23. Father Makes His Home with Me
Consider these two lines, even from the KJV, which is how I knew them in my early twenties. He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. – And my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
First, Jesus is promising to come privately to me and to show Himself to me in appearance. And second the Father will come with Jesus to make His home with me. From the very start I took these words seriously and set them as my desire and goal.
For the Least. Now, forty-five years later, I can say with all truthfulness, that I live in all the reality of these words, knowing Jesus as He is and Father at Home with me, that I know deep satisfaction, that I am continually overflowing with joy, and that I live in the excitement of the expectation of God.
But of equal importance with the knowledge of Father with me, sharing my life with me in all things, is my knowledge of the path from there to here, a path that I can show to any believer in Jesus, from the least to the greatest, that they can easily traverse to join me here inside the Father’s Heart, the secret place of the All-Carrying One.
If it’s not for the least, it’s not for anyone.
The Path Here. Let me show you that path. It contains in it no privilege, no human ability, no outward performance. But it does contain five things every human can easily do.
1. Give thanks, inside of and for the sake of all things. Paul promised that you will do this, even if it takes 10,000 years, so best get started now.
2. Place your forehead upon the ground before the Majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ; call Him, “LORD,” and tremble at His speaking to you. Plant His Word in your heart with all sobriety and keep careful watch over all that He speaks.
3. Ask God to fulfill His Word in your life and then believe you have received ALL that you ask. – Let it be to me.
One Qualification.
4. Confess with your mouth that God is telling you the truth. Acknowledge all that Christ is inside of you. Call yourself by His Word – and do not ever trust in yourself or any sufficiency you once thought you had.
5. Hold to all that God speaks, that it is true and fulfilled in you, against all opposition, against all the sight of your eyes and all outward judgment, stand upon firm through all until you KNOW that the Father Himself shares life with you.
And when you have arrived at KNOWING God, that is, age-unfolding Life, as Jesus said, you will realize that one thing alone has qualified you. – Knowing the Father is what you WANT.
Keep My Word. Please understand, then, that what I have just described to you, this specific path, is the entire meaning of Jesus’ simple words, this time in the JSV. – The one who possesses My full completion [of words] and keeps guard over them, He is the one who loves Me. If anyone loves Me, he will keep, guard, and watch over My word.
At the same time, one who pursues “hear and obey,” or another who seeks “a special anointing from God to be a manifest son,” or attempts to “figure out the truth of God” in their minds, will never know Father with them, for they do not regard the Words of the gospel nor tremble before Him. They do not believe that God is telling them the truth.
The Way. Before we even get to the Jesus Secret page, I want to set before you again the mighty understanding that has come to me in this Passover season of the year of our Lord, 2022, an understanding that has changed my life forever. This is the box titled “The Way” on the previous page.
Living inside of Jesus is my Way to connect with the Father sharing my life with me. Jesus living inside of me is the Father’s way to connect with me sharing His life with Him, that God might enter creation through me. Life itself is my Way, moment by moment and step by step, not ‘to’ something, but rather life-unfolding, the living and dynamic expression of God with me unveiled new every morning forever.
The Apocalypse. I knew immediately, the moment I finished that last sentence, that the next step of the revelation of Jesus Christ into our world had begun, that is, the Apocalypse. This truth will show up in all my writing from now on, and I will word it every which way I can, over and over again.
Here is how I see it now. The Kingdom of God is that which emanates forth, every moment, from Father and I sharing life together. My next step is always coming out from Father and I sharing life together. All the circumstances coming my way are NOT “happening to me,” they are coming out from Father and I sharing life together.
Our Guiding Idea. We will return, now, to filling in the Jesus Secret Page. Nonetheless, I have already started the text, Symmorphy VII: Completion, and here is what I just placed as the first line of Lesson 1.2. ~ The guiding idea of this course is that the Kingdom of God emanates forth, unfolds every moment, from Father and us sharing life together. ~
That gives us 28 full chapters to explore the meaning of this unfolding in every direction, and that’s just for starters. This page is titled “Father Makes His Home with Me.” Here, then, is the enflowing of word from John 14:21-31.
The Enflowing of Word. I love Jesus; I possess the full completion of His words as I watch carefully over them. I receive all that Jesus speaks, hiding His words in my heart. I tremble before Him, never looking to any sufficiency in myself. Jesus alone is what He speaks. It is the Devoted Spirit, then, who makes me to know all that Jesus means.
The Father loves me. Jesus also loves me and He appears personally to me and causes me to know Him. I rejoice that Jesus connects me always with the Father. The Father comes to me with Jesus, and He and Jesus together make our home together with me in intimate closeness. My Father is at home in my heart. Father and I make our home together.
“In” versus “With.” I have the peace of Jesus. The ruler of this world possesses nothing inside of me. I love the Father; the Father gives me His Word to full completion. I walk every step knowing that the Father leads me and shares that step with me.
