself to be right now with my natural mind in this world, I see myself as God sees me from the beginning. I know who I am because I look at Jesus, my eyes are upon Him. I know I shall be like Him as I see Him as He is, and I know that He is my life.

“If then you are raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Colossians 3:1-4

That is who I am. And just as God speaks His word, expecting that word to return to Him fulfilled, so we believe what God said, and we speak what He said. We speak who we are; we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus.

John said, “As many as received Jesus, God gave them the right to become children of God.”

I have the right from God, it is my right to become who I am. It is my right.

There are plenty of voices that will come along and say, “Well, you don’t know if you’re gonna make it, brother, you don’t really have the right to claim who you are in your finished state because you might not make it, you might not please God.”

Rights are not something we receive in an outward way; a right from God is inside of us and we stand upon it. No one gives us our right. It must be our life. It is my right to become who God sees me to be. It is my right.

So I speak what I am, what Jesus is. Here are more lines from The Jesus Secret.

I follow Jesus. God’s will is done in me as it is in heaven. I am a good man, I bring good things out of the good treasure of my heart. I am the good and faithful servant. I do what Jesus tells me to do. I give food to the hungry, I give drink to the thirsty, I love my enemies. I am immersed in the Holy Spirit. I deny myself. I take up my cross; I follow Jesus.

It is my right to speak who I am, a right given to me by God. And the heart of faith reaches out and takes that right.

We saw how God sees those who do not take that right by faith, as Caleb did. Those who look at themselves and say, “Well, look at me, I’m just a grasshopper, I’m just a sinner saved by grace, I’m just a weak human. Half the time I live in the flesh, the other half of the time I live in the Spirit, back and forth, that’s who I am.”

No, that is not who I am.

I am the one who gives freely, I give. My eye is set on God, my whole being is filled with His light. I am heavenly, I am just like the Lord from heaven, because I bear the image of the heavenly Jesus. I am a son of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

I am filled with all the fullness of God. The stature of all the fullness of Christ is my measurement. Christ is in me, I am complete in Christ. Christ is all in me. I am a partaker of Christ. I am born from above with an incorruptible seed. God’s divine power has given to me all things that pertain to life and godliness. Through these promises I share in the divine nature. I am born of God; I do not fall short of His glory.  God abides in me, and I abide in God.

The Jesus Secret, Day 59:

I have the right to become a child of God. I have everything I need to become a child of God; nothing can stand in my way. No human weakness, no ill feeling, no demon, no opposition, no accusation can keep me from becoming a child of God.

I press through much difficulty to enter the kingdom of God. The gates of Hades cannot stand against my assault. I endure. I stand fast. I will have my right. I am a child of God. I will be all that God has determined for me to be. I will be just like Jesus.

I love as He loves. I forgive as He forgives. I am holy as He is holy. I am perfect as He is perfect. I serve just as Jesus serves. I am one with my brethren just as the Father and the Son are One. I walk in life just as Jesus is raised from the dead. I purify myself as He is pure. I overcome just as Jesus overcame. I will sit in His throne just as Jesus sits on His Father’s throne.

~

You might say to yourself, “This is all great, but I really don’t feel like this.”

When I don’t feel like loving, I am living in a figment of my imagination. I am being a hypocrite. A hypocrite is not being who you are. I am just like Jesus, that’s who I am. That’s how God sees me. I see Jesus.

Maybe I don’t feel like loving. I don’t discover love by choosing to love. I love because I am love. I give a cup of cold water to him who is thirsty and it doesn’t matter what I feel like because I know who I am. My “feelings” make no difference whatever. They do not describe me. I am the one who loves.

As we speak what God speaks, as we confess the Lord Jesus, we believe even more that what God says is true. We are changed by the renewing of our minds, and as our minds are changed by what we see and what we say – by what we see and what we say – about ourselves, about God, about our place in this world, about other people. This is what we become.

You become what you see, and you become what you say.

We believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus. We speak the word God speaks and then we do what God leads us to do in our own hearts, not out of obligation, not because we have to. We do what God leads us to do because that is who we are.

That is the obedience of faith that pleases God. We partake of Christ as we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of our hope firm to the end.

The ten evil spies brought all the fruit of the land back and showed the fruit of the life to come to the children of Israel. Then they looked at themselves; they saw how weak and unable they were as humans.

Caleb had a different view of things. Caleb’s eyes were set on God. He did not see any difference between God and himself. With his eyes set on God, he said, “We are well able to overcome the enemies and take all of this wonderful land. We are well able to live in the fruit and the life of this land God has given us.”

I like how The Message gives God’s response to the ten and their view of themselves. They said,“We were like grasshoppers in our own sight.” God said (in The Message) “Why do they keep treating Me like dirt?”

They said, “We were like grasshoppers in our own sight.”

God said, “Why do they keep treating Me like dirt?”

God was pleased with Caleb’s faith. Caleb saw God and the confession of his mouth in seeing God was about himself. Caleb walked into that land 38 years later and in his old age, Caleb defeated his enemies. God rewarded him.

“Without faith, it is impossible to please God. They that come to God must believe that He is and that He IS the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”