I had not noticed this before. Elsewhere, John does say that God is “inside of” us, but here he says “with,” that is, para. In this context, then, Jesus did not say that Father makes His Home “inside of” me, but rather, “with” me. Father and I build our home, our dwelling place TOGETHER.
This is the Kingdom of God. Jesus in me is the Covenant; Father with me is the Kingdom.
A Friend. I have known many close friends in my life, with whom I have shared many things.
One day, in the summer when I was thirteen, I was busy mucking about in the ditch on the road perpendicular to ours. I was likely making a dam and enlarging its reservoir. Another boy came walking down the road; he had just moved into the house up the hill with his family. He asked me what I was doing; there was an immediate knowing that we were friends. His name was Larry Jensen. Soon, Larry was down in the muddy water WITH me, mucking about together, making it big enough for both of us.
Everything Together. I was busy for many years mucking about in the dirty waters of my own life. One day, God my Father came walking down the road. He asked me what I was doing; as we talked, we knew that we were friends. Before long, God was down in the muddy water WITH me, mucking about, making the reservoir big enough for both of us to share.
Larry Jensen and I did everything together through our teenage years. Father and I do everything together forever.
The Topics. Before continuing, let’s set out what I have put on the Jesus Secret Page. I have three boxes, I don’t know if there will be a fourth one or if they will stay in the present order. Those boxes are “Father,” then, a “With/Para” definition, followed by “Patterns of Home.” In this lesson, I will continue going back and forth between “Father” and “With/Meta” and then write them both at the same time. But I have never considered before applying the patterns of home to Father and I working together forever building where we dwell together in each step, that is, the Kingdom.
Where Am I? I can hear the muttering against a line I just wrote, that Father gets down into my muddy water to muck about with me, making my life His Home.
But where was I all my life? I was inside of Christ, the One who BY HIMSELF is the cleansing away of all disconnection from God. My life, with all its apparent dirtiness and all my mucking about has been – HERE. – And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat… (Exodus 25:22). I have never been anywhere else.
Meet WITH, speak WITH, make My Home WITH you.
Who Is This? But who is this who has come to me to muck about with me in my own life, sharing all with me, and working together with me to make each next step we take together into our dwelling place? The Father? God All-Carrying?
John said that God is Word, God is Spirit, God is Light, God is Love. Moses and Isaiah said that God is consuming Fire, and David said that God is a Rock. Jesus told us to call Him, “Father”; James said that He begot us out from His intense desire; and Peter said, “by His incorruptible Seed, the Word of God.”
This Mighty Being. How can we even begin to describe this Mighty Being, this most Intimate Person inside of whom all things exist? We could not envision God until Jesus said to us, “When you see Me, you see the Father.” And then John said, “When you see Jesus, you are just like Him.”
I am instructed, then, by the gospel and by the Covenant, to see the Father when I look in the mirror. – The image of God. – The Ark of the Covenant. Yet this is also the One who reveals Himself through weakness and who humbles Himself when He appears inside His creation, always seeing others as better.
An Intuitive Knowing. God my Father, mucking about in my life with me, places Himself under, and sees me as better. Yet, since I see Him in the same way, we are very comfortable together. We knew from the start that we were friends.
In saying that, however, I realize that it was intuitive, deep inside, that I knew that God was my friend. Outwardly, because I lived in hades inside my own imagination and because of the only “theology” I knew, I imagined anything but friendship in my mind. Now we KNOW that our lives have always been Father-with-us through Jesus.
Adjusting Our Definition. We need to adjust our definition of metamorphy now. It’s not a change, just a clearer focus. We have said that metamorphy is our part of the equation and transubstantiation is Jesus’ part.
Transubstantiation is already complete; Jesus has already transferred His entire substance to us; Jesus already lives as us. But metamorphy is not something we do apart from Jesus, rather, it is the dynamic interaction between Jesus and me. It is the same with the Father. My every step comes out from the dynamic interaction between Father and me.
The Greek “Para.” The Greek word John used in verse 23 is not “meta,” however, but “para.” Meta, becoming metamorphy, is fully appropriate, yes, but we also want the nuances of meaning in the word “para.”
The key words in verse 23 are “make,” “home,” and “with.” – We will make with him a home. In the Greek – poieó: to make, do, construct; – moné: an abiding, an abode, lodging, dwelling-place; – para: beside; in the presence of; with intimate closeness and participation.
We will come to him and will make Our home together in intimate closeness and participation with him.
My Father. This page is just the foundation of what will come next in all our knowing. Thus we must just fill in the first two boxes out from what we already have.
God is a Person I can know. God is my Father; my Father is God. Who is this One who tells me to call Him, “Father?” God is Word; God is Spirit; God is Light; God is Love. God is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of all. Yet when I describe Him, He seems to grow distant. God is not distant; God, my Father, is utterly personal and close, carrying and kind. I am always coming out from Him and always returning to Him. — My Father.
With/Para. I continuously interact with God building our shared home. We work inside each other’s presence. We participate intimately together in combining each next step of our shared life into a habitation we live in together. My hands at work are filled with God; God’s hands at work are filled with me. God my Father with Jesus comes to me continuously and in every way to make our home together in intimate participation and fellowship.
The Making of a Home. My first thoughts towards “Patterns of Home” were still inside the idea of “Father at Home in my heart.” That would mean that I am constructed as all the patterns of home, a place of comfort, safety, and rest, for God-All Carrying. And yes, we are the dwelling place of God.
But then, in realizing that this “making of a home” is what I do WITH God and God WITH me, that turned these patterns of home towards the outflow of Kingdom. This is a new thought for me, and scary, and exciting. And it makes the writing of Symmorphy VII: Completion exciting and personal and real.
My Next Moment. What does my next moment hold? What is my next moment?
After years of, what seemed to me, walking through a minefield, with things blowing up without warning and in overwhelming pain, I carry a bit of fearfulness towards my next step. Okay – I carry a lot of fearfulness, that’s why I’m holed up at home, because I am too frightened anymore of unlooked-for overwhelming pain to maneuver freely through this world. And I realize that my fantasy and day-dreaming has been a habitation for me in which to dwell, a placing of my inner hopes and dreams upon my next moment.
Father with Me. God allowed me to find solace in fantasy because I did not yet KNOW Him. Yet now, in this Passover season of 2022, I am left with a stark choice. Either I place fantasy upon my future as I have always done or I place Father with me upon my next step, Father with me creating that next step together as our dwelling place.
I made my choice forty-three years ago. Father with me, mucking about in my life together with me, making it a place for us to enjoy, together, as our home together, is the greatest deliverance I have ever known. I would have no other deliverance.
Patterns of Home (I). God is the site where I build my home; my home conforms with all that is God. I am the site where God builds His home; God’s home conforms with all that is me. Yet we build our shared home together as the ongoing path of our daily lives, of the revelation of Jesus Christ, every Word God speaks proven faithful and true. Our house together contains many rooms, rooms of fellowship, rooms of love, rooms of welcoming all who come our way, rooms of carrying others inside our shared heart.
Patterns of Home (II). God is my covering; I dwell inside of Him under His full protection and walk in His Devoted Spirit as light upon His way. God watches out for my interests. I am God’s covering; He dwells inside of me under my full protection and walks in His Devoted Spirit poured out in my heart. I watch out for His interests. The home we build together is a place where all find a safe place to dwell and a light upon their path. Our home together is built to God’s proportions; our home together is built to my proportions. We are always most comfortable together. We enjoy every season of our life together as we learn to know one another.
Patterns of Home (III). God is bold inside of me enjoying all I am. I am bold inside of God enjoying all He is. God respects my privacy, yet I invite Him to share my secret places in quietness together. I respect God’s privacy, yet He invites me to share His secret places in quietness together. We revel in one another’s company, we invite many into our shared home to enjoy their company together. God and I are always looking out for the interests of others, always seeking and saving that which was lost. Father and I share personality together.
So very Much. This page and this lesson have been too overwhelmingly personal to me such that I did not have space left over to develop the things that should go in the boxes. And so I leave the boxes there and will just dig around with Father as we scoop up stuff to put in them.
I am thinking of so many directions in which our wondrous new knowing of Father with us must take us. This is just the beginning. I look across the scope of my life and I see, with such overwhelming wonder, how God has made me to know the meaning of this outflow of Kingdom from our hearts.
Reading for Next Time. The next page in The Jesus Secret II is titled “I Bear Much Fruit.” Read John Chapter 15. Our seeing of everything is changing so rapidly. The home Father and I are making together for ourselves to dwell in together is LIFE – UNFOLDING, that is, every next step forever. This, then, is the only true source of “much fruit.”
In this My Father is glorified, that you should bear much fruit. – I chose you for Myself, and I set you forth and established you, that you should be led forward; that you should bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.
Let’s Pray Together. This prayer is metamorphy, except our thoughts will be “with Father” this time, mucking about in our lives, working together always to make every moment a dwelling place for both of us.
“Father, You have always shared life with me, mucking about with me in all the daily ins and outs and ups and downs we have gone through together, even when I had no idea You shared all with me. Father, I was always safe inside of You, though I knew it not, and You were always safe inside of me, in spite of all my foolish contradictions. I now see that my whole life is our shared dwelling place forever.
“Father, as I look at my next step, my next moment, the next circumstance coming my way, I no longer see it as something happening to me. Rather, You and I together bring forth out of our shared life each next step, moment, and circumstance, for we build each thing together into our shared habitation.
“Father, You share all of my present reality with me as part of me, and I share all of Your present reality with You as part of You. And I see now, Oh my Father, that Your Kingdom is our kingdom together, flowing out from this life we share together in all overflowing joy.
“Lord Jesus, I thank You so very much that You have brought Father to me and made Him part of me and me part of Him. Your service to us is beyond all.”